Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode Title: How Hot Was Lord Byron?
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Prof. Andrew Stauffer, President of the Byron Society of America
Release Date: December 26, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode sees sex historian Dr. Kate Lister and Byron expert Prof. Andrew Stauffer delve into the myth, scandal, and sexuality surrounding the Romantic poet Lord Byron. Framed as an entry in their semi-tongue-in-cheek “Historical Fuckboys” miniseries, the conversation balances irreverent wit with academic insight, exploring Byron’s notorious love life, public persona, and the enduring cultural charge of his Byronic hero archetype. Along the way, they address the origins of his reputation, his famous affairs (with both men and women), his tumultuous marriage and family scandal, and his lasting impact on celebrity culture.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Byron – Mad, Bad, & Byronic

• Byron’s Persona: Introduced with Byron’s famous lines (“Mad, bad, dangerous to know”) and a candid reference to his enduring sex appeal.
• “Fuckboy” Criteria: Lister reads the urbandictionary.com definition, prompting a debate about how much Byron qualifies as the ultimate historical fuckboy (05:23).
  • Stauffer: “He definitely was unreliable, but I think most of [his lovers] sort of knew what they were getting into beforehand. Except maybe... the woman he married who thought she could fix him.” (05:52)

2. Byron’s Origin Story: From Outsider to Celebrity

• Early Life: Born with a club foot and raised in relative poverty, not expecting his later fame or nobility.
  • Stauffer: “He was born not knowing he was going to be Lord Byron... He sort of begins not as a figure of ultimate privilege, but he ascends to that position later.” (07:24)
• Early Writing: Writing started early; first poetry published in his teens, some deemed too risqué and had to be edited. (08:25)

3. The Byronic Hero & Instant Fame

• Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Byron’s breakout work, merging exotic travelogue with a moody, self-haunted protagonist.
  • Lister: “Women were throwing their bloomers at him from as soon as that thing hit the shelves... Didn’t he say, I woke up and found out I was famous?” (11:39)
• Celebrity & Persona Conflation: Discussion of how Byron’s public image blended with his poetic characters, like modern pop stars. (06:45)

4. Byron’s Romantic & Sexual Life

• Affairs with Both Men and Women:
  • Early male loves at Harrow and Cambridge (Theban Band; John Eddleston).
    • Stauffer: “He said, my heart is a chaos of hope and sorrow... There’s this real passionate rhetoric around Eddleston that sounds like the way you would talk about a boyfriend or a girlfriend.” (14:59)
  • More open sexual relations with men in Greece (Nicolo Giraud).
    • Stauffer: “A couple affairs that we know about there, actual sexual affairs that then fed into the sense of concealment, darkness, passion, appetite, that was fueling Childe Harold...” (13:08)
• Relationships with Women: Spanned tender to transactional—ranging from poetic heartbreak to sexual conquests in Venice.
  • Venetian Years: Period of prolific promiscuity with both long-term mistresses and fleeting affairs. (16:16)

5. Notorious Affairs: Caroline Lamb & Augusta Leigh

• Lady Caroline Lamb: Their fiery affair was the stuff of gossip columns, with cross-dressing escapades, public scandal, and intense obsession.
  • Lister: “She sends him a pubic hair, right?”
  • Stauffer: “She wants some back in the mail... She’d sneak into his room dressed as a page... Byron loved all that.” (23:34)
  • Her behavior veered into stalkerish territory, e.g., forging letters, threatening suicide. (24:50)
• Augusta Leigh (Half-sister): Open societal suspicion about the incestuous nature of their relationship.
  • Stauffer: “It seems to have been a sort of open secret... The vibes were off for a brother-sister relationship.” (26:09)

6. Marriage to Annabella Milbanke

• Odd Pairing: Annabella was moral, rational, and believed she could reform Byron.
  • Stauffer: “She thought she could fix him. She took it on as a duty, I think...” (27:00)
  • She was partly influenced by reading Pride and Prejudice and longing for her own Mr. Darcy (even if Byron was a catastrophic choice). (28:13)
• Breakdown & Scandal: Marriage deteriorated amid abuse, Byron’s affairs, and revelations about his sister; Annabella left him, never to return.
  • Stauffer: “She gives birth in the house while he’s throwing empty soda bottles against the ceiling and in one of his rages... her relatives absolutely forbid her from going back.” (29:55)

7. Public Downfall & Exile

• Revelations about Byron’s bisexuality and incestuous relationship with Augusta led to his self-exile.
  • Stauffer: “It was the accusations that he’d been with men that did it, right? Because that's a capital crime at the time.” (32:54)
• The episode underscores the hypocrisy of Regency morals—society enjoyed his scandal until a line was crossed.
  • Lister: “He courts [his sexual reputation] and he plays with it... but all of a sudden, that's also gonna be the thing that brings him down.” (34:38)

8. Byron Abroad: Italy and Greece

• Venetian Years: Hedonistic excesses and productive poetic years; many relationships were transactional, rooted in inequality.
  • Stauffer: “It’s not fair to call him a sex tourist... but it's clear most of those relationships had some sort of transactional element.” (38:13)
  • Byron’s traumatic childhood sexual abuse is briefly discussed as context for his later attitudes (39:30).
• Italy—Great Love & Productivity: Affair with Teresa Guiccioli brought stability; possibly his only period of sexual fidelity.
  • Stauffer: “Teresa... the love of his life... I don’t think we can prove that once he meets Teresa... he has sex with anybody else ever again.” (41:12)
• Final Act—Greek Revolution: Byron backed the Greek war for independence, becoming a national hero (even in death); activism became his new purpose.

9. Legacy: Persona vs. Reality

• Living Your Legend: Discussion if Byron was destroyed by trying to live up to his own myth, in light of a comparison to Alice Cooper’s stage persona.
  • Stauffer: “He recognized that a life of passion is a life of pain. And a lot of his late poems are sort of like, let my heart calm down... that he cannot always access. It sounds... like someone who is struggling to not be the rock star Alice [Cooper], that keeps coming out.” (44:23)
• The Byronic Template: Byron forged the original blend of celebrity, scandal, and sexual charisma that continues to shape our notions of the romantic “bad boy.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I’ve always had a little bit of a thing for Lord Byron. I know he’s mad, bad, dangerous to know, but even so, I just know that I would have been one of those dopey girls following him across Europe going, 'But I can change him.’ No, you can’t, Kate. Nobody can change Missellar unto himself.” — Kate Lister (02:08)
• “He definitely was unreliable, but I think most of [his lovers] sort of knew what they were getting into... Except maybe, paradoxically, the woman he married who thought she could fix him.” — Andrew Stauffer (05:52)
• “We thought he was a Mr. Darcy who ultimately is redeemable. But perhaps he's even more satanic than that. More wicked, more irredeemable, more of a monster...” — Andrew Stauffer (35:03)
• On Caroline Lamb: “She goes home that night and writes in her diary, 'That pale, beautiful face is my fate.'” — Andrew Stauffer (22:35)
• “If an 18-year-old girl travels 1,000 miles to unphilosophize me, what can I do? I let her have her way. But I never pretended to care about the girl—that ultimately broke Claire's heart.” — Andrew Stauffer, quoting Byron (16:16)
• “She sends him a pubic hair. She wants some back in the mail.” — Andrew Stauffer, on Caroline Lamb (23:36)
• On marriage and Pride and Prejudice: “I swear, that book has been responsible for so many bad decisions...” — Kate Lister (28:13)
• “He recognized that a life of passion is a life of pain. And a lot of his late poems are sort of like, let my heart calm down. Let me be less moved. Let me be still.” — Andrew Stauffer (44:23)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 05:23 — Debating Byron’s legacy as a historical "fuckboy"
• 08:07 — Early poetry and formative years
• 11:39 — Instant celebrity: "I woke up and found myself famous"
• 13:08 — Male lovers and coded references in letters
• 14:59 — Depth of emotional and sexual connection with male lovers (John Eddleston, Nicolo Giraud)
• 16:16 — Byron’s sexual spectrum: heartfelt relationships and transactional affairs
• 22:35 — Meeting and affair with Lady Caroline Lamb
• 23:36 — Scandalous gestures: Caroline sends Byron pubic hair
• 26:09 — The nature and gossip around Byron and Augusta Leigh
• 27:00 — Marriage to Annabella Milbanke
• 29:55 — Breakdown of the marriage, increasing instability, scandal
• 32:54 — Scandal leading to exile: accusations of sodomy and incest
• 34:38 — Public persona vs private behavior; the culture of scandal
• 38:13 — Venice years: sex, privilege, and emotional escape
• 41:12 — Love affair with Teresa Guiccioli, possible monogamy
• 42:34 — Byron’s commitment to the Greek War of Independence
• 44:23 — Conflation of persona and private self; living the Byronic myth

Further Resources

• Andrew Stauffer’s Book:
  Byron: A Life in 10 Letters (Cambridge University Press; paperback September 2026)

Tone & Style

Candid, witty, and unashamedly adult; this episode blends academic rigor with irreverent banter and consistently foregrounds the salacious, complex, and ultimately tragic magnetism of Lord Byron. Lister’s openness and Stauffer’s expertise make for a rollercoaster through Regency scandal—both debunking and revelling in Byron’s legacy as literature’s first, and perhaps greatest, fuckboy.

For listeners: If you’re fascinated by the entanglement of sex, poetry, and public spectacle—or ever wondered whether history’s most notorious rake was hot, and why—this episode promises ample entertainment and insight, all delivered betwixt the sheets.