Some Geniuses That Were Actually Perverts

Some of history's most famous geniuses would've rather been busy bumping nasties than changing the world. As it turns out, that's a fairly common problem among artists, statesmen, and spiritual leaders. None of what you're about to read necessarily detracts from any of the great things they accomplished -- we're not saying that. We're just saying that behind closed doors, they liked to get freaky.

 Gandhi Slept in a Pile of Naked Women (Including His Niece)

 

  Gandhi is arguably the most famous spiritual leader in modern history and was responsible for the civil rights movement that eventually broke British imperial rule over India. He was known for peaceful acts of non-cooperation, including hunger strikes, boycotts, and a 241-mile march to the sea to gather salt, an act prohibited by a bizarrely specific edict of British law.

  Gandhi was revered as a holy man until he was assassinated by a religious fanatic, which sadly is what tends to happen to people like him. History repaid Gandhi for decades of self-sacrifice in the name of his fellow man by making a movie about his life starring the bad guy from Species.

But Behind Closed Doors ...

  It's true that Gandhi took a vow of celibacy when he was 37. However, this did not stop him from heroically encouraging young women to sleep naked with him until he was well into his 70s.

   He claimed that this was merely an extension of his vow, intended to test his pious restraint (a phrase a cynical person could take to mean "to inflate his boner tube"). According to the strict rules of Gandhi's ashram, these women weren't even allowed to sleep with their own husbands, yet they were all but required to participate in the Mahatma's creepy old man slumber parties, which included not only sleeping nude with Gandhi, but also bathing with him and giving him stripteases, because the path to a temptation-free existence is apparently paved with nipple tassels.

 That's not even the shadiest part. Gandhi took his 18-year-old grandniece on a trip with him to Bengal and commanded her to share the nudity bunk with him for their entire stay, a move he rationalized by telling her that they might be killed at any moment by angry Muslims. That's right -- Gandhi told his barely legal niece to take off all of her clothes and climb into bed with her equally naked great uncle because the two of them might suddenly be murdered.

We're not even saying he was secretly slipping these girls the G-bone every night -- we have no knowledge of that. We're saying that commanding everyone to sleep in a nude Gandhi pile, purely for the purpose of not engaging in sex, is somehow way freakier. 

 

Benjamin Franklin Liked to Bang Lots of Old Women

 

In addition to being one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor and a tireless innovator, responsible for bifocal spectacles and odometers, the flexible urinary catheter, and a dominating presence in rap lyrics. He was an early adopter of environmental awareness, formed libraries and founded hospitals, organized the first fire service, and pushed for anti-slavery legislation before his death in 1790 of an acute overdose of righteous awesomeness.

But Behind Closed Doors ... 

  Benjamin Franklin was an avid poonhound specializing in dusty cooz. That is to say, he prided himself on keeping the oldest and most busted mistresses he could find, for a list of reasons that prove he was just as much an innovator of morning-show-DJ chauvinism as anything else.

In a 1745 letter to a younger acquaintance, Ben Franklin advised that elderly concubines were the best choice because they were so deflated by age that they would do anything to keep a man interested in them. Rickety old women, he continued, are also by nature more discreet, more experienced, and less likely to become pregnant, which would spare you from any of that ridiculous "children" bullshit.

  You're less likely to feel bad about having sex with them, because throwing one into a raisin-skinned bone sack is much less sinful than deflowering some pretty young lady who made the foolish mistake of trusting you.

Granted, he had his more polite, old-timey way of putting it:
"... I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones ... Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience ... Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion ... and lastly they are so grateful."

And so on. Yeah, you don't exactly have to read between the lines there.

He also makes the salient point that being vain in your selection of a mistress is pointless, because all women look the same from the waist down, which is the only part of them that matters anyway:

"Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one."

This article originally appeared on Cracked. Read the full article here.