Editing Gothic Horror (section)

===Unspeakable Vices===
Landowners, aristocrats, and authority figures have a feudal relationship to those under their control; in return for power and loyalty, they have responsibilities to their "vassals." They are expected to be morally able to resist any temptations that this brings. Those who abuse positions of power, breaking this natural law, often engage in unspeakable and unnatural vices, in the form of debauched orgies of perverted sex, depravity, blasphemy, and obscenity.

To early Victorians, it was almost within living memory that the Marquis de Sade had claimed the right to commit sadistic torture and rape on lesser beings as an inalienable perquisite of the aristocracy. Only a truly corrupted soul would consider it to be his right to indulge in activities that go beyond the pale, and even he must make his arrangements private. Such vices are often indulged in hidden rooms and require any evidence (such as dead bodies) to be covered up.