The Kinkiest Characters in Literature

THE TOP FIVE:

5. Satan (Paradise Lost, Milton): Nobody can out-charm Milton’s Lord of Darkness. Much-lauded for his ability to transform himself into a giant slithering phallus.

4. Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller): A brothel-hopping whirling dervish of libertine jouissance and syphilis, Henry’s never met a sexual encounter (or an STI) he didn’t like.

3. O (The Story of O, Pauline Reage): Submissive and sexy, playful O enjoys slow, painful degradation at the hands of faceless men who strip her of any sense of selfhood.

2. Patrick Batemen (American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis): When he’s not doing pushups to keep his bodyfat under four percent or scoping out the latest fashions, Patrick can be found slaughtering hookers with chainsaws and trying to stuff cats into bank machines.

1. Simone (Story of the Eye, Georges Bataille): From bloodletting to golden showers, necrophilia to eye socket sex, Simone’s interests are sure to please even the most demanding lover. Especially fond of the rodeo – where else can you find riper bull testicles for vaginal insertion?

THE REST:

6. Madame de St. Ainge (Philosophy of the Bedroom, Marquis de Sade)

7. Lolita (Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov)

8. Bear (Bear, by Marian Engel)
"If I had a tumor, I'd name it Marla"

"If I had a tumor, I'd name it Marla"

9. Marla Singer (Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk)

10. Alex (A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess)

11. Vaughan (Crash, JG Ballard)

12. Lord Byron

13. Sarah (Sarah, JT LeRoy)

14. Fevvers (Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter)

15. Humbert Humbert (Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov)

16. Anaïs Nin (Diaries of Anaïs Nin)

17. Q_ (Zombie, Joyce Carol Oates)

18. The Dog Woman (Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson)

19.Belle de Jour (Belle de Jour, Joseph Kessel)

20. Nan Astley (Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters)


HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Ipy and Ella (Geek Love, Katherine Dunn)

Orlando (Orlando, Virgina Woolf)

The Wife of Bath (The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer)

Molly Bloom (Ulysses, James Joyce)

The Dark Lady (Sonnets, Shakespeare)

Randle McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey)

Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler)

Portnoy (Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth)

Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë)

[Originally appeared in Blackheart Magazine ]