Who wouldn't want to write history? Well, I wouldn't mind. Only if it's about something positive, of course. Because that would mean that I had achieved something great. But my sexual inclinations shouldn't be the reason for that. I'd rather keep them to myself. However, two men managed to do just that and went down in sexual history with their desires. Not only that, their names are still on everyone's lips today:

• Both lived a long time ago.
• Both left behind literary works that still inspire many a lover today and, above all, many a contemporary author.
• Today, both names stand for their own sexual preference.

We are talking about the Marquis Donatien-Alphonse-Francois de Sade (1740-1814) and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895). They certainly didn't think so when they lived, loved and wrote. And today they stand together for the great opposites of sadism and masochism - sadomasochism. Inseparably linked. For all eternity. Yet they didn't even live at the same time. And above all, their works are fundamentally different.

The origin of flagellantism

The Marquis de Sade (1780-1814) actually only did what was not at all unusual sexual behavior even back then: he beat, he whipped, he humiliated. He lived at a time when prostitutes in England were equipped with all kinds of spanking tools to educate their clients. And they must have had customers, because the terms flagellantism and English education actually originated at this time.

Dangerous love affairs in the age of pompous absolutism

However, this was not the favorite activity of the masses. They were already more than occupied with mere survival. Just think of the starving population in the period before the French Revolution. The nobility, however, lived in opulence and passed the time with games. At that time, sexual intercourse itself seemed to be less of a focus than the seduction that preceded it. We know this very well from the film Dangerous Liaisons with Glenn Close, John Malkovic and Michelle Pfeiffer. Incidentally, the basis for this movie is actually a novel from 1782, which was a scandal at the time.

The dangerous game of the Marquis de Sade

The Marquis de Sade was a master at playing games. He organized orgies and fucked his way through all levels of society. In the rather uninhibited realization of his pronounced preferences, he also violated the law and morals. Where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge. Unfortunately, in the case of the Marquis, there were plaintiffs. And so he was often reported to the police because of his sexual practices.

Perhaps this would have been swept under the carpet, as with similar cases from the same period. After all, the nobility enjoyed very special privileges. However, the marquis seemed to have been a troublemaker who felt little desire to face up to his duties at the French court. This seemed to offend the king and so the marquis was only too gladly imprisoned several times due to his tendencies.

And he would probably still have been forgotten had de Sade not left behind his extraordinary literary work. After all, he knew how to make the most of his time in prison by reading and writing. His books are a reckoning with the Ancien Régime, which stood for waste, greed and excess. The books were an incredible scandal at the time, not least because of the sexual debauchery glorifying violence. Everyone gets it on with everyone, disregarding all degrees of kinship. Everything that was forbidden at the time was practiced. All the varieties that have a name in today's sexology are also described in great detail.

However, anyone who sets out to find exciting bedtime reading here will be disappointed. Despite the pornographic content, his books are also full of social criticism and - apart from Justine - are generally not very entertaining. I know this because some of his works are lying next to me on my desk.

Vive la révolution sexuelle!

The Marquis would probably like it if he knew about this naming. Throughout his life, he struggled to be recognized for his tendency to experience pleasure through the infliction of pain, power and humiliation. He was of the opinion that these inclinations were given by nature and therefore "incurable". He saw them as the driving force behind all human action. Almost a hundred years later, Sigmund Freud formulated it similarly in his theory of the unconscious.

De Sade is also seen in some quarters as a sexual enlightener. He recognized that society dictates morality and judges what is good and what is bad. Because good and evil are highly changeable. We can see this very clearly in de Sade's sexual inclinations. After all, what landed the Marquis in prison almost 200 years ago is now officially practised in S&M studios and in private. Books such as Shades of Grey are storming the bestseller lists. Sexual sadism and sexual masochism are still on the list of sexual preference disorders. However, there are discussions about removing them from the list. A final victory for this extraordinary Frenchman!

Anja Drews - qualified sex educator for ORION