What Does Sade Teach Us About the Body and the Law?

Abstract

The study of perversions represents a particular challenge for analytical discourse. This is not only due to the difficult task of defining perversions but also to the questions they raise, so radical that they sometimes compel us to reconsider the foundational principles of our practice, and to produce a new version of the analytical discourse. If one acknowledges the Freudian moment in psychoanalysis as the exploration of the territory of neurosis, and the Lacanian moment as the study of psychosis, would the next step go back to the investigation of perversions? The perversions refer to an abyss of human 'nature' which, in order to be taken in account, implies a reorganization of the actual discourse that constitutes it. Besides, considering the crime as both the foundation and the condition of the law implies an inversion of the latter: an investigation in which Sade is not the first actor, but the first theorist. The horror that it inspires in us is part of the Sadean action itself, which is essentially an act of writing. In order to recognize its true value, it is necessary to place it first in its context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)