A simple answer is that people are fascinated by the grotesque whereas wholesome stuff is just blah. 50 Shades of Grey is an perfectly mediocre novel, but will sell many tens of multiples of critically acclaimed books.
So the simple rebut is that the pseudo intellectual classes always poo poo what appeals to the common man. But they love this stuff, and, the common people do not like it. That’s really the only thing that is interesting about de Sade and his fan club: the curious inversion.
& p.s. my personal sense is that de Sade legitimizes oppression as natural pleasure and that’s what makes him the court philosopher of the modern elite.
that's funny in a sad way. no, the post-enlightenment post-rationalist elite, the 'modern age'.
And this: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc/c/...
Safe to say Elon has some affinity for De Sade.