Us Two—the magazine—is more obscene than Sade
Simple Passion“Us Two—the magazine—is more obscene than Sade” is an epigraph attributed to Roland Barthes that establishes a pointed contrast between romantic convention and sexual transgression. In the book’s framing, the apparent modesty of a popular love-story magazine may conceal an intensity that makes romance, rather than explicit deviation, the more unsettling subject.
Wording and Attribution
The expression appears first in French: “Nous deux—le magazine—est plus obscène que Sade.” Its English rendering retains the magazine title as “Us Two” and identifies the comparison’s two poles: a mass-market romance publication and Sade. The epigraph’s attribution to Roland Barthes places the sentence before the narrative as a lens for reading, rather than as a claim made by a character within a scene.
The Comparison
The phrase turns on a reversal. It suggests that romantic convention can be more “obscene” than writing associated with sexual deviation—not because the epigraph describes either in detail, but because it asks what kinds of desire and intensity familiar love stories make visible or conceal. Its compact, declarative form sharpens that paradox: the ordinary magazine is cast as the more provocative object.
Function in the Book
The book’s opening quotation invites readers to test the relation between romance and obscenity against the account that follows. A discussion prompt makes the implication explicit by asking whether romance is more obscene than sexual deviation and how the book compares in “obscenity,” with passages as evidence. The expression therefore works both as an interpretive provocation and as a question for readers, not as a definitive explanation of the narrative.
