The film centers on the strange-but-true story about the wedding night between Victorian artist, architect, poet and political thinker John Ruskin and his wife, Effie Gray. Ruskin was long infatuated with Gray and married her when she was 17. However, when it came time to consummate their marriage, something so reviled Ruskin that Gray remained a virgin until after they divorced and she remarried his protege, painter, John Everett Millais. While it has never been established just what disgusted Ruskin to the point he refused to have sex with his wife, theories over the years have speculated it might have been pubic hair or menstrual blood.