What books, or manuscripts do you think are the most disgusting and depraved ever written?
While I thankfully haven’t read Marquis de Sade, even Wikipedia’s descriptions make me ill. His work isn’t just vulgar or obscene but sadistic, inhuman, and graphic to the point of making it parodic and comedic (ie like Itchy and Scratchy’s gratutious violence) if de Sade wasn’t being serious. Hell, even Agent Trower’s favourite novel Hogg probably is only tenth as perverted and depraved as de Sade’s mildest works. It is unfortunate that this man was not purged from the Earth for he was an utter moral corruption to humanity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Sade_bibliography
Marquis de Sade is kinda bad. I tried to read something of his… Justine. There are a lot of Justine copycats on the internet though if you search a catalog of online erotica. For some people I guess that stuff really does it for them.
I understand your point, but there’s evidence the Marquis actually raped and tortured people. It makes reading his stuff even creepier.
Seconded. My husband has a gazillion allergies and he’s probably allergic to most of the things in that book. It’s really hard to find desserts he can eat and you gotta feel pity for someone who can’t even have chocolate.
I never really thought that the Marquis de Sade was all that disturbing. I read some of his stuff back in undergrad and was actually kind of surprised by how un-shocked I was by it.
Take a look at his life. Most of what I’m reading is pretty pedestrian by “evil” standards - blasphemy, affairs, seductions (attempted or successful), “mistreatment” of several prostitutes (whatever that means), abduction and abuse of a prostitute, and sexual mistreatment of some servants, who ran away.
No mass imprisonments of nubile youths and grandiose experiments of decadent filth. No mass murders. He was not a good man by any means, but we’ve had criminals rot in prisons, names forgotten by all, who’ve done worse.
But no, you condemned him for his writings, and wanted him wiped from the earth for that. Despising someone that much for some S&M novels is a bit much.
“Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.”
Exodus 35:2
“But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.”
Numbers 31: 18
“If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you."
Deuteronomy 22:23-24
“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”
Leviticus 20:13
"Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church. "
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
This book promotes murder, rape, slavery, racism, sexism, genocide, etc and there are many millions of people who claim to use it as their source of morality. It is the most disgusting work ever written beyond any reasonable doubt.
Wait a minute. The last time someone recommended something “disgusting and depraved” to the OP, he was practically run off the SDMB on a rail. I think discretion is best in this matter.
No, but once you (or anyone) starts wanting to put on the “Arbiter of All That’s Good and Holy to Read” hat, I get nervous. Your thread title led me to believe that you wanted to talk about disgusting written works. I agree; de Sade’s stuff is majorly sick shit. But wanting to kill him for it comes dangerously close to suggesting we punish people for thought crimes, and I just can’t get behind that.
As a person, irrespective of anything he’s written, I don’t know much about de Sade. Olives mentioned that he really did rape and kill people. So if we’re going to argue whether he should have been killed at birth, let’s argue that and not bring written works into it. In sum, it seems you want to follow this implication chain:
disgusting writing ==> disgusting person ==>person should be killed
Take the Aristocrats joke. I just watched a clip on YouTube of Bob Saget doing telling it. The point of the joke is to come up with the most sick, sadistic, morally reprehensible, and outrageous things humans can do to each other in the context of a family putting on a show for a talent agent. The punchline of the joke isn’t what makes it funny; its how outrageous and twisted the scenario described by the comedian is. There is nothing sacred, and it even makes me wince when I watch some of the other versions told by, e.g., Gilbert Gottfried.
Now, since Bob Saget and Gilbert Gottfried came up with all of this twisted stuff, does that make them bad people? Should we eliminate them because of some sick stuff they wrote (or, said, in this case)? That’s what I thought you were getting at in your first post, and that’s what I’m objecting to.