Man, does this make atheists look bad. This is one of issues that I had with this book. As an atheist myself, I often struggle to convince people that I can be moral without at god, and the libertine movement kind of throws that all out the window and does the opposite. Obviously, these guys are not an accurate representation of the atheist population, but this would be fuel to the fire for any critics.I've been reading other reviews that describe this as a psychological mind game, but I don't know how much I actually buy that. Marquis de Sade wrote this while imprisoned for doing some of the same stuff (to a much lesser extreme) that our "heroes" did in the book. Is he playing mind games, or just writing down the thoughs in his head. The guy didn't seem altogther stable, so is it really that genious? Though, at times, it does seem like he is taking horrible crimes and taking them a step further, which alludes to perhaps satire of the libertine movement, or just a more pronounced writing style than I'm giving him credit for.In taking everything a step further, it did lead to some comedic elements, probably the only thing that kept me from rating this a one star. There were a couple of times that I laughed out load like whenSPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!the storyteller discussed turkey fucking. Or stories involving a man copulating with an animal, creating a monster baby, and then sodomizing that monster animal baby. Props for creativity.However, most of the book, the first half especially was boring, and for me, that was the downfall. Yes, we get it. You are men that love ass play (so much ass play) and eating feces. Every time Duclos entered the arena I rolled my eyes and actually thought about skipping pages.Maybe the first time feces was eaten there was shock value, but Marquie de Sade actually was able to desensitize me to that. If that was intentional, again, I have to give de Sade more credit, but something tells me that it was just crazy prision rambling.

Repulsive. I enjoyed it tho.