A passing familiarity with the work of Barthes and Proust, primarily, though likely there are others, suggests to me that either a fundamental misreading of libertinism as it is observed today has taken place, or that what we are dealing with is an expired set of justifications. Vitiated of its principles, its perversions profaned, to be a libertine at one time would have been a tricky thing to pull off. Today, however, it seems no longer permissible by the same measure that it is entirely possible.

Generally speaking, “the philosophy” of libertinism is characterized for its rejection of puritanical beliefs and norms. With Barthes and Proust as my guides, this definition seems very after the fact. What stands out rather is the conceptualization of a heightened sensuousness possessed of a liminality that collapses under scrutiny. Equipped with the faculty of the imagination as compensation for privation of phenomenal confirmation, one travels outside of phenomenal time to harness the power of the unconscious, seeking instantaneous distancing from all that is dead and deceased, all that is without eyes and ears in one sense or another. The libertinism described by our authors seems to have endorsed the aggregation of power within a conservationist strain, the very opposite of a pee party. Yet if, along the way, there was a ‘rejoicing in iniquity’ this would have been incidental and in the service of a larger point of amorality in the face of fanatical moralizing that obstructed sensory refinement. Whereas today, to flout collective conscience for the sake of thumbing one’s nose seems to get all the attention, for some reason. One declares their lack of concern as publicly as possible as though an admission ticket.

Unfortunately, the strain of libertinism evident today, versed as it may be in iniquity “because it is wrong,” seems ill-equipped to rise and take the time, much less navigate its way out of a poisoned fish. What gives away the game (and ruins it for everyone else) is the obviating of a clearly discernible code of ethics that runs through the lines of our authors prohibiting any material interestedness. Where observed, it saves its practitioners from betraying themselves. It exists a priori any quid pro quo seeking to win land; a priori the set of operations exploiting minors, miners, the starving, animals, and all that is unable to grant their consent freely. Rather, the garden variety, johnny-come-lately aspirants to a popularized libertinism who use it as a means of access seem better positioned to bury their dead than to celebrate what it means to be fully alive.