Marquis de Sade

Daily writing prompt
Who is your favorite historical figure?
By Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Marquis_de_sade.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=408159

While he was, probably*, a terrible person in all the ways a person can be terrible, his existence – or at least the contemporary use of his name (i.e. Sadism) – is something that has a direct, positive and fun influence on my life.

There is no BDSM without Sadism.

*Different historians report varing degrees of terribleness.