21. Il Duce’s Habit of Penning Erotic Letters
Mussolini liked to unwind by penning erotic letters. The fascist dictator’s habit of writing frequently cringe-worthy dirty letters was discovered when the diary of Clara Petacci, the mistress taken out and strung up by his side, came to light in 2009. For all his shortcomings, one thing Il Duce (Italian for leader) had to go for him was an incredible libido and remarkable bedroom stamina. As described by Petacci, Mussolini often had up to fourteen mistresses at a time, and would regularly go through three or four different women in a single evening.
Mussolini was also jarringly loud during intimacy: “his screams seem like those of a wounded beast“, as Petacci put it. He was a total hound, who seemingly lusted after every woman he met. As he described it, after his first intimate encounter with a working woman at age seventeen: “Naked women entered my life, my dreams, my desires. I undressed them with my eyes, the girls that I met, I lusted after them violently with my thoughts“. Luckily for him, many Italian women had the hots for him as well, and at the height of his power, thousands sent letters propositioning him every day.