Marquis de Sade: Inside the Sadistic Mind

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The term "sadistic killer" traces back to the Marquis de Sade, an 18th-century French nobleman whose criminal actions and controversial writings initiated an entire psychological classification now used in profiling serial murderers.

• Criminal justice defines sadistic killers as offenders who derive sexual gratification from inflicting pain and suffering
• The FBI's classification identifies specific patterns including captivity, torture, and careful planning
• The Marquis de Sade's notorious crimes included imprisoning, torturing, and sexually assaulting multiple victims
• His philosophical writings advocated for pursuing pleasure without moral restraints
• Notable works like "The 120 Days of Sodom" blended graphic depictions with complex philosophical arguments
• The term "sadism" was coined in 1886 by psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing
• Several notorious serial killers have been influenced by Sade's writings, including Ian Brady of the Moors Murders
• The concept raises philosophical questions about consent, harm, and where society draws moral boundaries

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:39):
So in criminal justice and criminal psychology
a sadistic killer is defined asan offender who derives sexual
gratification or pleasure frominflicting pain, suffering and
humiliation on their victims.
This type of killer ischaracterized by a deep-seated
compulsion to dominate, controland degrade others through acts
of extreme violence and torture.

(00:59):
The concept of sadistic killershas been widely recognized and
utilized by law enforcementagencies and researchers in the
field of criminal psychology.
The fbi's national center forthe analysis of violent crimes
has included sadistic killers asa distinct category in their
classification of serial murders.
They have done studies thathave found that sadistic killers

(01:20):
often demonstrate consistentpatterns of behavior, including
careful planning, use ofpre-selected locations,
captivity of victims, variouspainful sexual acts, sexual
bondage, intentional torture anddeath primarily by means of
strangulation or stabbing.
So law enforcement agencieshave applied this classification

(01:43):
in numerous high-profile cases.
Probably one of the bestexamples in modern time is that
of the BTK killer, who wasDennis Rader.
He was identified as a sadisticserial killer due to his
methodological approaches use ofbondage, the pleasure he
derived from controlling andtorturing his victims, and then,
similarly, the investigationinto the Gilgo Beach killings on

(02:07):
Long Island considered thepossibility of a sadistic serial
killer based on the meticulousdisposal of bodies and targeting
of sex workers.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Again, the English language is not something that
comes easily, sometimes whenyou're trying to talk so much,
so in the courts theclassification of a sadistic
killer has been used to supportarguments of the death penalty
or life sentences without parole.
But the psychological profileof a sadistic killer, including
their lack of remorse, highlikelihood of recidivism, has

(02:43):
been presented as evidence offuture dangerous, but it's not
in and of itself aclassification.
For instance, in casesinvolving sexually sadistic
killers, serial killers, theprosecutors have used expert
testimony to explain theoffender's motivations and the
ritualistic nature of theircrimes, demonstrating the
calculated and deliberate natureof their actions.

(03:04):
Research has shown thatsadistic killers often exhibit
specific criminal I'm sorry,specific crime scene behaviors
that distinguish them from othertypes of murderers.
These may include excessiveviolence beyond what is
necessary to cause death,post-mortem mutilation,
insertion of foreign objects andpositioning of the victim's

(03:26):
body in degrading poses.
Law enforcement agencies usethese behavioral markers to
identify potential sadistickillers and link seemingly
unrelated cases.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
It is important also to note that, while a concept of
sadistic killers is widelyrecognized in criminal
psychology, criminal justice andlaw enforcement, it is not a
legal classification of itself.
Rather, it is a psychologicalprofile that informs
investigative strategies, riskassessments and sentencing
considerations within theboundary and frameworks of

(03:58):
violent and sexual offenses.
So one thing that is importantin criminal justice is just
terminology true crime there areterms that we hear that have
been used.
We don't really know.
So terminology, again incriminal justice, is an
important part of labelingcriminal behavior and psychology
, the types of crimes committedand utilizing for enhanced

(04:18):
sentencing.
Even in common day speech, acommon term heard to describe
people who enjoy seeing orinflicting pain on others is
sadist, sadistic or sadism.
In this context we're nottalking about the fetish of
sadomasochism, which is aconsensual sexual relationship
around gathering pleasure fromeither inflicting or receiving

(04:39):
pain again for sexual pleasure.
That is probably a differentpodcast.
That's not us.
If you want to go search that,actually there's probably
several podcasts to do that.
But the key in that is thatthere is consent.
What we're talking about is theuse of terms in criminal
justice again criminalpsychology to describe criminal

(05:01):
behaviors and psychologicalaspects.
Looking at this, we decided itwas important to delve in the
origin of these terms and howthey came to be associated with
cruel, torturous behavior,utilized to describe either
gathering sexual pain or justgratification from harming
others.
So to do this, today we aregoing to look at the life,

(05:21):
criminal behaviors, exploits andlegacy of the man known as the
Marquis de Sade.
So I am Richard, I'm Heather.
And this is Deviant Criminology.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Okay, so the person who we know as Marquis de Sade
was actually named and I'm goingto say this wrong, I'm sure
Danatine Alfonso Franskisco, inParis on June the 2nd 1740, and
he was a French nobleman, writerand political activist whose
life was marked by scandal andcrime and imprisonment.

(05:53):
His controversial writings andalleged practices gave rise to
the term sadism, which reflectssexual cruelty sexual cruelty.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Sade's major works included the 120 Days of Sodom,
justine, juliet and Philosophyin the Bedroom which explored
themes of pleasure in inflictingpain.
The 120 Days of Sodom was likethe first intro I had to the

(06:23):
Marquis and that was like myfreshman year of college, which
for me was like 24 years old,and it's a very graphic
depiction of this 120 day.
Basically orgy that happens andit's really very twisted.
So having known that and thenlearning what I had and what
we're going to talk about todayabout him, like it's no surprise
that this guy and his namebecame so interlinked with

(06:46):
twisted cruelty through use ofpaint.
So he was born into a noblefamily with ties to the french
royal line.
Sod received education at thejesuit college, louis le grand
in paris, where he studied Latin, Greek and rhetoric, which is
just a form of writing.

(07:06):
He later joined the militaryand served as an officer in the
Seven Years' War.
Then, in 1763, he married RenéePelagie de Montréal, a Catholic
woman from a Borgie family,with whom he had three children,
though their relationshipbecame increasingly strained.

(07:29):
I'd like to note at this pointthat if there are any French
speakers or historians of Frenchculture, please do not crucify
us for our inability to speakFrench terms.
We are American.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
And even if we were bilingual, we probably still
wouldn't say it correctly.
You learn American French here,not French French.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, we are.
I mean, we are close to thestate that cars Versailles for
sales.
So yeah, do not hold usaccountable for French
terminology.
So Saad's life of scandal beganin 1763 when he faced his first
major accusation.
So he allegedly locked aprostitute named jean to start
in a bedroom, engaged inblasphemous acts involving

(08:10):
religious objects andthreatening her with weapons.
This incident led to his arreston charges of blasphemy and
incitement to sacrilege, bothcapital offenses at the time,
and he was later releasedfollowing a royal pardon.
Now that royal pardon kind ofcame again.
He was born into frencharistocratic ties, um, and

(08:31):
there's a lot about thisincident that was kind of
repressed at the time but it didcome with a lot of sexual
assault and the abuse that iskind of displayed here which I I
kind of wonder, just based onthe time and the ties that he
had, if he really would havebeen charged if it hadn't been
for the religious objects andthe religious theme behind what

(08:53):
happened.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
If he had simply hired a prostitute and things
went sideways, would anybodyhave really cared?

Speaker 2 (09:00):
And also like playing devil's advocate, which I don't
like doing, but in thissituation, at this time it was
also very common for politicalrivals, especially in France,
were accusing, you know, theKnights Templar of blasphemy and
horrific acts being done withthe cross and stuff.
This seems to be an ongoingtheme, especially in religious

(09:34):
cultures like France, to reallybring horrible attention and
light on a political rival.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
One of the most notorious incidents in Saad's
criminal history occurred onEaster Sunday in 1768, known as
the Rose Keller Affair.
He had lured Keller, a36-year-old widow and beggar, to
his house in actually againprobably saying that wrong.
Under the pretense of offeringher employment there, he locked

(10:04):
her in a bedroom, subjected herto sexual abuse and severely
whipped her.
Keller managed to escape andreported the incident to
authorities.
Saad was subsequently arrestedand imprisoned, though he denied
the more severe aspects of theassault.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
And some of those aspects are accusations that he
flogged her relentlessly with acat and nine tails, that he
actually cut her buttocks andpoured wax on it and just really
subjected her to torture.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
basically, which I would think that there would be
physical evidence.
You know, as far as his denialof these things, maybe pretty
simple on some level to say,well, that didn't happen, these
marks are not on her.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
If that was the case, he very often never denied the
accusations but said that theywere consenting.
So one of his things was no, Ididn't hire her to work, she was
a prostitute and I had hiredher to engage in any sexual
action.
It was all consensualunderpayment.
So that's kind of a runningtheme with him is that, you know

(11:11):
, no, everybody was consensual.
Even though these peopleimmediately like leave, like
escape his clutches and go tothe police, he's still got these
royal connections, these familythat basically he keeps somehow
getting away with this, withthese pardons.
But with this one again he kindof gets off.

(11:33):
It seems like these charges aredropped or just kind of
dissipate, known as theMarseille Affair of June 1772,
which further cemented kind ofSod's notoriety and his sadistic
nature, which we will get intothat term.
He and his manservant Latourorchestrated an elaborate orgy

(11:57):
involving four prostitutesengaging in acts of flagolation
and sodomy.
For those who don't know,flagolation is just whipping, so
usually done with a standardwhip, a cat and nine tails or
something of that nature.
So Sod offered the womenpastilles laced with Spanish fly
and aphrodisiac which causedtwo of them to become very ill.

(12:19):
This led to charges of sodomyand poisoning against Sod and
Latour and they were sentencedto death and absentia.
So, basically, the, the women,leave, they go, report sod and
his manservant which I love thatterm uh find out that this is
happening and they flee thecountry.

(12:40):
Um, because they know thatthese acts are again uh
punishable by death and as they,while they're gone, they are
sentenced to death.
But since they have fled thecountry, they weren't there to
defend themselves.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
And I think that was a practice that happened well,
obviously, more often than now.
Back then they would go aheadand have the trial without you,
sentence you to death with thethought that well, they left,
they'll never come back, they'renot my problem anymore, and if
you do, then we're going to killyou, type of an idea.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Or especially with aristocratic families like this
in Europe, it seemed like, oh,we'll flee and then let our
families and the money andpeople forget about things and
get payoffs made to the rightpeople, like pay these four
women off which his wife gotinvolved in, like helping
silence two of these women, andthen they withdrew the claim and
then she and the family kind ofspoke with royalty and got

(13:33):
pardons at some point.
But this also went into somepolitical stuff that we're not
going to cover because Frenchpolitics in 1700s really isn't
my thing.
We're more talking about theman specifically.
But following these incidents,Saad spent years evading
authorities, fleeing to Italyand facing multiple arrests and
imprisonment.
So he never learned from hismistakes.

(13:54):
But this very much becomes partof his philosophy.
Like he is very, why am I beingrestricted by your values and
morals and mores to what I amallowed to do?
Like your virtues and vicesshould not have the right to
control me.
So he was arrested in 1801 forhis pornographic novels and

(14:16):
spent his final years in theCharlton Asylum where he died on
December 2nd 1814.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
And his influence extends beyond his lifetime,
inspiring later thinkers likeNietzsche, freud and other
surrealists.
His legacy remainscontroversial, to say the least,
with some viewing him as aprecursor to anarchism and
totalitarianism, while otherscondemn his influence as harmful
to women and society.
Saad's life and works continueto be depicted in various

(14:47):
cultural works, sparking ongoingdebates about his place in
history and literature.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And I, like the paper I wrote and kind of the
research I did, was comparinglike the things he wrote back
and we're talking mid-late 1700sthat were just considered
blasphemous and like evenpornographic to today's
standards, and how we kind ofwent very puritan for a couple
hundred years, especially duringthe Edwardian years and
Victorian years, where it becamealmost very proper communities

(15:16):
and talks of sex, sexuality,like you just didn't do that.
And now where it's become again, we're seeing a lot of
pornography, a lot of graphicdepiction of things and as we'll
go forward, we kind of see thatwith his writings and stuff,
like even at the time and we'regoing to talk about this they
were not received.
Well, uh, he was punished forhis writings, he was sought

(15:37):
after, he was demonized and itwasn't until like the mid 1900s
that suddenly he kind of sawthis resurgence and now he's
starting to show up more andmore again in writings and
literature and depictions indifferent media.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
And I think a lot of his influence also goes back to
that philosophical debate of ourpeople primarily good versus
evil.
Are you born good and then turnevil, or are you born evil and
have to make choices to be good?

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, and I think it also goes even to a larger
debate, and this was kind ofsome of the things that he
talked about was who decideswhat's good and evil?
Like you know, when we use theterm sadist or sadism and
relevant to criminals nowadays,like we're talking people that
and he did it too but purposelyharm people without their
consent.
But if people are consentingadults in these situations like

(16:31):
if he did hire this prostituteand she was very willing to
participate and they were bothconsenting who decides that
that's deviant behavior?
Quick, shout out to ourselvesand what is acceptable?
Because I don't.
Why am I held by your moralityand this standard that I didn't
agree to but society says I haveto agree with?

(16:52):
But if it's so taboo, why arethere clubs associated with this
, like even today there are, youknow, masochistic clubs,
bondage clubs, things like that,and some even today's
literature very much gets intothis um of 50 shades of gray and
stuff like that, which I know alot of people in the bondage
community hate that book becauseit's depiction of almost

(17:13):
non-consensual to a point, butthat's getting a little bit off,
but it's very much of what is.
Who sets these standards, likewhat is a virtue and what's a
vice, and who gets to set thatstandard and why is it based off
somebody's religious views thatmaybe everybody doesn't conform
to?

Speaker 3 (17:30):
and I think that that's true, and you can take
that across the spectrum, though, because you know, one of the
things he argues about is youknow those baser instincts, um,
and if you look at other mammals, you know, for instance, you
know dogs or wolves or whatever.
They kill other beings and theydon't have that guilt
associated with it.

(17:51):
So at what point should youfeel guilty?
At what point have you crossedthat line of this is okay and
this is not okay?
So that's kind of where I thinkabout that like evil versus
good or good versus evil.
Do you have to make the choicethat you're not going to be
somebody who harms other people?
Is that base nature that youwould take whatever you can from

(18:12):
them for your own benefit?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
And yeah, and I think kind of to a point it goes back
to, like one of his famousquotes that I always loved was
you know, it's always, it'salways by way of pain One
arrives at pleasure.
And I mean you can take that avery different ways.
Like you know, it's goingthrough college.
It's a lot of pain, it's a lotof hard work, but in the end you
get the pleasure of what youget out of this.
He took it in a sexual way.

(18:43):
It's none of my damn business,but we're talking about is when
it crosses over into criminalitythat we are interested in how
that term came to be.
So the Marquis de Sade'sliterary contributions were
prolific and diverse, spanningvarious genres and themes During
his numerous imprisonmentswhich kind of seems to be a
weird theme along the 16th, 17th, 1800s, as people did their

(19:10):
best writings in prison.
There's a lot of English peoplethat wrote some great
philosophical pieces while inprison in the Tower of London.
So his works are characterizedby a unique blend of explicit
sexual content and profoundphilosophical discourse,
exploring topics such asreligion, politics and morality.
But due to their provocativenature, many of sod's writings
were published posthumously oranonymously at the time, uh,

(19:33):
contributing to the mystiquesurrounding his literary outputs
.
So it's kind of like almostthat shakespeare thing, like
there's some things that areattributed to him that he may
not have written, and thenthere's things that aren't
attributed to him that he maynot have written, and then
there's things that aren'tattributed to him that he may
have.
So he's kind of again one ofthose just in the literary world
of that time period, like verywell known at the time but also
very demonized at the time.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
And it makes sense that you would write those
things when you're inconfinement, because what else
do you have to do?

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Right, especially like this guy.
I'm not going gonna say poorguy at all, because like he
definitely deserved to be inprison but like he's been
condemned to death at this pointmultiple times and he's got to
know at this point that theagreements his family's probably
made is like, don't kill him.
But it was very common forpeople to be locked up for the
rest of their lives and most ofthe time it's not what we think

(20:20):
of a prison.
Now, like he was in this asylum, which I'm gonna I didn't do my
research and I apologize forthat but probably was a little
bit more cush than if he hadbeen put in like the chateau d
or something or the tower oflondon the tower of london.
It had nice parts to it,supposedly probably not where he
would have been, though no, hewould have probably been in like
the really small confinementroom or the basement.

(20:42):
Assad's writing is known forits exploration of extreme human
behaviors and societal taboos.
His works featured, again,really graphic depictions of
sexual acts and violence, andthen sexual violent acts, often
intertwined with complexphilosophical arguments.
So he was very big at like.
Here we are exploring humansexuality.

(21:03):
And then what does it mean toeven be a sexual being, as a
human being?
Um, way too much use of theterm human being.
So this juxtaposition, though,of the carnal and intellectual
became a hallmark of sod'swriting.
Uh, challenging readers toconfront uncomfortable truths
about human nature, societalnorms.

(21:23):
Uh, and again, some of thenovels that he's well known for
is that 120 days of Sodom, andthat's a thick book, like I read
it, and for a dyslexic that'sreally hard.
And again, it has a lot ofterms that at that time being in
college, I had to go back andbe like I don't, this is an old
Latin term or this is an oldterm that's not even used

(21:44):
anymore.
But in the end end, like theconcepts and things that came
out, it really does make youthink, and there are parts, even
as a grown man at that timethat had worked in law
enforcement.
Everything I was going backlike this is like you have to
take a step back and be likeit's hard.
Odd to think that people enjoythis, be like this, or that
these things were happening,because some of the stuff he
describes in there in detail arethings he was accused of in the

(22:07):
courts.
The text blends graphicdepictions again with these
philosophical debates.
But he liked to push boundariesof acceptable literature and
writings for his time and wouldgo just blow right past that.
So there were a lot of peoplethat were prolific at that time.
You're coming right around thetime of Alexander Dumas and

(22:30):
things.
So you look at like the Countof Monte Cristo and what that
looked like.
And then you look at 120 daysof Sodom and you're like there
was a wide range of what wasacceptable and he just blew
right past that.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Which I think you know again, that wide range of
what's acceptable.
You know, even when wementioned consent, consent isn't
always the out for everything.
As an example, I can't consentto being killed and you giving
the money to my family.
That's just not something thatwe recognize as a legal defense.
You can't come in and say, yeah, I killed her, but she
consented to it.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yes, well, I mean that even goes back to like even
consensual and again, I don'thave a bondage expert here, not
my area but even if you'rehaving consensual sex and the
person authorizes you to chokethem, and if you do it and
accidentally kill them, youstill committed murder like so
there are limitation and that'swhy people I know that are part

(23:23):
of this community are very bigon like do your research.
You just don't like pick up oneday and become a bondage expert
, like there are whole groupsthat dedicate to like education
around this and safety and safepractices.
So yeah, you're, you're pushingtaboos, but you also have to
know that if you cross that lineand it does go into criminal,

(23:45):
it's not hard to do, which iswhy people are very protective
of this community and why peoplewere very, from what I
understand, not happy with 50shades of gray because it did
almost kind of exploit and givea bad name to people that are
into that.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
That more bondage, masochism, realm I think it was
back to what you talked about,the respect for consent that I
think the people you'redescribing respect that, where
somebody would have the abilityto withdraw consent at some
point in time and say stop, thisisn't what I want to do anymore
or not cross those specificlines where I'm not so sure that
Saad would have agreed withthat.

(24:20):
I think he would have been likeyou know, why do your rules
confine to me?
If she wants to consent to mekilling her and giving her
family money, then why is it anyof your business?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Well, and even just going back to that time period
of the 1700s of how were womeneven viewed Like?
Women weren't seen as equals tomen, they were seen as
subservient to men.
So if this is what a man wantsto do, then it's almost your
obligation.
So if you even put it in thecontext of that, the back in
this time period, the womenweren't seen as equals.

(24:50):
He was being charged forabusing women, so he had to.
We really now we're puttingthat in context think of how bad
he had to be, that as anaristocrat abusing women, which
almost probably happened all thetime.
He was taking it to a levelthat even the king was like kill
him, kill him now.
And the king really did, likebone apart, hated this man.

(25:13):
So Saad explored themes oflibertinism, materialism and
moral relativism, often throughshocking narratives that
challenged conventional ethicsand I think, minus the fact that
these were his things like hewas very much into this stuff.
But he also wanted to shockpeople and really grab people's
attention.
And one thing that I kind ofcaught on in, that, that I want

(25:35):
to build off on, was kind ofthis concept of libertine novels
.
They're a distinct literarygenre that emerged in the 18th
century, primarily in France,with roots in the european
libertine tradition.
These works are characterized bytheir exploration of themes to
challenge social norms ofreligious orthodoxy, so these
are kind of seen as works.

(25:56):
A lot of his work is that way,but they were challenging either
political standards at the time, sexuality, religion, um there
was stuff that was.
It was kind of seen to includethings that were
anti-establishment, eroticism,which there was a lot of that
that was starting to come out,transgressive characteristics
and philosophical explorationsto engage about enlightenment

(26:20):
ideas and advocating forindividual freedoms.
So I thought that that was veryinteresting that he was kind of
put in this genre.
Even though he was an outcast.
He was kind of considered aspart of these enlightenment
movement of libertine novels.
And I think he embodied that tothe extreme right, like it

(26:40):
wasn't just I should have thesefreedoms in these specific
subsets, but he was kind of likeI should be able to do whatever
the hell I want and screweverybody else yes, and it's
very much in your face, like hedidn't try to hide this, like
that was one of the things thatwas very stuck out, and he threw
elaborate parties for a whilethat were basically orgies and

(27:01):
political people came to these.
So it wasn't that he ever hidthis, but it was that even for
that time period he crossed thatthreshold where it went from
innocent, behind-the-scenestaboos of acceptable France,
which human sexuality has alwaysbeen a little bit more
accepting of there.
It was blowing right past thatinto this very what at the time

(27:21):
was considered very dark, almostanti-Christian, and what would
later become known as sadisticbehavior dark, almost
anti-Christian and what wouldlater become known as sadistic
behavior.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
So those libertine novels that you're referencing,
they represent a culturalmovement in literary and
intellectual history whichepitomizes the Western world's
tradition into modernity, and itredefined the pleasure as an
individual's natural right andchallenged those longstanding
ideas that somebody else woulddefine.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
What you were able to do it's kind of interesting,
like when you start again kindof putting things in weird
context, like and criminals seemto do this, but uh, the sod is
almost to the beginning of the18th century, as jack the ripper
was to the 19th century, likethese sadistic people that kind
of shepherded in this weirdmoral quandrum that was going to

(28:12):
come for years or kind ofdefine the next century and the
sods work, even though many ofthem were destroyed and found
much later.
His behavior stuff kind of didalmost show a whiplash backwards
to a very more moralisticsociety that we see in a Dwarven
society compared to where Jackthe Ripper is kind of motioned

(28:33):
towards bringing in this morenew age for law enforcement and
then kind of a cruelty naturethat would be seen over the next
hundred years towards the poor,prostitution and things like
that.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
And I think there's always that pendulum that swings
back and forth because you seesomething extreme and you say we
have to do something so thatdoesn't happen again, and then
you have a tightening down ofwhether it be religious morality
or legal morality, of we're notgoing to let people do these
things.
And sometimes it's oh my gosh,I can't believe that somebody

(29:05):
ever thought to do these things.
We need to make it so nobodyelse does it.
And I think there's also adesensitization to these things
when you see them.
So I think you know like whenthese things came to light it
was shocking.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
But I think the more people who, following these
footsteps, like you, talk aboutJack the Ripper and we mentioned
BTK and the more you hear aboutthese things, the less
appalling they seem to us ingeneral absolutely and they
almost start becoming part ofsociety and who, who the
cultures are in themselves andhow people identify themselves,

(29:40):
and sometimes it can be for thebetter, but then sometimes it
can be for influencing peoplefor the worst, which will will
come up here momentarily, butit's just very.
It's very interesting to getinto these topics because we
don't often think about likemost of this episode is not
about crime specifically, butit's about the philosophy and

(30:01):
the types of behaviors thatlater led to these crimes and
labeling of these crimes,specifically this how one guy's
name became just synonymous andespecially once the FBI kind of
picked up on it, associated withserial killers and horrific
crimes being committed by veryterrible people torturing

(30:23):
individuals.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
And I also think it makes you think about where
those lines are, like we weretalking about.
As far.
Are we going to say that, like,just take homosexuality as an
example, once upon a time thatwas illegal and now it's not.
And at what point do we changecertain behaviors from criminal
versus non-criminal?
And I think that his dialogueand the things he did were

(30:47):
horrible, but at least it gotpeople thinking about.
Well, where do we draw thisline?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
It's almost a twisted advocacy that he was doing Like
he was, you know, with theLGBTQ plus population and
everything like it tookadvocates that were willing to
put themselves out there tobring attention to like.
This is not abnormal.
It's your sense of moralitythat is pushing on me what is
acceptable compared to what Ibelieve is acceptable and it's

(31:14):
not your right to demonize awhole group of people that
aren't harming anybody.
But doing this I'd love now thesod you can say he did in his
crime show that he did harmpeople.
But his wider conversation andhis writings were more about
accepting people that are into,maybe, a lifestyle of masochism

(31:34):
and again, consensual is a bigkey there of pleasure and pain.
So in a way, he was an advocateat the time for look your
morals and your.
If somebody goes out and theydo these things, they're into
flagylation or they're into,they're into, some kind of what
we consider bondage or somethinglike that.
At the time that was sinful andyou could be prosecuted for it.
And he's saying no, like we areharming people for their

(31:58):
enjoyment and their pleasure.
That's carnal.
It's who we are as a species.
That's not right.
So it sometimes does takepeople to advocate and put
themselves out there and almostbecome criminal pariahs.
He just kind of cross-lined andwas a criminal and a horrible
person and it goes back to that.
I think I've said almost everyepisode we've ever done of you

(32:18):
can be two things at the sametime, like you can be this
advocate that's advocating formore liberal, um, treatment of
people and acceptance of peoplethat are different than you.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
That may not get your morality and then also be a
sadistic human being thattortures women without their
consent and I think the the keyword there was harm that you
came up with, um, and I thinkthat that's where people have to
really stop and think and gothrough it.
What is the harm that's beingdone with this?
And I think sometimes, on theface of it, people like, oh this
, stop and think and go throughit.
What is the harm that's beingdone with this?

(32:49):
And I think sometimes, on theface of it, people are like, oh,
this is harmful.
Once you go through it, youfigure out it's not really
harmful to society because it'snone of our business what
they're doing and they're notharming each other.
So we need to take a step backand just let them do whatever
they're going to do.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yes, as long as you've got two consenting adults
, it's none of your businesswhat they are doing in their
bedrooms, Right?
But at this time they couldcome in and literally go through
your bedroom.
So, at the core, Saad'sliterary work is a consistent
challenge of the conventionalmorality.
His writings advocated for amore materialistic and
determinist view of humanbehavior, often presenting
characters who act on the basisimpulses of themselves, without

(33:29):
regard for social norms orethical consideration.
This unflinching exploration ofhuman nature kind of coupled
with his graphic depictions ofsexuality and violence.
And they are very graphic, Even, like I said, the writings he
did at that time.
For now you're even like, okay,that's a little much, Like it
would be an X rated movie if itwas put out.

(33:49):
So I said, the writings he didat that time, for now you're
even like, okay, that's a littlemuch, Like it would be an
X-rated movie if it was put out.
So.
But he ensued that his namewould be an enduring influence
on literary, philosophical andcultural discourses.
And his writings didn't juststop there, Like they did
influence people in a verynegative way as well, which
we'll talk about right now.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
So, when it comes to serial killers, we have several
notorious serial killers andsadistic murderers who have
referenced or been influenced bythe sods work in the Brady, or
Brad, brady, brady, brady, uhian, the brady or brad.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Uh, brady, brady, ian brady ian brady sorry, ian
brady.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
One of the most infamous moore's murders was
known admirer of de sade, andthose murders were a series of
horrific child killingscommitted by ian and mira
hindley in and around manchester, england, between July 1963 and
October 1965.

(34:49):
And that case is considered oneof the most notorious and
high-profile murder cases in20th century Britain.
Where he had read several of deSade's books and encouraged his
accomplice, mira, to read themas well.
He also promoted Sade'swritings to Henley's
brother-in-law, david Smith.

(35:11):
The couple, brady and Henley,had copies of Saad's works in
their possession, including theLife and Ideas of the Marquis de
Saad by Geoffrey Gore.
The influence of Saad'sphilosophy on Brady was evident
in his actions and writings.
He saw serial killers assuperior beings, echoing Saad's

(35:32):
ideas about embracing naturalinstincts without moral
restraint.
He compared serial killers towriters, saying they both pursue
the quest for immortality, butkillers use a knife rather than
a pen, skin rather than paper.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah.
So again, that's kind of takingthat his writings and his
influences like to a twistedlevel and I think that we see
that with a lot of criminalsthat obsess with certain type of
people or certain.
You know, there are killersthat have linked to other
killers and I did this becauseof them or were influenced by
them.
We see that with mass shootingsI want to hit the same body

(36:12):
count that that person had.
And Brady seemed to reallythink and embrace the almost
godlike concept that the Marquisde Sade had about himself and
reproduce that.
Produce that, because there aremultiple.
One thing that sod did from jail, in prison and asylums was he

(36:32):
wrote letters to people and alot of those letters he was
writing as if it was abouthimself, that there was a lot of
fictionalization to it and heseemed to really want to make
himself almost seem like thisgodly figure and very egocentric
, very um, stuck on himself andthat he was a better and more
higher formative person thanother people were.

(36:53):
And you see that in theseletters that were intimate
letters to people he cared aboutoutside of just his literary
writings.
So he almost seemed to havethis kind of falsified concept
of himself and his ownsuperiority that br Brady kind
of latched onto and that's not agood thing and we're not going
to cover the more murders inthis episode, but it's

(37:14):
interesting to see how muchinfluence he had on somebody
that took those so much to heart.
They committed horrific childkillings not just murders but
child murders.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
And I think on some level you have to have that kind
of God complex to separateyourself out from those other
people, because you have to insome ways dehumanize your victim
to do the things that thesepeople do, and so you have to
figure out some way to breakthat to the empathy and sympathy
and every other human feelingyou would have towards those

(37:46):
people.
I think the only way you can dothat is to somehow think that
you're different and superior tothem.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Well, and that's one thing you see when you look at
the profile of seductive killers, like if you go back to again
BTK and there's many others thatwe won't name here but
hopefully we'll cover over timebut it's never about sex itself,
it's about the domination,power and control and that very
much goes with that God complex,like I have power over you.

(38:16):
There's a line in I believeit's the movie Red Dragon, when
the main character's talkingabout the serial killer that's
active and he makes a comment oflike we have to study the
patterns because this guy's notgoing to stop.
And one of the cops in the roomsays, well, why not?
And Will Graham says, well,because it makes him God.
And that's very much kind ofwhat we see here.

(38:38):
Like my ability to hurt women,control women, torture them,
makes me God.
So how do you combat that?
And you can see it in hiswritings.
This guy kind of took it uponhimself and believed that and in
real life harmed many people.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
So there's a broader cultural influence to me,
unfortunately.
I'm sure that a lot of peopleout there would see it
differently.
But there was this radicalchange to the societal norms
because of his graphicdepictions of sexual violence,
incest, torture and murder inthe 18th century France, which

(39:18):
profoundly changed the societalnorms.
His work, though largelysuppressed, circulated
underground and influentialselect intellectuals and artists
.
His radical philosophy rejectedthe existence of a supreme
being and posited a lawless,destructive nature as the

(39:41):
original guide to behavior,starkly departing from the
Enlightenment ideals andsparking ongoing debates on
morality, freedom and humannature.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
So he also kind of pioneered the exploration of
human sexuality.
So Saad's novels were among thefirst to delve into the dark,
hidden impulses of human nature.
He was before Freud's conceptsof like the subconscious by over
a century.
So in a way he's even kind ofbrown groundbreaking in the
psych uh, psychological fieldand psychology, even though most

(40:14):
people would never admit that.
He presented homosexuality asan equal norm.
So he was very much again aheadof his time, like uh in that
area and that it was just asacceptable as heterosexuality,
uh, anticipating the modern gaymovement long before Oscar Wilde
.
Uh.
The term sadism coined bypsychiatrist Richard Von Croft

(40:35):
Ebbing in 1886 was inspired bysods work marking the beginning
of a more clinical approach tounderstanding sexual behavior.
So it's with Croft Ebbing greatname, kind of him being a
psychiatrist, psychologist andkind of looking into Saad's
writings and applying that towhat he was seeing in some of

(41:00):
his patients and things, that westart to develop the term
sadistic sadism and what we getto as sadistic killers.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
So he also has a large influence on literature
and philosophy.
The philosophy aspect of it ismore interesting to me.
Just again, that human nature.
Where does it stop?
What's actually natural?
Do you actually respect otherpeople's humans?
Are we essentially good oressentially evil?
And you can talk for hoursabout that, as you know, as far

(41:31):
as you have to teach kids not tohit, not to steal, so I'm going
to say this wrong Bolladere,frederick Nietzsche and
Guillaume Apollonary.
I'm going to go with Apollonary, okay, I wasn't sure on that

(41:56):
one.
Nietzsche's the one I'm mostfamiliar with.
I'm not very familiar with theother two, including George
Bastille, michael Fouquet andCamille Aglia, engaged in Saad's
ideas, exploring theirimplications for sexuality,

(42:16):
nihilism and transgression.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
He also had some impacts on cinema and the visual
arts, so influences on artistslike Eugene Delacroix and
Theodore Gerlkult In cinema.
His life and works inspirednumerous films, most of them
French and I'm not going to beable to pronounce so if you want
to look those up, google it.
But he's also had someinfluence on pop culture and
music.
So he had impacts extendinginto enigma's 1990s hit song,

(42:53):
sadness, part one, which that isa great album.
Um sod appeared as a non-playercharacter in the 2014 assassins
creed unity game.
I remember that it was one ofthose moments where, like he
appeared and I was like, oh myGod, I know who they're
depicting.
So many kids aren't going tounderstand that, but he was a
protagonist in the FrenchRevolution section of that

(43:16):
Assassin's Creed game.
So again, he also kind of hadsome contributions to psychology
and psychiatry.
So Saad's impact on the field.
So Saad's impact on the fieldagain were brought in by Richard
von Kraft-Ebbing Just want tokeep saying his name In the work
Psychopathia Sexualis, whichwas published in 1886, and it
was the first scientific studythat used the term sadism,

(43:39):
deriving from Saad's name, andit was used to describe sexual
gratification through inflictingpain on others.
This work along with albertmall's shift to understanding of
sexual perversions from asymptom of mental health
disorders to an integral part ofmoral, general, autonomous and
continuous sexual instincts.
So we see kind of humansexuality now being more

(44:03):
understood in psychology isnatural and nature, but also
putting a line on what's normal,natural and going more into
this sadistic and when itbecomes harmful.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
And I think those philosophical discussions are
especially difficult here inAmerica, where you have that
Puritan influence, where we hadone point in time where
procreation was the only drivingforce, supposedly, in having
sex, and then, of course, youhad families who had 20 kids.
Is that an excuse?
I want a baby.

(44:37):
So I'm going to do these thingsBecause I think that we would
all agree at this point in timethat it's a natural thing that
people want to have sex.
It's not simply for procreation, and we've had that shift in
our society from one extreme andI think we're at a good place
now.
I hope we don't go further,like you know, past the consent
part, past that harmful part,but it's always a possibility

(45:00):
because, just like you saidbefore, the law didn't used to
protect women the way it doesnow.
There was a certain point intime where you know, once you
were married, whatever happenedhappened.
It was behind closed doors.
So I hope that we don't go pastthat range, but it's always a
possibility.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Or that we go backwards and start punishing
people again for who they loveand who they don't.
I mean, and like you talk aboutwith the Puritan aspects.
In America, like even today,we're starting to see
researchers have teachingabstinence and preaching
abstinence, but damn if I can'tturn on TV and see.
As for boner pills that aremade for men, well in ages, that
shouldn't be reprocreating.
So I don't understand.
We do have this double standard, and I think that was something

(45:38):
that Saad was trying to pointout was you have this double
standard of what's acceptableand not acceptable human
behavior when it comes to humanpleasure and gratification?

Speaker 3 (45:47):
And I think you're also hitting the nail on head
with that double life aspect ofit.
You go through the Bible Beltwhere it's church after church
and, like you said, you knowabstinence don't have sex until
you're married.
On and on and on.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
But then every other exit off the interstate has a
lion's den.
Yes, like the, the and backthen, like what he wrote would
have been pornographic when wetalked about veronica guardian,
like what was consideredpornographic back in the 1930s
and then today what we considerpornography and acceptable, um,
like, even when I was younger,like showing a butt on tv I was
like you couldn't do thatbesides certain.
And now you can turn on TV liketwo o'clock in the afternoon
and somebody's showing a nakedman's butt and nobody seems to
think twice about it.
And I think Saad was showingthat.

(46:28):
Like that double standard.
And then how, if we just aremore open about it, talk about
it and make it more accepted bysociety, we take it from being a
crime where back in the 1800sinto the 1900s, even in some
parts of the world today, andeven the like, people are
arrested, executed for thepeople they love in the acts

(46:50):
that are natural human behaviorsfor them that at um different
times were not consideredharmful, like.
It's very weird again to seethat if we go back to Roman and
Greek times where sexuality wasjust open, we didn't have to
hide it During this time.
The Marquis is definitelypointing out that, like I'm
holding these orgies and many ofyou are showing up, you hide

(47:12):
who you are.
I'm not ashamed.
And he's writing these booksand he's the character in many
of these books.
So it's very interesting to seethat he was pushing those
limits but then how he took itbeyond those limits and then
became.
He became an episode.
Like you know.
He became not notorious asliterally the definition of like

(47:36):
the worst killers we have inthe string of murderers, terms
that we use.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
His commercial interest and academic interest
works saw a resurgence in salesafter becoming widely available
in the 1960s, which of coursethat again was that period in
America where a lot of thesenorms and societal expectations
started to loosen up.
We talked about those 1930sones where obviously there was a

(48:03):
market for it because peoplewere buying those pictures of
Ronnie and things like that.
But on the surface we said, oh,that's wrong.
But at the same time people whoare on the surface saying
that's wrong are still buyingthem and taking them home.
In the 1960s things loosened upa lot and at that point in time
particularly Justine andPhilosophy in the Bedroom became

(48:25):
more widely available, and hislife and writings have since
become the subject of extensiveacademic study and debate,
despite their often shockingnature.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
While Saad's actions were scandalous and criminal,
they occurred within a specifichistorical context.
Some historians argued that theseverity of his punishments, uh
, was partly due to his family'sefforts to avoid public
disgrace.
Almost they wereinstitutionalizing him just to
be like, get him out of here.
We don't want any more of thesescandals again.
This is also that tumultuoustime between king louis and

(48:57):
bonaparte.
So the factions of you know whowas on louis side, who was on
bonaparte side and you know,especially during that time
where it was bonaparte louis,bonaparte, louis, like there
were a lot of things and sod wasjust bringing unnecessary
attention to the family.
Um, though censored for much ofthe 19th and 20th century, he

(49:20):
continues to provoke discussionson issues of freedom, morality
and the nature of human desire.
And, like you said, the 1960swere like the perfect breeding
ground for his stuff to comeback, especially in the US,
which is where you saw thatresurgence, because that really
was kind of a free love, likelet's talk about it.
And especially, like Justine,when you read that one which I'm

(49:49):
never going to promote, likereading that, but do what you
will if you're into erotic stuffum, it's very graphic and,
again, very depicting, like ayoung girl's ascent into
sexuality.
So, um, it doesn't surprise methat that was the time that it
resurged.
And now he's again becomingknown a little bit more again in
certain circles.
But so many times people usethis term and all of the he's
being sadistic.
Where did that come from?
Well, now we have given you thebasis of where that comes from

(50:11):
and kind of some areas of how webecame associated with this.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
And of course he was criticized widely, which you
know.
In my opinion, a lot of this isa good thing.
I really don't like thisparticular person, but that's
just my feelings on him.
And that critical reception ofhis works has undergone
significant shifts over time andbasically reflects the changing
societal attitudes andintellectual trends attitudes
and intellectual trends Duringhis lifetime and in the
immediate aftermath.

(50:42):
His writings were met withintense hostility and revulsion.
Contemporary critics lambastedhis plays and novels as obscene,
with particularly vitrioldirected at Justine, which was
the one you just mentioned,which many deemed utterly
repugnant.
And the negative perceptionpersisted well into the 19th

(51:06):
century, exemplified by Frenchhistorian Jules Michelet's
scathing characterization ofDessade as the professor
immaturist of crime.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
And like yeah, that's how he was viewed as somebody
that was promoting crime and theevaluation of females
specifically.
So, like in feminist literature, he is lambasted, as he
probably should be, but at thesame time, I think, in different
realms, as they're saying, he'svery much allotted.
Like, even though he had a lotof condemnation, there were 19th

(51:40):
century authors that reallyexpressed a degree of admiration
for his work, like CharlesAdelaire, which I'm sure I'm
saying that wrong and then kindof one of my literary heroes,
edgar Allan Poe, very muchadmired him and his ability to
speak freely, his ability tospeak freely.
This appreciation, though, wasfar from universal, as evident

(52:00):
by critiques such as AntolaFrance, who dismissed Saad's
writings as tedious and unworthyof serious consideration.
And, again, it wasn't until the20th century that Saad's
literary works were starting tobe seen more as acceptable.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
And I guess that's kind of where you know I'm
falling on this Like Iappreciate, like the, you know,
the Edgar Allen Poe idea thatit's freedom of speech, freedom
of expression.
I'm glad that he's writingabout things that would normally
be considered, you know, topicsthat shouldn't be talked about.
I'm glad that he's questioningsome of those things about where

(52:40):
should the line be drawn andthings like people who are just
loving each other should belegal.
We shouldn't be criminalizingthat.
That's none of our business.
But he also took it way pastthe line where I would have
wanted him to stop personally.
But again, that's just my ownjudgment.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
So I think we've covered very well like Saad's
impact, the crimes that hecommitted and how he's
influenced terminology Like hisphilosophical stance often
justified and glorified sexualviolence, presenting it as a
natural expression of humandesire, and his works gained
notoriety in this resurgence inthe 20th century.
As we're reading those andwe're starting to see the

(53:20):
writings that he had, we'restarting to see the evolution of
the acceptance of certain humanbehaviors and that maybe we
need to evolve, kind of as hewas trying to say and if you're
interested in his politics andstuff like that's kind of a
different area but really we'retalking about like is his impact
on crime, his crimes and howthey did bring attention to the

(53:43):
whores that were maybe beingthat not maybe, but were being
perpetrated on women at thattime.
And you know, like I said,feminist scholars have very much
lambasted him.
But I think there's also needsto be an appreciation that it
brought attention to thehorrific um, especially of women
of lower status, lower class umin France, england and even

(54:04):
today that we owe even sexworkers and stuff like that the
right to be heard and theirtortures and tormentors punished
.
The term sadism, as we talkedabout, evolved from the initial
clinical usage in psychiatry andsexology to entering kind of
more general usage term, kind ofbeing seen as referring to the

(54:25):
deviation of pleasure fromafflicting pain, humiliation or
dominance, not necessarily in asexual context.
So I mean it's not uncommonI've heard it where people will
be like, oh my boss is such asadist, like he wants us to stay
late this week, and you're likeI don't know if you really know
what that term originates from.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Yeah, I think sadistic at this point just
means, in common language, theintentional infliction of harm
or pain on another.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
And getting pleasure from doing it Right, Like my
boss really likes making me saveafter he's so sadistic and
you're like ooh so modern usagedistinguished between clinic and
sadism and consensual BDSMpractices.
So I think there also needs tobe very big clarification in the
understanding of the termsadism when used by consensual
adults and then what we'retalking about here of

(55:12):
unconsensual torture and harm ofan individual really for the
purpose of power and your owngratification of domination.
So in the end, like we justkind of wanted to bring
attention to the Marquis de SadeI don't know if you have any
last thoughts on him.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
Just to me it's interesting the way we fixate on
some of these things.
Like, if you look at criminalminds, I feel like almost every
other episode of criminal mindshad some type of sadistic killer
involved in the episodes, Tothe point where, like there was
one point where I was watchingit and I was like I don't even
know if I can keep watching thisshow because it just was
getting so dark, even though itwas fictional.

(55:50):
But he definitely, in my mind,was one of the first ones who
pressed those lines and took theart way past where it was
before as far as like theliterary art side of it, to the
point today where we have likeTV shows like Criminal Minds.
That really pushes thoseboundaries and you see things.

(56:11):
You're like I really I reallydidn't want those images in my
head right before I went tosleep.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
And I think with him like there's so many writers and
authors that push thoseboundaries in their writings and
their works.
But when you talk to themthey're very normal.
Where the Marquis de Sade waslike no, no, I'm writing this,
this is my life Like I really doembody these views and I think
that kind of goes back to likeEdgar Allan Poe.

(56:38):
I don't think he likeappreciated that side of him.
To like Edgar Allen Poe, Idon't think he like appreciated
that side of him.
But I think like Poe took veryeven at his time what was
considered almost taboo look athuman mental health and behavior
and that darkness of murder andthe fascination with killing
and people at that time evenkind of weren't accepting of
Poe's work.

(56:58):
And now now he's a literaryhero.
The only difference was Poekind of only harmed himself, not
other people.
But I think like to end thisepisode we'll leave it with the
words of the Marquis himselfwhere he said in one of his
writings if it is the dirtyelement that gives pleasure to
the act of lust, then thedirtier it is, the more
pleasurable it is bound to be.

(57:19):
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(57:42):
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(58:03):
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We also have an Instagram page,which is Deviant underscore
Criminology.
Find me at drrichardweaver onInstagram and as we grow, we

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hope to develop a community thatwill grow with us.
So again, thank you for takingthe time to listen and have a
good week.
Thank you.