The Sadeian Test of Sexism

A tongue-in-cheek test, but surprising and interesting in its results.

I have been enamored of late with Sade's "120 Days of Sodom", largely because it defied every of its proponents' and detractors' descriptions. You likely know of the "120 Days" as: sex pervert's evil fantasy, but in reality there's almost a voyeuristic nature to "Sodom", as if Sade is looking at you while you're reading it and wondering what your reaction is. Depending on how you analyze it - and there are many ways to look at it - it has the character of a troll.

Onto the test. As I said, the book has the reputation as sex pervert's evil fantasy, but one should be careful to note that the cruelties and injustices commited by the friends are done to both girls and boys alike. The ending is a bloodbath for both sexes.

Another notable trait is, most of the sexual acts in the novel are consensual. Is there sexual assault? Yes, dear Lord, yes. However, Madame Duclos, our storyteller (and, ultimately, our only storyteller, as "Sodom" goes unfinished), participates in all of her sexual acts consensually, and most of the women she hires do so as well. Duclos is initiated at a dishearteningly young age, and yet Sade clearly demonstrates that her venality and not her innocence is the major catalyst for her complicity. She, furthermore, doesn't participate in acts she does not approve of, nor is she greatly harmed or humiliated in them; in one or two tales she is surprised, but richly rewarded for her surprises. Apart from his own sexual attraction, Sade categorizes people by their willingness to deprave and be depraved; this, arguably, is one of the most significant categorizations he makes.

Sade, therefore, gives more agency to his female characters than others. It's surprising, but it's true. Sure, Duclos is alone, and we do not know the stories of the other storytellers, and yet Sade privileges the four storytellers so much it's clear he elevates them in spite of their gender. I was surprised that a number of classics were below Sade's famously misanthropic work in terms of their own beliefs in mankind's potential.

And so, the Sade Test of Sexism. The test is in the form of these questions:

1. Is there a woman in the novel who shows agency, or explicit acceptance of her situation?

2. Is this woman "othered", in that she has a special existence, possibly contingent?

3. If the woman were given a choice to choose a better option out of at least two, would she choose it on her own volition?

4. Does she have an understanding of her environment and can she affect it?

The output of the test is simple: Is the work more sexist than "120 Days of Sodom"? Forgive me: I find this really, really funny.

If you don't find this funny, I refer you back to the output: there's really nothing serious to take from this. But I do think it's interesting.

In investigating Broch's "The Sleepwalkers", I realized there is an add-on:

1. Is the author espousing a specific viewpoint on women, or does he or she hate human beings generally?

And now, onto the battery of tests for books I have read:

1. Voltaire's works - The fiction of the man considered a defender of human liberty, is more sexist than "The 120 Days". The virtues of the women in Voltaire's fiction lies in sex. When women are not faithful i.e. they're not faithful to the protagonists, the narrator curses them for their fickleness. The outlier is the Queen of "Zadig", who, despite being a queen, is helpless to save her kingdom in spite of being ... a queen. And it's considered tragic and comic that Cunegonde in "Candide" becomes ugly.

2. Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" - This other defender of human liberty, is more sexist than "The 120 Days". Gulliver's wife is helpess; the Lilliputian queen is peed on; the Brobdingnagian women like to expose themselves; and Swift has some very scathing words for the Laputan women. The Houyhnhnms are different but they're also horses.

3. Shakespeare's plays - The OG, the Evergreen, the English Bard, passes with flying colors. Every woman in his plays - except maybe his early ones I haven't read - exhibits agency, and even the ones destined for doom have a very good reason for their complicity.

4. James Joyce's works - James Joyce, like Shakespeare, consistently passes, from "Portrait", to "Dubliners", to "Ulysses", to "Finnegans Wake". Though "Ulysses" has Cissy Caffrey, she is more than compensated by Gerty MacDowell and the rich Molly Bloom.

5. William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" - Undetermined. I'm not sure how I feel about Caddy, who comes off to me as a strange, magical character from Nazi Germany. I may need to read the novel again to see what Faulkner's overall tone is with her.

6. William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" - Passes. Dewey Dell has agency, it's just that she, like the other Bundrens, prefers to do nothing. Her interaction with Vardaman is touching.

7. F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" - It's been forever since I read it but I think, to few people's surprise, that this is more sexist than "The 120 Days". I mean, c'mon, the women exist to be ogled at. Sure, satire, sure, but it's fiction, and the author is always free to shape and mold the interpretations of their characters.

8. Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" - Undetermined. I don't remember what happens in the novel. Hestor messes around for two hundred pages and then she holds hands at the end.

9. Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" - Passes. Grete is a jerk.

10. Franz Kafka's overall oeuvre - Passes, because Kafka has never met a human being before. (I love his work.)

11. Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" - It's been a long time since I read it, but it passes. You can call Austen's work a perpetuation of a patriarchy, sure, fine, whatever, but Austen consistently shows that the women ... like their situation, and they do, in fact, show agency often.

12. Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" - It's been a long time but I don't remember Lucie doing a damn thing and she's like the most important character in it.

13. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" - Katerina Ivanovna singlehandedly saves the novel for being so funny, spirited and delusional. To be clear, I have a deep, deep admiration for this book, but I never understood why Sonya does specifically what she does, Dunya is doll-like, and Raskolnikov's mother is always crying.

14. Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" - I don't remember the titular character's actions much. Kitty Shcherbatsky rubs me the wrong way, but so does Levin; I love Dolly to pieces though and so this gets a pass. (Actually, Anna does a lot! Yeah no, this gets a full-on pass.)

15. William Gass's "The Tunnel" - I love William Gass, I have not read his other work, but "The Tunnel" passes with flying colors. It's interesting how Kohler is a huge piece of shit and yet his gripes with women come specifically from his relationship with them; Kohler's relationship with Lou, in particular, is stunning.

16. William Gaddis's "The Recognitions" - Esme and Esther do not put Gaddis in a good light. I know they're both tragic characters, but...

17. John Barth's "The Sot-Weed Factor" - I'm not done with this and I think my opinion will change, but there's so much rape. It is not looking good so far for Barth, although a woman gets one of the best tales in the book via the Tom Leech. To be fair to Barth and Gaddis, they were very young men when they wrote their novels. (Postscript: At book's end the test is very dire for Barth.)

18. Samuel Beckett's works - Are there even human beings in his writing?

19. Gertrude Stein's "Three Lives" - You wouldn't think it, but despite Stein's prose running like rain the women do, in fact, exercise a choice. It's only because Stein wants you to know how they feel rather than what they think.

20. Julio Cortazar's "Hopscotch" - Very much so passes. La Maga is a weird character, but Talita clears, as well as Babs and others.

21. James Alan McPherson's "Hue and Cry" - Passes. Yes, characters like Philomena Brown exist, but she serves the very intentional purpose of showing how race and gender relate.

22. Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano" - I love, love, love this book, but Yvonne's role in the novel is to passive-aggressively nudge the Consul into not doing the thing he had been doing for years.

23. Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" - Passes. We don't know if Montana Wildhack is real (c'mon! look at her name!) and the novel begins with the best female character, Mary O'Hare, who very angrily gets a cold Coke, from what I recall.

24. Hermann Broch's "The Sleepwalkers" - Another book I love so deeply, but Elizabeth, Ruzena and Hannah Wendling do not look good, man. Thankfully, the men look worse. It actually doesn't make sense to put this book here, but that's also the point of showing the capabilities of the test.

25. Mark Twain's work - Passes!

26. Henry James's work - Does Henry James even think like a human (I love him, by the way).

27. Pablo Picasso's paintings of women - Inconclusive, but it's hard not to be disturbed while looking at them.

28. Bill Burr's standup - The biggest fool in Burr's stories is himself, so he gets a pass.

29. Chris Rock's standup - I'm not touching this with a 50 foot pole.

30. Drake's discography - It depends. When Drake was in a good mood ("Views" (2016) and before), pass; when Drake is in a bad mood, more sexist.

31. Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun (If The Homies Can't Have None)" - More sexist.