Indeed, there's not much content to De Sade - basically, it's just cheap pulp erotica, often themed on sexual violence. You can't take it seriously, though, and I don't think there's any attempt to, and that helps form an emotional buffer for the reader.
I guess I was really asking if there's a similar sense of gratuity in the sexual violence of the Gap series. I figure it's a pretty silly question, but it seemed worth asking last night.
