The History of Sex: Paris and Provence -- So Who's This Jesus Geezer? -- (Chap. VII, Pt. 4)

Facetiousness aside, the fact that a former prima ballerina of the Paris Opera Ballet can mount a choreographed bondage-fest out in the sticks—with the blessing of a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts—shows just how far BDSM culture has penetrated the mainstream.

The perversions of yore have become commonplace: for all I know, half the provincials in this Provençal audience are wearing nipple rings.

Artistically, though, there's nothing exciting about Sade, the dance version.

At one point, a witless murder inspires the inmates to hang the long-haired deceased a la Crucifixion (minus the traditional loincloth)—a scene that would be a lot more shocking if Europe weren't a couple of generations away from schoolchildren asking in art history: 'So who's this Jesus geezer, then?'

It's all a bit passé.

Like most modern takes on Sade the Legend, though, the ballet doesn't reflect the deeply repugnant reality that was Sade the Man.

Standing only five-foot-two, the real-life aristo was pint-sized even by the vertically challenged standards of his day.

And although handsome in his youth, by the time he turned to porn in his late forties he was so fat from guzzling wine and sweets in jail that he could hardly dress himself, let alone walk.

Though no portraits of the Marquis survive from his porn years,
Man Ray was probably right in imagining him like this...

...rather than this (a portrait of Sade in his twenties,
before he turned to writing porn)

Still, that didn't stop him from trying to keep up appearances.

Having already impoverished his wife, he continued to demand silk hair ribbons, face powder by the pound and custom-made dildos so he could sodomize himself—as well as plenty of ointment to soothe his hemorrhoids.

No wonder the legendary Marquis actually had to pay most of the people he ever slept with.

Somehow, though, the cynical, one-handed musings of this gluttonous powder puff not only presaged modern views on sexuality but also shaped them, reinforcing France as the ne plus ultra of all things sexy.

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