Randy Andy – New Bio Debunks Warhol's Asexual Myth

is said to be definitive. And running some 900 pages is the kind of book filled with stories that debunk the legendary artist's myths. One is that Warhol was asexual but according to , he was quite the randy fellow.

In the book, according to a review in The Guardian, "Gopnik carefully rummages through the laundry basket to reveal plenty of evidence that Warhol was an enthusiastic player in the NYC gay scene from the moment he first stepped off the Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh in 1949. What's more, despite his self-consciousness about his patchy skin and baldness, there's plenty of photographic and anecdotal evidence that Warhol had a gym-honed body with particularly good legs and plenty of body hair. If we are determined to continue seeing Our Andy as fey and de-natured, Gopnik suggests, then it says more about our lingering homophobia that cannot bear to contemplate an artistic genius "caught in the act with men".

He had a male lover for 12 years and once told friends his "bum is so sore because I met this (guy) and he screwed the a** off me."

"Former lovers said Warhol was an 'expert at fellatio' and that he 'blows like crazy', referring to oral sex," writes the Daily Mail.

While terrified of being outed as a teenager in homophobic Pittsburgh, Warhol eagerly embraced New York City's welcoming gay culture. "One Halloween he turned up to a party wearing a garland of flowers, as 'daisy chain' was gay slang for a round-robin orgy," Gopnik recounts.

In the 1950s, he all but stalked Truman Capote, sending him postcards and hanging outside the Stork Club while the novelist dined and repeatedly outside Capote's apartment. Taking pity on him, Capote's mother invited him in one day, which Warhol saw as an opening and started to phone the residence every day. She quickly put an end to that; later Warhol and Capote became friends in the 1970s.

Over the years Warhol had numerous partners, starting with Carlton Alfred Willers, a clerk at the New York Public Library with whom he lost his virginity. According to Willers, the relationship wasn't passionate. Warhol was "lousy in bed" and more interested in food than sex.

Over the years Warhol was said to be attracted to "every attractive young man in the city, including me," according to Stephen Bruce, one of the founders of a popular Manhattan cafe called Serendipity, which the artist often frequented.

One conquest was a young artist from Wisconsin, Dudley Huppler, who was said to see Warhol for a couple of years. Another was TV art director, Charles Lisanby, with whom Gopnik writes had a relationship that "hovered between a friendship, a flirtation and a love affair - depending on which of the two you asked to describe it."

Lisanby says Warhol had a distaste for sex, but he still practiced it on a regular basis over the years. Medical records show that the artist was treated for anal warts, was treated for the STI condylomata for weeks, and in the 1980s "would be treated for rectal problems in the 1980s, suggesting Warhol was participating in some kind of sexual activity," the Daily Mail writes.

One sexual partner, Robert Pincus-Witten who appeared in Warhol's film "The 13 Most Beautiful Boys," claims the artist gave him crabs. "Pincus-Witten joked that if the pests didn't come from the couch at The Factory then it was from 'Andy's crotch,'" claims Gopnik.

What appears to have been his longest relationship - 12 years - was with designer Jed Johnson whom he met in 1968 (the same year that Warhol suffered a near-fatal assassination attempt). Johnson told Gopnik that their sex was at a "schoolboy level;" but the pair broke up in 1980 when Warhol was more interested in ogling hotties at Studio 54, which didn't interest Johnson.

And while Warhol was seen as aloof, Gopnik concludes he was actually a "heartfelt romantic."

"He was 'deeply invested' in finding a soul mate and was left 'confused and miserable' when it didn't work out, as was often the case," concludes the Daily Mail.

"In an interview before his death on February 22, 1987, from complications after gallbladder surgery, Warhol declared his 'heart's been broken several times.'"