The Marquis De Sades Attitude Towards Women Essay -- essays research p

The Marquis de Sade's Attitude Towards Women The Marquis de Sade was an author in France in the late 1700s. His works were infamous in their time, giving Sade a reputation as an adulterer, a debaucher, and a sodomite. One of the more common misrepresentations concerning Sade was his attitude toward women. His attitude was shown in his way of life and in two of his literary characters, Justine and Julliette. The Marquis de Sade was said to be the first and only philosopher of vice because of his atheistic and sadistic activities. He held the common woman in low regard. He believed that women dressed provocatively because they feared men would take no notice of them if they were naked. He cared little for forced sex. Rape is not a crime, he explained, and is in fact less than robbery, for you get what is used back after the deed is done (Bloch 108). Opinions about the Marquis de Sade's attitude towards sexual freedom for women varies from author to author. A prevalent one, the one held by Carter, suggests Sade's work concerns sexual freedom and the nature of such, significant because of his "refusal to see female sexuality in relation to a reproductive function." Sade justified his beliefs through graffiti, playing psychologist on vandals: In the stylization of graffiti, the prick is always presented erect, as an alert attitude. It points upward, asserts. The hole is open, as an inert space, as a mouth, waiting to be filled. This iconography could be derived from the metaphysical sexual differences: man aspires, woman serves no function but existence, waiting. Between her thighs is zero, the symbol of nothingness, that only attains somethingness when male principle fills it with meaning (Carter 4). The Marquis de Sade's way of thought is probably best symbolized in the missionary position. The missionary position represents the mythic relationship between partners. The woman represents the passive receptiveness, the fertility, and the richness of soil. This relationship mythicizes and elevates intercourse to an unrealistic proportion. In a more realistic view, Sade compares married women with prostitutes, saying that prostitutes were better paid and that they had fewer delusions (Carter 9). Most of Sade's opinions of women were geared towards the present, in what they were in his time. He held different opinions, however, for how he envisioned w... ...ries felt. By punishing Justine in his novels, he isn't punishing woman, simply the innocence that woman represents. While Sade believed that the woman with which he was copulating was simply there to serve his needs, he also felt it could (and should) work the other way around. It is as if he is saying, "Just because I use you, it doesn't mean you can't use me." Sade couldn't be a sexist in the modern sense, simply because he advocated free sexuality so much. He saw the women of his time and was troubled by it. In turn, he wrote about these women, represented in Justine. The woman he saw in the future were a bolder, free-spirited kind, represented in Juliette. It was the promise of this new genre of women he looked forward to and was enlightened by. In short, Sade disliked subjugated women and liked empowered women. He liked women closer to his own persona. Sade was probably the first pornographer, and as such, caused quite an uproar. Most of the judgements made about Sade by critics were reflexes, made without taking in the full spectrum of what he was, what he wrote, and what he did. The judgement of Sade by the populus, therefore is one more severe than it should be.