Richard Wagner
Composer Richard Wagner's obsession with sex influenced the creation of operas like "Tannhäuser," "Die Walküre," "Tristan und Isolde," and "Parsifal." By daring to depict erotic arousal, passionate ecstasy, and the agony of desire, he sparked a strong reaction among his contemporaries.
The musician ordered pink underpants and "something elegant for home evenings," detailing which ribbons and ruffles to attach. He demanded satin dresses with rich busts and bows. Whether he made these orders for himself or his wife remains unclear.
Rumors about Wagner's inclinations circulated even during his lifetime. His student Hans von Wolzogen recalled that the musician once appeared at a lesson in a woman's blouse. It was also said that in 1864, the composer fled from his creditors dressed in women's clothing.
Caligula
Legends abound about Caligula's extravagance and excessive physical pleasures. In his quest for new experiences, the Roman emperor organized orgies on galleys, dressed in women's clothes, and walked barefoot on gold coins.The ruler loved married women, seemingly deriving perverse pleasure from humiliating their husbands. During drunken feasts, he would order all the women to undress and line up before him, then select one to take aside, after which he graphically described the intimate details to everyone present, including her husband.
Megalomania, sadism, sexual deviations (including incest with his three sisters) — indeed, Caligula rightfully held the title of one of the most eccentric rulers in the history of the Roman Empire.
René Descartes
As a child, I was in love with a peer who was slightly cross-eyed. These eyes imprinted so strongly in my mind that for many years after, I fell in love with every cross-eyed woman I met. I liked them more than others simply because of this imperfection — though I didn't realize it for a long time, admitted the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes.
Once Descartes understood the reason, women with this imperfection stopped interesting him completely.
H.G. Wells
Author of over 100 books, H.G. Wells was a prophet of the sexual revolution. He believed in free love and practiced it relentlessly. The writer married twice, but neither wife satisfied him in bed. He sought adventures elsewhere: alongside his marriages, he had several long-term romances and countless short affairs.Biographers of Wells recall how the writer once connected with three young women, each half his age. It's no surprise that Herbert had a reputation as a predatory seducer. However, almost always, the initiator of these extramarital affairs was not Wells but his ardent admirers.
Clive Staples Lewis
During World War I, the author of "The Chronicles of Narnia," C. S. Lewis, began to practice the then-common British "entertainment" of sadomasochism (which he once confessed to his father while drunk). Negative experiences in school may have led Clive to this. It is quite possible that Lewis not only faced bullying but also experienced sexual harassment.Lewis's fantasies involving pain included not only women. The writer experimented with other Oxford students and later with colleagues — it is said that he paid them well for these pleasures.
James Joyce
Those who have read James Joyce's novel "Ulysses" surely remember the episodes with obscene jokes, overt masochism, and other manifestations of "deviant" sexuality. But if you want to read something truly dirty and obscene, check out Joyce's letters to his wife Nora. He wrote them during his business trip in 1909, which lasted three months. From Joyce's letters, it becomes clear that the couple had a very intense intimate life, and the writer had quite a few "quirks."
I think I would recognize Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is rather a girlish noise, not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden, dry, and dirty, like what a bold girl would let off in a school dormitory at night, writes Joyce.
Le Corbusier
French architect Le Corbusier, one of the main figures of modernism, adored full-figured women. English journalist Taya Zinkin revealed this trait of his to the world.When we got off the plane, he asked what I was doing that evening: 'I'm afraid I need to catch a train,' I replied. 'That's a pity. You're full-figured, and I like full-figured women. We could have spent a pleasant night together.' He said it quite casually. [...] Corb's ego was so enormous that he probably considered it an honor for an ordinary mortal to provide such a genius like him with a night's rest, Zinkin recalled.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
The English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne was known as the "poet's poet": he eagerly recited his poems to anyone willing to listen. His works resonated with tavern patrons and sailors in the port, with beggars on the streets and aristocrats.Many of Swinburne's poems were published only after his death. From them, people learned that spanking was an integral part of the poet's life and work. This is easy to verify by reading his pieces "Arthur's Spanking," "Reginald's Spanking," "The First Spanking of a Boy," "Charlie Collingwood's Spanking," and so on.
I praise the pain from burning rods. I carry this pain with me. The pain that lingers long — I cherish it as life itself, writes Algernon.
Napoleon
Although Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte had numerous affairs, his early sexual experiences were as humiliating as his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.The future ruler lost his virginity in a Parisian brothel, which was a particularly dirty experience. Napoleon failed with three courtesans and only succeeded with the fourth woman.
This might have contributed to the complexity of Bonaparte's subsequent marriage. The emperor's beloved, Joséphine de Beauharnais, was six years older than him, had been married before, and after the death of her first husband, became the mistress of a prominent political figure.
By the way, the ruler was obsessed with oral sex. According to historians, he constantly talked about it. Moreover, the ruler had quite interesting preferences. On his way home from business trips, he would warn his wife in advance not to wash for three days.
But no matter how compatible they were in bed, Napoleon filed for divorce after 13 years of marriage. Unfortunately, Joséphine could not conceive a child, and the emperor needed an heir.
Elvis Presley
Some of Elvis Presley's preferences are already legendary. They say he was turned on by girls in white lace panties who preferred very natural intimate grooming. Additionally, Presley didn't like tall women with big hands and feet; he was usually seen with petite ladies. However, a red flag for the musician was women with children. If the singer found out that a new acquaintance had a child, he immediately lost all sexual interest in her.Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Swiss philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the first to thoroughly explore his sexuality and see it as a crucial element of his identity. Masochism played a special role in his intimate life. Rousseau himself linked his penchant for whipping to his childhood experience: young Jean-Jacques greatly enjoyed it when his nanny spanked him for some mischief.I found an element of sensuality in pain, even in shame, explained the writer.
When Mademoiselle Lambercier noticed the unusual reaction of the child, she immediately stopped this form of punishment. However, Rousseau said that episode "defined his tastes, his desires, his passions, his very self for the rest of his life."
In his book "Confessions," the writer notes that his childhood experiences (as well as his mother's French novels, which he began reading at the age of six) made him seek "dominant mistresses."
