Sade’s public was unique in history, new radicals who lapped up forbidden pamphlets professing such scandalous suggestions as that, if he wished, a man might choose to examine his religion rationally, refuse taxation without representation, or stick his dick up a cow’s arse. Philosophy and pornography were both forbidden fruits, sold by one circuit of underground vendors. Even Diderot, le Philosophe, was jailed in younger days for writing porn—how better for our young arch-atheist to earn his daily baguette?
