BLURRED LINES VOLUME 3: THE KINKIEST PEOPLE IN HISTORY — From Foot Fetishes to Blood Rituals, Crossdressing Monarchs to Fetish Fashionistas

Editor’s Note:

Off-the-Curriculum History has a dirty little secret—it’s horny as hell.

Behind the busts and biographies, under the crowns and laurels, the world’s most powerful figures were getting off in ways your high school textbooks definitely skipped. From queens with bee-powered vibrators to philosophers who liked a good spanking, and from saintly-seeming leaders with nude sleepovers to royals with custom sex furniture, this is where legacy meets libido.

Political dynasties and powdered wigs, emperors in drag and queens with whips — the official chronicles of history are surprisingly silent about its dirtiest secrets. But behind every throne or literary desk was a man licking a leather boot or a lady tightening a corset, not for fashion but for fetish. Welcome to the unspoken archives of history's horniest high society.

This is Volume 3 of Blurred Lines: the kinkiest people in history, uncensored, unashamed, and fully erect in their eccentricity. You’re welcome

Fig.1  A man and two women on a bed, erotic drawing by Theodor Mattias von Holst, c.1830, Victoria and Albert Museum, London Collection (Attributed to Henry Fuseli)

Fig.2  "A Milk Sop" (1811) by Thomas Rowlandson. Satirical Print early 19th century, London 1811, Victoria & Albert Museum

Fig.3   "The Village Doctress Distilling Eye Water" (c.1800) by Thomas Rowlandson

Fig.4  "La Peccatrice", 1984 by Alessandro Biffignandi

Fig.5  Chair, 1969 Tate-Britain by Allen Jones

Feet, Fetish, And Fancy Shoes

Long before the rise of OnlyFans, European monarchs had already turned the act of foot worship into high art. The 18th-century French king Louis XV was so enamored with women's shoes that he had a private boudoir filled with his lovers' discarded footwear. Meanwhile, Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne — France's infamous foot-fetishist and writer — penned erotic novels that detailed the allure of women's heels, boots, and legs in ways that would make modern kinksters blush.

Cross-Dressers, Kings, And Chevalieres

Drag isn't a 20th-century invention. Enter Chevalier d'Éon, the French diplomat and spy who lived half their life as a man and the other half as a woman, all while dazzling the Versailles elite. D'Éon wore military armor and silk gowns with equal poise. Even Casanova, no stranger to a scandal, was fooled by d'Éon's charms. Meanwhile, Roman Emperor Elagabalus threw orgies in golden halls, married men publicly, and reportedly offered fortunes to any physician who could surgically grant him female genitalia. 

(Side Note: Anne Lister was the first woman in England to openly marry another woman in 1834 – a marriage not technically recognised under law. Her encrypted diaries, written between 1806 and 1840, explicitly detail her romantic and sexual relationships with women.)

Fig.6  American artist John Willie’s wife modelled  for Bizarre Mag. When he retired, he destroyed most of his archives, except for a few surviving shots

Fig.7  Ancient and modern amulets, from A discourse on the worship of Priapus, and its connection with the mystic theology of the ancients, The Secretum collection British Museum London

Fig.8  Portrait of André Derain, 1936 by Balthus

Fig.9  Bath in a Harem (Une piscine dans le harem) by the French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), 1875 State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Credits Bridgeman Image

Fig.9a Detail

Fig.10  Beth Ditto, Cover Feature ES MAGAZINE 2024 by Tim Walker

Saints, Sadists, And Blood-Stained Bed Sheets

Dark desire wasn't just the stuff of poetry — it was political. Take Elisabeth Báthory, the Hungarian countess accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women in search of eternal youth. Then there's Gilles de Rais, a 15th-century French nobleman who fought alongside Joan of Arc by day and practiced brutal sexual rituals by night. History tried to frame them as mere psychopaths, but their stories expose a blurred line between sexual desire, violence, and power.

And yes, again, we can’t skip the Marquis de Sade, who put the word “sadism” into the dictionary. From his scandalous novels to his real-life orgies, he wrote and lived as if pain was poetry.

Fig.11  Brassaï, Bal du Magic-City, couples, 1932, 1932 Ferrotyped gelatin silver print on single weight paper, Grob Gallery Genève.

Fig.12  Capricorn, from the Signs of the Zodiac by Jacob Jordaens, circa 1640. Palais du Luxembourg, Paris, France. Credits Bridgeman Images

Become a Premium member now and check out the extended version including:

• Parisian Kink & The Golden Age of Fetish
• From Rococo Rakes To Modern Kinksters
• History in Heels (And Handcuffs)
• Some of The Kinkiest Historical Figures
• Queen Cleopatra: Royal Honey and the Buzzing Throne
• Plato’s Naked Networking
• Rousseau, the Furniture Fetishist
• Ben Franklin: Founding Father of MILFs
• Gandhi: Naked Truths and Celibate Experiments
• Lyndon B. Johnson and His Jumbo Ego
• an abundance of additional images depicting striking fetish erotica

Click HERE for David Zuker's foot fetish Pop Art project 'Tania B '

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