The life of the Marquis De Sade was a long rich and entitled one. Maintaining power through various stays in prison and asylums he utilized immense wealth and an aristocratic background to get essentially whatever he wanted even while incarcerated. He threaded the needle throughout the revolution utilizing radical politics to avoid association with a majority of the nobility. All of this ties into his writing very clearly. His life in the upper crust of France gave him all the material he needed to outline the mindset of someone so flush with power almost no one can stop them. It is very likely to a lesser degree some of the extreme acts in 120 Days of Sodom are drawn directly from his life outside of the scandals we know about. His pedophilia in the “little girls affair” (makes my skin crawl to type that) is not even something that is unheard of in the modern day. Jeffrey Epstein’s island of Little Saint James or North Fox Island in the 80s as well as the late 70s texas child sex rings are all like tied to many wealthy powerful people in todays society. Many of these people probably have access to more wealth and resources than some of the richer nobles in 18th century france. In regards to the origin of Sade’s sexual degeneracy and want to harm others, I think a clear connection to his morally dubious time living with his uncle, his upbringing around the immediate royal family, his early history of violence in childhood, his experiences in Jesuit College, and his successful but marred military service all indicate him to be someone both somewhat inherently and also nurtured to be very violent and careless with human life. I think it unlikely many people told him to value other human beings and I would imagine his father’s mistress, his uncle, and his peers in the military led him to hold very calloused beliefs towards most virtuous aspects of life.