The prisoner’s manus ached. He sat hunched implicit his table successful a acold operation of the Bastille jailhouse successful Paris, penning successful tiny letters connected a precise agelong rotation of paper—nearly 40 feet successful total, made from smaller scraps helium had glued together. These were not perfect moving conditions. But they would do.
The captive was not treated severely successful jail. He was a nobleman, which meant helium was allowed luxuries successful his cell: a wardrobe and tapestries, books and perfume, and his precise ain housekeeper. Yet helium was alert that what helium was penning mightiness jeopardize these comforts. So, each nighttime helium would rotation up his scroll, enactment it successful a copper cylinder, and fell it successful a spread successful his compartment wall. He did not privation to hazard the guards uncovering it. And with bully cause. For his communicative was a grounds of his astir debauched thoughts and desires.
Over thirty-seven evenings successful the autumn of 1785, the prisoner, Donatien Alphonse François, amended known to past arsenic the Marquis de Sade, crafted successful concealed what helium called “the astir impure communicative that has ever been told since the satellite began.”
Set successful a distant medieval castle nestled successful the Black Forest successful southwest Germany—but based connected Sade’s ain castle, Château de Lacoste—the communicative tells of 4 affluent antheral libertines indulging successful a savage 120-day orgy, inspired by the vile tales of middle-aged pistillate brothel keepers. Organized by a strict timetable, the procuresses weave stories of their degeneracy, each 1 illustrating perversions oregon “passions” ranging from the elemental to the murderous. The exploits they arouse successful the libertines impact sexually abusing thirty-six abducted victims, mostly children (some the libertines’ ain daughters). The children are dismembered and penetrated, flayed alive, disemboweled, and their intestines acceptable alight. There is incest and rape—some victims are arsenic young arsenic 3 years old. Feces and vomit and quality soma are eagerly consumed. As these atrocities go progressively extreme, they yet effect successful the victims’ convulsive deaths, and necrophilia.
Art can be dangerous—but the precise gatekeepers of supposedly depraved creation tin besides beryllium dangerous.
This is each narrated successful stark, adust detail. Sade presents it to america with wry humor, describing it arsenic a sensuous “banquet.” The communicative is known contiguous arsenic The 120 Days of Sodom.
*
The Marquis de Sade was abandoned by his parents astatine an aboriginal age. Raised by servants and educated by an uncle, Sade was a spoiled kid with a temper and a sensation for rebellion. He attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, 1 of the astir prestigious schools successful Paris. There helium was routinely beaten, an acquisition which instilled successful him a lifelong fascination with flagellation and pain. After schoolhouse helium fought successful the Seven Years War arsenic colonel of a Dragoon regiment. On his return, Sade joined Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil successful 1763, a matrimony arranged by his father.
For immoderate people, matrimony is simply a settling experience. But for Sade it was the opposite. His notorious intersexual indiscretions successful Paris led to him being exiled to his castle astatine Lacoste successful 1768—a spot that would go a theatre for his wildest fantasies. Together there, Sade and his wife—ever the loyal spouse—pursued an utmost libertine existence. There were orgies, including 1 during which Sade poisoned 2 enactment workers with the aphrodisiac Spanish Fly. There was besides amerciable homosexuality: Sade and his manservant Latour were sentenced to decease successful absentia for sodomy.
Most notorious was the alleged “Little Girls” scandal, wherever Sade abducted 5 fifteen-year-old girls and sexually abused them successful his castle. The abominable transgression became a nationalist sensation successful Provence, which Sade seemed to relish: “I walk for the werewolf of these parts,” helium said. “Poor small chicks with their words of terror!” Sade evaded French instrumentality by taking refuge successful Italy. But a fewer years later, aft committing akin crimes there, helium was arrested and imprisoned astatine the Château de Vincennes astatine the king’s orders, nether a lettre de cachet (signet letter). After Vincennes closed successful 1784, Sade was transferred to the Bastille astatine the property of forty-five.
Four years aft Sade began his debauched caller connected the agelong scroll of parchment, helium incited a riot among different prisoners astatine the Bastille by shouting to a gathering extracurricular his model that situation guards were slitting the throats of inmates. Once bid had been restored to the prison, helium was removed from the Bastille—”naked arsenic a worm”—and transferred to an asylum extracurricular of Paris. This abrupt removal meant that Sade could not retrieve his novel, which was inactive hidden successful his compartment wall. To marque matters worse, 10 days later, revolutionaries stormed the Bastille. Hearing of the wide lootings, Sade believed his caller had been mislaid forever. Overwhelmed with grief for his missing masterpiece, helium wept “tears of blood.”
But remarkably, his concealed scroll was not lost. It had been recovered and saved conscionable earlier the storming, by a antheral called Arnoux de Saint-Maximin. After making its mode done the hands of a Provençal aristocrat and past a German collector of erotica, the caller was yet published successful 1904 by Iwan Bloch, a Berlin sexologist. Although Bloch was cautious to usage a pseudonym erstwhile helium published Sade’s work, helium did not respect its chaotic intersexual and convulsive excess to beryllium inappropriate for nationalist consumption. In fact, Bloch considered The 120 Days of Sodom to person large technological and anthropological value successful its categorization of the astir shocking intersexual fetishes: “a akin enactment volition not beryllium recovered either among the ancients oregon among the moderns,” helium aboriginal wrote.
Bloch was not unsocial successful his admiration of Sade’s art. Throughout the twentieth period the caller was made disposable via backstage publications for affluent patrons, produced pseudonymously oregon anonymously to evade the authorities. At mid-century a steadfast called Jean-Jacques Pauvert enactment his sanction connected a ample people tally of a postulation of Sade’s works, including The 120 Days of Sodom. Like Bloch, Pauvert saw Sade’s caller arsenic a invaluable medico-legal document; portion his was the archetypal commercialized French variation of the text, helium claimed that astir of his income were to the aesculapian community.
Artists, philosophers, and historians began to place aesthetic, cognitive, and governmental worth successful Sade’s work. Simone de Beauvoir disagreed with Sade’s cruel ethics, but successful 1955 she defended the work of his lit connected the grounds that it explored atheistic existentialist themes and truthful had philosophical importance. In 1957, Georges Bataille praised Sade’s enactment successful its shameless presumption of man’s deepest desires, though helium added: “Nobody, unless helium is wholly deaf to it, tin decorativeness Les Cent Vingt Journées de Sodome without feeling sick.”
Around this time, avant-garde artists and writers were harnessing what creation historiographer Alyce Mahon calls the “Sadean imagination” to critique socio-political issues from fascism to terrorism, and to subvert accepted sex roles by placing the intersexual assemblage astatine the halfway of art-making arsenic a signifier of governmental resistance.
Eventually, the dam cracked. In a landmark British ineligible lawsuit successful 1960, Penguin Books were cleared of immoderate transgression for publishing an uncensored mentation of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a caller condemned for its predominant usage of the words “fuck” and “cunt.” While the caller had been published privately successful tiny people runs successful Italy and France, the UK trial, bolstered by a akin 1 successful the US a twelvemonth earlier, resulted successful mainstream publishers crossed the satellite distributing works that had antecedently been considered obscene and unpublishable—including those of Sade.
This was hailed by galore arsenic an important triumph successful the conflict for state of creator expression. It heralded a wide reassessment of the legitimacy of creation with subversive oregon violative themes. Today, the archetypal manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom is worthy astatine slightest €6 cardinal and is deemed a French nationalist treasure. Some critics person adjacent described Sade arsenic France’s Shakespeare.
*
Since the mediate of the twentieth century, societies astir the globe person undergone a corporate gyration successful standards and attitudes towards obscenity and immorality. In the realms of art, literature, film, and television, words and images that would erstwhile person been considered indecent, offensive, oregon immoral are present commonplace, particularly successful the West. Where respective generations agone it would person been hard to incidentally glimpse explicit depictions of vice, sex, blasphemy, and convulsive death, contiguous it would beryllium much antithetic to spell done a azygous time without seeing 1 oregon much of these.
For those who actively question retired obscenity, determination is simply a limitless supply. With pornography astatine our fingertips via laptops and smartphones, we tin entree images and videos that would person made adjacent Sade blush. While immoderate genres of pornography purpose to promote a much egalitarian erotic sensation successful consumers (one that is escaped from patriarchal conditioning and respects consent), different genres relish successful portraying axenic horror, including existent intersexual unit and death. Many of the acts Sade described successful words are present really performed successful high-production videos, streamable for free.
This translation successful values and accessibility has profoundly affected the communicative of art. From sexualized fearfulness films similar Alfred Hithcock’s Psycho (1960) and creation performances of masturbation similar Vito Acconci’s Seedbed (1972), to explicit euphony videos similar Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP (Wet-Ass Pussy)” (2020) and acheronian true-crime TV shows similar Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025), traditionally “immoral” themes and images are present celebrated successful creation of each kinds. Where medieval Christian creation successful England was erstwhile nether menace from the Lollards, who saw representation worship itself arsenic heathen idolatry, we present brushwood overtly blasphemous art: the fig of Christ submerged successful urine; a crucifix penetrating a demon-possessed child; the Virgin Mary painted with elephant dung; and “JESUS IS A CUNT” stamped connected stone set T-shirts (this portion of merch from metallic set Cradle of Filth besides features a masturbating nun connected the front—throughout the 1990s fans were arrested for wearing it successful public).
Depravity does not ever look however we mightiness expect it to. It tin fell successful plain show similar a wolf successful sheep’s clothing.
Some find these works and objects amusing oregon exciting, but others are profoundly troubled by them. Allegedly, truthful galore cinema-goers vomited and fainted during the archetypal screenings of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) that theatre unit had to manus retired smelling salts. And a precise tiny number edifice to utmost unit successful response, arsenic with the violent attacks connected the offices of the French mag Charlie Hebdo in 2011, 2015, and 2020, which were motivated by the magazine’s mocking depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
Today, unit is mainstream successful galore creation forms, particularly successful videogames. The Grand Theft Auto series is infamous for its portrayal of drugs, sex, and brutality, with 1 country inviting the subordinate to execute waterboard torture. And wherever successful the eighteenth century, shunga—Japanese erotic creation showing enactment betwixt couples—was banned, successful 2006 the videogame RapeLay was released successful Japan. The crippled centers connected a antheral quality stalking and raping a parent and her 2 young daughters.
As creation and its creators person shed their inhibitions successful this post-Sadean world, politicians and taste commentators person reliably lined up to condemn this full state of look arsenic being unsafe to society. In the 1960s, British campaigner and teacher Mary Whitehouse launched her crusade against this ever-growing “permissive society.” While Whitehouse—often seen arsenic a Christian prude—should beryllium criticized for her organizing against enactment acquisition successful schools, and condemned for her homophobia, immoderate critics present deliberation she was up of her time. Her lobbying resulted successful authorities which surely was bully for society—for instance, the 1978 Protection of Children Act, which criminalized kid pornography.
Whitehouse’s views culminated successful the alleged “porn wars” of the 1970s-80s. While extremist feminist Andrea Dworkin argued that pornography dehumanized women and caused gender-based violence, others similar the novelist Angela Carter considered immoderate pornography—including Sade’s literate art—to connection a progressive utopian world wherever women person autonomy and intersexual freedom.
The statement rages on. People inactive butt heads implicit “WAP” and its accompanying euphony video. Is it a feminist masterpiece celebrating women’s intersexual empowerment? A measurement backmost successful women’s progress? Or is it conscionable simply “really, really, really, vulgar,” arsenic right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro puts it? Republican person James Bradley, who claims to person heard the opus by accident, echoes Shapiro’s disquiet: according to him, “WAP” is “what happens erstwhile children are raised without God.”
Often these kinds of criticisms tin beryllium dismissed arsenic a substance of taste, not to notation prejudice. But wherever they transportation existent value is erstwhile artworks tin beryllium linked to harm caused successful the existent world. Many interest that the escaped and casual availability of pornography and the sexualization of fashionable civilization has affected young men and women’s expectations of existent sex; that the solemnisation of graphic unit and criminality successful videogames, films, and euphony videos glamorizes specified behaviour to the grade that it inspires copycats. And galore twenty-first-century civilian rights activists reason that the solemnisation and glorification of humanities imperialists, enslaved traders, oregon racist leaders by nationalist statues and paintings perpetuates inequality successful the modern world—causing factual harm to the oppressed groups implicitly targeted by these artworks.
Then determination are much circumstantial cases. In the 1980s and 1990s, respective achromatic supremacists cited William Luther Pierce’s Turner Diaries (1978), a racist and antisemitic novel, arsenic influencing their hatred crimes and acts of terrorism. The caller tells the communicative of a convulsive gyration successful the US which leads to a contention war, and it has since been credited with shaping achromatic nationalism successful the US, the UK, and Germany. And aft the disturbed American James Holmes murdered 12 radical successful a cinema successful Aurora, Colorado, successful 2012 during a screening of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises, persistent rumors and paper reports suggested helium was dressed arsenic (and influenced by) the quality of the Joker from the erstwhile The Dark Knight. The information that this was untrue—Holmes had dyed his hairsbreadth red, but not for that reason—did small to dispel the rumor, which seemed to acceptable the fashionable content that violent, dystopian creation has the powerfulness to induce immoderate viewers to perpetrate unspeakable crimes.
Sometimes we’ve got it wrong. Our views connected morality and indecency are rife with inconsistency and hypocrisy. As precocious arsenic the 1990s, portion sexually explicit images of women were plastered implicit alleged “lad mags” targeted astatine heterosexual boys and men, artists similar Robert Mapplethorpe were censored for their explicit homosexual art. Mapplethorpe was called a “human cockroach” by Republican legislator Jesse Helms, who blamed the LGBTQIA+ assemblage for the seeming decay of culture. And portion museums are bursting astatine the seams with paintings of bare women, existent women are thrown retired of museums for wearing excessively small (a low-cut dress) oregon excessively overmuch (a niqab).
Taken together, these cases and others similar them suggest a thorny and analyzable communicative astir the doctrine and past of art. The wide question towards unbounded state of look successful wide societies inactive meets legal, cultural, oregon societal restrictions connected the morality of artworks. Art can be dangerous—but the precise gatekeepers of supposedly depraved creation tin besides beryllium dangerous. What we deem morally acceptable is itself fraught with issues; depravity does not ever look however we mightiness expect it to. It tin fell successful plain show similar a wolf successful sheep’s clothing.
___________________________
From Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art by Daisy Dixon. Published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a part of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2026 by Daisy Dixon.
English (US) ·