Sometimes erotica is just a shadow of real life

Continuing to ramble through classic erotic stories: let's discuss the Marquis de Sade.  We know him today primarily as the origin of the word sadism -- and for good reason.  (He also comes up with some frequency in rants about how Amazon is happy enough to carry his works but mistreats (economically, not sadistically) authors of self-published erotica.)  I can't say that his stories of abusive priests kicking pregnant women in the stomach until they miscarry invoke much in me other than nausea.  

An almost entirely fictionalized movie was made about de Sade about twenty years ago.  The main thing I remember about Quills is that its backdrop was the Reign of Terror, and its point was that no matter what horrendous torture de Sade wrote about in his novels, worse things were happening beyond (and inside) the walls of the asylum where the  movie was set.  The movie asks the question: What is worse, imagined perversions about abusive sex, or actual political perversions that lead to torture and murder in real life?