5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts

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We're not assembling a list of famous perverts to shame them or sully their memories -- many of us would have exactly this amount of sex if our positions in life allowed it. But we get so tied up in slut-shaming contemporary celebrities that it's easy to forget how some of history's greatest minds spent most their energy having the nastiest sex they could get their hands on.

For instance ...

H.G. Wells Was the Science Fiction Casanova

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
George Charles Beresford

H.G. Wells would be a giant among writers even if he had done nothing but write War of the Worlds, considering that novel pretty much invented the "alien invasion" genre. But he could also boast classics such as The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man (at that point, the fucker was just showing off). So clearly, we should focus on how this iconic author was a raging and prolific torrent of sexuality -- despite being a nerdy science fiction writer and sounding like this (about 25 seconds in):

He's no Barry White, but that, friends, is the squeak of love.

Wells, a rotund and decidedly un-Fabio-like man, behaved himself during his first marriage. However, after he divorced his first wife and married Jane Wells in 1895, he realized he was famous, wealthy, and freshly blessed with a wife who was willing to tolerate nearly any shenanigans he and his penis got up to. So he spent the rest of his life porking anything that moved.

Not only were his affairs many and varied, but he meticulously recorded each one in a diary, with detailed notes. There were women over 20 years his junior. There was Rebecca West, a famous feminist novelist, who apparently called him "My Lord, the Jaguar" for reasons that are probably best left unspeculated upon. There was almost certainly at least one Russian spy. All of them and many more were lovingly described in Wells's Ledger of Lecher, with graphic details that offered fascinating windows to the man's life. One lover was "most interestingly hairy." Another was an Australian novelist whom he boned atop a bad review, which they ceremonially burned afterwards, because why not?

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Alvim Correa


He named the tripods in War of the Worlds after his ladies' nickname for him.

But what about Mrs. Wells? Was she not distraught over H.G.'s constant running-around-having-sex-with-his-friends'-daughters antics? Strangely enough, no. Wells religiously reported his affairs at home, and even asked for permission to fool around, generally receiving little more than "Oh, you" reactions from Jane. One of the few times she genuinely shocked Wells by almost losing her temper was when he wanted to leave the upbringing of his and West's child to Jane. Her reply: "For God's sake, H.G.! Not again!"

Charles Lindbergh Had Multiple Families

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Library of Congress

You may only know Charles Lindbergh as the heroic aviator who became world-famous for flying across the Atlantic alone in a tiny airplane without dying. But he was also one of the world's biggest celebrities in his day, becoming a prize-winning author and (unintentionally) the target of one of the most infamous crimes in modern history. He was always a straightlaced type, a seemingly stiff and puritanical family man (even if he was a bit of a Nazi sympathizer).

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
CharlesLindbergh.com


Here he is with Nazi commander Henry Ford.

And a family man he was. So much, in fact, that he kept three separate secret lovers, fathered a total of seven children among them, and divided his Dad Time between these families.

His choices for secret lovers were absolutely classic porn film fodder, too; one was his secretary, and the other two were sisters. How did that happen? Well, taking advantage of being one of the few people in the world who actively flew around at that point, Lindbergh happily chased tail in Europe. First to succumb to his high-flying charm was his secretary Valeska, who later introduced him to her friends, the sisters Brigitte and Marietta, both of whom he'd go on to sex. All three women had his children, although none of them ever discussed this in public, choosing to honor a vow of secrecy they gave to Lindbergh. We only know about this because Brigitte's children chose to bring the subject to light after their mother died in 2001, thoroughly surprising the "official" Lindbergh children.

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via merkur-online.de


We're not lawyers, but we think these bastards now technically own half of Boeing.

Despite Charles being a serial adulterer and loudly pro-Nazi, all three women remained loyal to him and never married another man. This might be because Lindberg loved these ladies even more than he loved racial purity; both Brigitte and Marietta had walking disabilities, yet Eugenics Charlie didn't give a shit. There's also the fact that, despite having a lot of Dad shoes to fill, Lindbergh damn well filled them all. By all accounts, he was a loving (if rather absent) father and husband to his families left and right.

Of course, some of his offspring only knew him by a fake name, but hey, you can't have everything.

Hans Christian Andersen Was SUPER Into Masturbation

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Thora Hallager

Hans Christian Andersen was one of history's foremost fairy tale writers, having churned out classics such as The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Pea. However, that's not all he churned. The man really, really liked jerking off. We know this because he kept a diary in which he would record meeting with people, then indicate what a wonderful masturbation session he had at their expense later on. Being the kind of dude who keeps a chicken-choking diary, he sometimes went into fairly intimate details, including status updates consisting only of phrases like, "penis sore."

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Helen Stratton


If you get off to The Little Mermaid, don't worry. He did too.

His fascination with masturbation was probably due to him finding actual sex frightening and confusing, a mere glimpse of a sexy lady enough to render him into a flustered mess. As such, he lived in celibacy and likely remained a virgin throughout his life. This didn't stop him from venturing out to get, uh, "inspiration." He was known to visit prostitutes and just talk with them for a while. Then he went home and masturbated, again recording the events in his diary.

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Christian Albrecht Jensen


"And it turns out that the Emperor's wearing *no clothes at all*.
Ha ha! Hoo, HA! And now I need new pantaloons."

Like most people, Andersen did have the occasional crush. Appropriately for a writer of fairy tales -- or, incidentally, a chronic masturbator -- Andersen seemed to go for completely unobtainable women (and the occasional guy). And while many of his fans believe that this and other aspects of his celibacy were a deliberate choice so he could remain pure, we can't help but think that once your celibacy reaches "penis sore, AGAIN" levels of masturbation, maybe you're better off getting a partner already.

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts

Erwin Schrodinger Lived With Multiple Women

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Daderot/Wikimedia

Nobel-Prize-winning scientist Erwin Schrodinger is famous for his groundbreaking work in physics and philosophy, but his "Schrodinger's Cat" dilemma will probably be his legacy among regular folks like us (even though most people misunderstand it -- the point of the dilemma is that it doesn't make sense).

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Koogid/Wikimedia


Cats rarely do.

He also quite liked fuckin'.

Schrodinger viewed copulation both as an enjoyable activity and a bona fide means of achieving a higher state of consciousness. As such, his life was dotted with passionate affairs, which his wife Anna wholeheartedly supported. She even happily provided backup whenever Erwin wanted to get out of a particularly clingy tryst. Because things weren't complicated enough yet, the couple eventually took the next step and started living with a woman named Hilde, who birthed Schrodinger's child.

Old Erwin had his life exactly how he wanted it, until 1933, when Austria's flirtation with Nazism turned into heavy petting, and he decided it was time to get the hell out. However, while other talented minds were jumping ship and leaving everything behind with relative ease, Schrodinger's visa issues proved a little more ... complicated. Not only did he need a visa for himself and his wife, but he also needed one for Hilde. The best option was to take a position in a foreign university, with them as his assistants, but the issue was finding an institution that didn't turn its nose up at their little menage a trois (which occasionally ventured in a quatre territory, thanks to his constant conquests).

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
NobelPrize.org


"More like menage a quantum, amiright, fellows?"

First, he had a falling out with Oxford because of his unusual lifestyle. Then Princeton offered him a position, but he didn't accept it because they were also close-minded. Luckily, Dublin University eventually took him and his in with a shrug and a smile. After all, even in the relatively prudish 1930s, the pros/cons of the situation leaned heavily on the positive side. Sure, the dude liked to screw around, but he was a massively influential Nobel Prize winner. And at least it wasn't like he was running after young girls or anything.

Except, of course, that he totally did that as well. In addition to his lust for boning, Schrodinger had what historians generously label a "Lolita Complex." One of the girls he started hitting on was named Barbara, and she was twelve. Yeah, we're pretty sure the cops have a different name for that now.

King Edward VII Fucked So Much, It Required Special Furniture

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Luke Fildes

History may remember Edward VII of England as the monarch who brokered an important treaty with France, but we'd like to remember his other important achievement: commissioning the invention of fuck chairs for fat guys.

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Samuel Bourne


This is an early prototype; the final version is below.

Queen Victoria spent her life in search of the perfect image for the British Royal Family. Fortunately for this article, these ideals were constantly thwarted by the actions of her eldest son Bertie (the future Edward VII).

Bertie had already fallen from his mother's graces at an early age, when his army friends in Ireland set him up with a local prostitute. The notoriously prudish queen didn't exactly approve of this, and her husband Prince Albert chastised the young prince for jumping into "the hands of one of the most abject of the human species, to be by her initiated into the sacred mysteries of creation, which ought to be shrouded in holy awe until touched by pure and undefiled hands!" That was an actual quote, by the way. He had that kind of parents.

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Franz Xaver Winterhalter


They kept their overcoats on during sex.

Poor Bertie's fate as a black sheep was sealed when Albert caught pneumonia and died on his way back home. The queen blamed it all on her son, and never forgave him. Having experienced a fall from royal grace that would last until Victoria died four decades later, Bertie shrugged, decided that he might as well do some more sleeping around since he was already out of favor, and proceeded to have roughly all of the sex, forever.

Edward went on to become a renowned expert in all things related to getting some. He was a pioneer in the fine field of wife-swapping, and a world-famous perv. His sexual appetites were so well known that women openly made passes at him on the street. He had innumerable lovers and conquests, including affairs with famous actresses such as Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry. He was also an avid patron of the finest brothel of Paris, where he had a room of his own, complete with his royal coat of arms on the wall. There he liked to bathe prostitutes in champagne (in a bathtub which, for some reason, was decorated with the image of a were-swan -- the guy would have loved deviantART), and "entertain" his "guests" in his very own heavy-duty love chair:

5 Famous Historical Figures You Didn't Know Were Perverts
via Edwardian Promendade


*Cue sex trumpet*

Bertie was a stocky guy and preferred robust, masculine women, which made most normal chairs unsuitable for heavy duty humping. This custom-made siege d'amour corrected this blatant unfairness in the future king's life. Do you wonder how it worked? So did we, so we dug up a video:

Say what you want about royalty, but you can't help but admire a guy who reacts to being too fat to screw by buying elaborate sex furniture. You don't have to agree with his lifestyle, but that kind of can-do attitude is what we don't have enough of in this modern world.


For more famous people with dark sides, check out 6 Famous Artists You Didn't Know Were Perverts and 7 Beloved Celebrities And The Awful Shit You Forgot They Did.

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