10. Anais Nin was decades ahead of her time in her attitude towards intimate relations, and ended up committing bigamy with a much-younger man
Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, better known by her penname Anaïs Nin, was the original bohemian. She was open about her bisexuality and took a string of lovers. During the 1930s, she lived with fellow writer Henry Miller in Paris. Her journals from the time are erotically-charged and confessional and still shocking today. For Nin, age was just a number, and she had numerous younger lovers, both younger and older. What’s more, she even got married to a man 16 years her junior – despite the fact she was already married!
Nin met Rupert Pole when she was on her way to a party in downtown New York City in 1947. She was 44 at the time, and he was a 28-year-old former actor. They hit it off straight away, despite the age difference. Together, they went to California and, in 1955, the two got married. This was despite the fact that, by that point, Nin had been married to Hugh Parker Guiler for more than 20 years. For the next few years, she juggled two husbands, keeping one in New York and her younger partner in California.