Samuel Steward, Sexual Historian and Tattoo Artist Fucked 807 Men

At times he was Samuel Steward, drunken professor, obscure literary figure and pen pal to the stars. He was also an author, first of serious fiction Angels on the Bough‚ and later acclaimed memoirs Dear Sammy: Letters From Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. George Platt Lynes, Alfred Kinsey and Tom of Finland all counted him as a friend. As a tattoo artist he went by Phil Sparrow. He mentored Ed Hardy and inked the Hells Angels. He even engraved ‘LUCIFER’ on Kenneth Anger’s chest. In his dirty work he was the ripped Greek hustler Phil Andros. This particular alter ego dealt in filthy stories, pumping out titles like Shuttlecock and $tud, and attracting the attention of literary heavyweights like Christopher Isherwood.

He was all of these things and more. Mr. Steward was also a sex researcher and self-proclaimed whore. Perhaps his most important occupation, however, was that of historian. For in the cache of his remaining belongings exists an individual history unparalleled in its meticulousness.

Among the holdings of the Steward Papers stands the holy grail of sexual record keeping: The Stud File, a 746-card catalogue, detailing the ins-and-outs of every BJ, HJ and daisy chain, spanning 50 years. The cards include everything from cock size to dollars paid, and on occasion, Mr. Spring points out, they’re packing DNA-verifiable evidence. That’s right: pubic hair.

According to his notes, Steward loved a man in uniform. Late in life, he would profess that among his sexual partners were ‘a coupla hundred’ sailors, nearly 30 sergeants and two-dozen Marines. He even got down with at least one Nazi stormtrooper. He liked it rough‚ serious, blood-drawing rough. One of his most severe acts of submission consisted of a brutal fucking by NYC fashion illustrator Mike Miksche‚ an encounter embarked upon in the name of research for Alfred Kinsey. Mr. Steward would later write of the session in The Advocate, ‘At the end of the last session, when my jaws were so tired and unhinged, I could scarcely close my mouth. Mike got really angry and slapped me hard on each cheek, saying that I was the lousiest cocksucker he had ever seen.’

A disturbing scene, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary for Mr. Steward. He endured this and more in his unending quest for ultimate submission. They’d fleece him, mug him and, of course, beat him, but he never gave up. In fact, as he entered the autumn of his years, he turned almost exclusively to the company of rent boys and porn stars, eventually snagging triple-X heartthrob John Hardin.

When it came to famous cock, Mr. Steward shone like a beacon on a hill. His conquests included authors, actors and artists. When he couldn’t bag a star, he’d bed their lovers and friends, and on occasion, the hired help. His first adventure in celebrity cock took place between the legs of Hollywood heartthrob Rudolph Valentino. Mr. Valentino was only the first in a string of A-List lays. In years to come, Mr. Steward would sleep his way through entire literary circles, fucking everyone from Thornton Wilder to Lord Alfred Douglas, Andre Gide’s houseboy to Jean Genet’s former lover. He also shagged his fair share of Hollywood types, among them a young Rock Hudson, whom he blew on a freight elevator during the holidays at Marshall Fields.

Nothing in his life, it seemed, went untouched by his unflagging interest in sex. Even his much-acclaimed entry into the world of tattooing reeked of sexual intention. He described his fetish for tattoos as such, ‘I find myself wanting to lick the tattoo, or suck it, or at the very least grab it and run my fingers over it.’ In case such an impulse should strike, he erected a makeshift boom boom room in one of his early shops, equipped with everything from a workbench for upright affairs, to a pisser with glory holes.

All told, Samuel M. Steward managed to fuck 807 different people, a total of 4,647 times (at least according to a 1982 edition of Boyd McDonald’s Straight To Hell). However, the true value of his promiscuity lies not in the number of loads blown, but in what those loads can teach us. One can imagine more accomplished sluts have lived, but chances are none of them took notes like Mr. Steward.