Now here's a birthday boy who would properly enjoy his birthday spanking: The infamous Marquis de Sade was born this day June 2, 1740 in Paris.

Among several earlier stints in prison, de Sade spent 11 years in prison, freed finally in the mass releases of Bastille Day in 1789.

He did most of his writing while he was locked up, naturally. He was too busy on the outside debauching. Fortunately for us, the authorities of the day didn't have enough sense to figure out that letting him personally indulge his appetites would do them far less damage than causing him to channel that energy into books and plays to stir the public imagination.

As it was, he wrote bunches of books and plays and stuff. His best known works include 120 Days of Sodom and Philosophy in the Bedroom, which involved extreme sex games and torture mixed with harsh philosophical musings.

You can download copies of some of de Sade's work RIGHT HERE. Learn how to play "kick the chair".

I find that the sex parts wear thin after a while. The more interesting aspect is his pure iconoclasm. He really didn't put truck in authority nor tradition. He was pure high intellect id. He must have been just a heck of a funny guy.