stylistic:style_transfer, quality:corruption, stylistic:tone
Controversy

Marshall writes that Sade's "known behaviour (which includes only the beating of a housemaid and an orgy with several prostitutes) departs greatly from the clinical picture of active sadism." Phillips states "there is no reason to believe that any of this behaviour involved compulsion." Dworkin, however, argues that the issue is whether one believes Sade or his female accusers and that admirers of Sade "attempt to justify, trivialize, or deny (even though records confirming the facts exist) every assault Sade ever committed against women and girls." Gray states that Sade engaged in "psychic terrorism" and that "Sade's brand of sadism was often more mental than corporeal." According to Bongie, Sade perpetrated "crimes of physical violence committed during sexual assaults on hapless prostitutes. Such assaults, aggravated by death threats and the element of recidivism, could easily get an offender into similar difficulties today."