Kind of sort of explains why Trump hates shaking hands.
I get the desire to see the two sides here, but that misunderstands the nature of fetishism. Bubba of Smiths Dilation here wasn't becoming his wife in terms of reaching a paragon standard of womanhood, he was sexualizing her and in his mind, exploiting her image for his gratification and stole her clothes to do it. The reason everyone makes fun of paraphilia in otherwise monogamous relationships is because after a very short limit, sexual objectification and respect become mutually exclusive, particular when with a public component - it betrays that he began to think of his wife as an exploitable sexual object, not kindred spirit and life partner. Since we know that his wife went along with his hobby, it seems to be a classic case of trying to save a lost marriage with a man who had lost the plot.
As
@trash cat found out, he's been stalking, fantasizing about and preying on his own constituents and his wife was one of them. He was preying on people online too - despite claiming to not 'feel like a woman', he was encouraging others to take HRT.
By all accounts, he was a decent mayor and a selfish, lying pervert. He won't be the first, or the last, but I wouldn't call it endearing.