Talk:Marquis de Sade

@Straw Cat I have removed the material you have added because it is gives undue weight to a late twentieth century crime which has little to do with Sade's legacy. The material you added itself states that it was only suggested in court that one of the Moors murderers was influenced by Sade and that the evidence suggests that this was not the case. There is already an article on the Moors murders and the connection between Sade and these murders is tenuous at best and cannot be said to be part of Sade's legacy. Biographies and historical articles are also supposed to be based on the most reliable academic sources, not sensational biographies and true crime reporting about other topics. Tabloid language such as "one of the most heinous crime in UK history" should also be avoided. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

I have added a general statement on debates over the link between Sade's work and later serial killers.Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 02:06, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

@Hamoudd1740 I have reverted your edits to the info box because you have inserted information which isn't reliably sourced and does not accurately reflect what's in the article. Namely:

1) School: Libertine

The info box is supposed to be a summary of key information in the article. MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Nowhere in the article does it state that Sade was a philosopher of the libertine school. He was indeed a libertine, and was interested in libertinism, but that is a different thing and is already stated in the lead and info box. If you want to add that Sade was a member of the libertine school of philosophy you will need to cite reliable sources which state this. My understanding is that the whole idea of "schools of philosophy" is outdated and doesn't have much support among contemporary philosophers. But I am happy to be proved wrong if you can come up with reliable sources.

2) Notable ideas: Sadism

Sadism wasn't a notable idea of Sade's and he never used the word. According to the article and the reliable sources, the term was coined by Kraft-Ebbing in 1865 to refer to a sexual pathology. It doesn't matter what other wikipedia articles say because one wikipedia article is not a reliable source for another one. If you want to state that Sadism was one of Sade's notable ideas then you will need to cite reliable sources stating this. It's not enough to state that Sade was a sadist, or that some of his characters were later classified as sadists. You need to find reliable sources that states that Sadism was his notable idea. (By the way, you should not wikilink to a disambiguation page.)

I am happy to discuss this further, but please do not reinstate your changes and conduct a discussion through edit summaries. This might breach policy on consensus building. It's much less disruptive to discuss disagreements here on the article talk page and confine ourselves to policy and reliable sources. We editors should keep our own interpretation of Sade's life and works out of it. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, "Libertine" as the school and "Sadism" as a notable idea of his weren't even additions of mine; those were already in the article long before my account even existed.

You randomly took them out upon reverting my additions, and I merely put them back; you can go look at the edit logs if you wish—those were there before I did anything.

"Libertine" is also a literary school, not necessarily or exclusively a philosophical one—which, yes, the article does note Sade's having written libertine novels. So even following your reasoning, its inclusion under the infobox is accurate.

In any event you're making the same points on Sadism as before—points I've already responded to—without addressing anything I said.

It does not matter when the term was coined or whether he used the term or what the term once meant, what matters is whether he expounded the concept and whether the term as it's defined today accurately captures said concept; the term having been coined later with a different definition is simply irrelevant—forgive my candour.

I also do not recall having cited another wikipedia page as a source for any of my edits? Not sure what you're responding to there. Hamoudd1740 (talk) 06:06, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I didn't randomly take things out, I took them out for the reasons discussed in the edit summaries and discussed more fully here. I didn't say you put them in originally, but you did put them back in. Under policy if someone (in this case you) reinstates unsourced information it is up to them to provide reliable sources to justify it. See WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN. I have responded to the points to made before but you don't seem to grasp this. It is not up to us as editors to decide which "school" Sade belongs to, or whether he Sadism is one of his notable ideas. You need to cite reliable sources which say this. If you can find a source that explicitly says that Sade belonged to the "libertine school of literature" or "the libertine school of philosophy" then please cite it. We already say in the info box that Sade was interested in libertinism. Isn't that enough? If you can find a reliable source which says that Sadism was one of Sade's notable ideas (rather than just a sexual pathology he suffered from) then please cite it. There were sadists before Sade. What did he invent? What are your sources? Info boxes can distort information more than they illuminate. Just because an info box (designed for articles about philosophers) has an option for "school" doesn't mean it needs to be filled in. We don't need to shoehorn information into an info box if it doesn't really fit. Sade wrote novels about libertines and sadists. The article, lead and info box makes this perfectly clear. But is it really true that he belonged to a school of libertinism or Sadism was his idea? You need to show that the consensus of reliable sources state exactly that. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:38, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

PS: Perhaps you can add sadism to Sade's main interests? But you will have to decide which article on Sadism to link. There are three and they really need to be merged into one. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough on my putting it back, though your reasoning remains somewhat odd all the same.

To be clear, you agree that Sade was a libertine and libertine writer, but for some reason concluding that Sade therefore belonged to the libertine school and attributing him to it in the article requires independent source material explicitly stating so?? Why? It follows from those facts you agree with and which are themselves substantiated elsewhere in this same article?

This would be akin to saying and having established that Marcus Aurelius was a stoic writer and philosopher but then refusing to attribute him to Stoicism without having a source explicitly attributing him thereto—makes no sense, no?

Anyhow, on sadism: you actually never addressed anything I said, and I'm not sure whether you ever read my reply to your first message to me; I never said Sade made up sadism or that he was the first sadist—not the point.

The reason it was put under the "notable ideas" category in the first place most likely lies in his having expounded and philosophized on it to an unprecedented degree and scale, although I suppose you are correct in that putting it under "main interests" would perhaps be more accurate given the abovementioned facts you named regarding him and sadism—fair point.

In any event it's fine, I'll cease my editing—no worries.

Take care. Hamoudd1740 (talk) 12:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Hamoudd1740 I apologise for my hostile tone in this interaction. The last thing I want is to put you off editing. We need good editors who are knowledgeable and passionate about their subjects of interest. The issue I have is whether these particular edits improve the article or not. As I said above, trying to fit complex information into slots in a pre-existing info box often distorts and oversimplifies information which is better explained in prose. The lead says, "His major works include The 120 Days of Sodom, Justine, Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom, which combine graphic descriptions of sex acts, rape, torture, murder, and child abuse with discourses on religion, politics, sexuality, and philosophy. The word sadism derives from his fictional characters who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others." I think this is a fairly good stab at describing his work. The info box currently states that his main interests were: Pornography, atheism, materialism, libertinism, moral nihilism. if we add sadism to that list I think that would be quite accurate. There are plenty of reliable sources that confirm this list. The issue is, is it accurate to say that he belonged to a "libertine school" of philosophy or literature, and that his main idea was Sadism? I would say "no" based on the consensus of reliable sources. First, I doubt that there is such a thing as a libertine school of philosophy or literature. Secondly, his genre has been variously described as pornography, violent pornography, philosophical literature, didactic literature, gothic literature, child pornography, misogynist pornography, rape and murder fantasies, etc. On what basis then do we classify his "school" as libertine as opposed to, say, "atheist", or "materialist" or "nihilist"? Or his literary genre sas "libertine" as opposed to violent pornography? Or gothic literature? Surely it's better to just indicate the range of interests. Your example of Marcus Aurelius isn't a good one, because there must be thousands of reliable sources which describe him as a stoic philosopher. And that was an era when there really were "schools" of philosophy. As for Sadism being his "notable idea" I still think this is plain wrong for the reasons I have already stated. He certainly had an interest in Sadism, and had several brushes with the law because of it. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

The redirect Sadisticon has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 March 21 § Sadisticon until a consensus is reached. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:46, 21 March 2026 (UTC)