Who comes to mind when you think of a “kinky” historical figure? JFK cheating on his wife with Marilyn Monroe? There's no compelling evidence that they even hooked up. Bill Clinton and his cigar? No proof that it's true.
This is a list of the kinkiest historical figures whose sexual preferences are well-documented. There are some affairs mentioned herein, some sick thoughts or two, and, uh, one instance of actual seppuku. Also, maybe some incest from history? It's kind of unclear what was going on with Gandhi, but it definitely wasn't good. Read on to learn about some of the kinkiest presidents and historical leaders with fetishes you won't believe.
This one’s complicated, but we know this much for sure: Gandhi slept next to a lot of naked women over the years, including some of his relatives. Even in his later years, Gandhi would request that various women - including his grandniece - sleep next to him, naked. Even when the other women in the ashram were forbidden to sleep next to their own husbands, Gandhi would sleep next to his naked physician, his grandnephew’s wife, etc. It’s all out in the open, according to his biographer Jad Adams. He claimed, of course, that none of this was at all sexual, even claiming that he would shut his eyes when bathing with his secretary’s sister.
Irish author James Joyce loved farts. He especially loved his wife Nora’s farts. Thanks to Richard Ellman’s Selected Letters of James Joyce, the whole world knows exactly how much:
"You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I f*cked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to f*ck a farting woman when every f*ck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also."
Author Ernest Hemingway once wrote his girlfriend, actress Marlene Dietrich, a letter describing how he would improve her Las Vegas stage show. It’s kinky as hell. He says that the show would start with her being shot, naked and drunk, out of a tank. The tank would “roll over the customers” as Hemingway stripped off his “evening clothes” to cover her and reveal his “physique.” He would be holding a “Giant Rubber Whale called Captain Ahab” while “reversed vacuum cleaners” then blew his clothes off of her, etc. It’s a kinky nightmare, really.
Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima thought that seppuku - self-disemboweling with samurai sword - was “the ultimate form of masturbation.” Mishima was also a frequent and “frantic”actual masturbator, but what turned him on was a little… strange. His first orgasm at age 12 was to a picture of St. Sebastian “bound and pierced by arrows.” Mishima ended his own life, with a little help from a friend, by literally performing seppuku with a 17th-century samurai sword.
Plenty of authors have thought “Screw this bad review!” over the years, but sci-fi legend H. G. Wells actually decided to screw on top of a bad review… and then light it on fire. Michael Sherborne writes about the kinky act in H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life. Wells was apparently quite the Lothario, accumulating plenty of mistresses over the years. One such mistress was an unnamed Australian novelist that helped Wells get his revenge (or something) on a bad review by critic Humphrey Ward. The two did the deed on top of the review, and then, according to Wells, “when we had dressed again we lit a match and burnt her.” Whatever works for you, H. G.!
Author Hans Christian Andersen would draw a small cross-like mark in his journal on the days that he masturbated. Sometimes he would even indicate that his penis was sore from masturbating by writing “penis sore” next to an entry. Historians say he was publicly “unnerved by anything having to do with sex and flustered by the sexuality of women” and only visited a brothel once at the age of 61, despite having always longed to do so. He paid the madame five francs, but only to look at one young girl that he “felt very sorry for.”
