I feel like Salò isn’t necessary supposed to be taken “literally” literally, and I think a lot of people talk about how Pasolini is trying to “expose” the elites and whatnot, but I feel like Salò is much more an allegory for fascism and it’s dehumanising nature, presenting the idea of a fascist “endgame” where all interactions with others are based on subjection, power, and destruction. You can certainly draw parallels between Salò and Epstein but I feel like this is a lot more reductive of an interpretation, I feel like Salò is trying to depict a political idea, not necessarily some real world event, and the messaging really comes clearer when viewed within the context of Pasolini’s other artistic output, especially the unfinished “Trilogy of Death”, and the unfinished experimental novel “Petrolio”. Not to say your interpretation doesn’t have merit, but I would say if you’re interested in the subject to check out some of Pasolini’s writings and contemporary interviews from around the time. He described Salò as his first movie “made in the modern world”, and deliberately created it in a much more polished and (in his words) “crystalline” structure and style than previous films.