The Depravity of the Marquis De Sade
4/14/202645 min
Sadism - the derivation of pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering and humiliation on others - is named after this man. So what exactly did he do?
Kate is joined by journalist and author Joel Warner to discuss the Marquis de Sade, an 18th Century French aristocrat who committed a multitude of crimes, yet survived three distinct political regimes and decades of imprisonment.
Joel is the author of ‘The Curse of the Marquis De Sade’, and managing editor at 'The Lever'.
This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.
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First 90 secondsKate Lister· Host0:00
Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history, like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods, or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. Hello, my lovely Betwixtors. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the show where we look at the awful things people have done to each other and to, well, other things as well, in the pursuit of pleasure. That's right, we root around in the pants of history for your entertainment. But before we can do any of that, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults, about adulty things in an adulty way, covering adult subjects, and you should be an adult, too. Do you feel safer? I feel safer. Right. Let's do it. [Instrumental music] The 14th of July, 1789, and we are in revolutionary France. The Bastille is falling. The medieval fortress turned prison holds just a handful of prisoners, as crowds of revolutionaries storm in, searching for gunpowder. And one aristocrat who survives the Bastille because he was whisked away mere weeks before it all happened, was the