“Their reputation aside, Thisbe, a lot of Sade’s writings were moral and philosophical. They did precisely this taboo-breaking thing Madame is describing, mixing sex with philosophy and theology, usually by literally alternating them in the text: sex scene, philosophy, sex scene, philosophy, and so on. Sade equated racy, forbidden sex acts with radical ideas like atheism, or criticizing the king. It was a lot like that Diderot stuff about nuns that Heloïse quoted, encouraging readers to question what’s meant by ‘natural’ when both celibacy and sex can be defined as perversions depending on how
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