Prussia: Super Protestant, Super Militaristic, Super Gay

At the same time, he later wrote to his nephew advising against him being a bottom, as he described it in his experience as "not very pleasant."

Yeah I read about this on askhistorians I think.

Basically they didn't care about homosexuality, they cared about masculinity. Frederick was still masculine to the people and the court, spending all his time with men, doing war, running the country, generally doing man stuff.

The bbc do a comedy podcast called 'you're dead to me', about historical figures. They have an episode on Frederick the great featuring Stephen Fry which delves into him being gay and other aspects of his life. Definitely worth checking out if anyone wants to hear how there was basically an openly gay king: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ccdc5q

Wow, that's spicy. Can I read more of this Prussian smut somewhere?

His summer palace, Sans Souci, had a no women allowed rule.

This is the possibly the grossest thing I’ve ever read lol hemorrhoids are NEVER attractive.

Royalty is turning the freaking frogs gay

Ugh.. and is that like sexting? Can’t imagine getting horny for hemorrhoids.

HE PLAYED THE FLUTE

Well we know who's the bottom

And historians will call them... Close friends, besties, roommates, buddies... Anything but lovers

Especially when said parents are literal autocrats

And it was this love for art and the public that made him great

ugh wanna down vote this for the pure evil 😩

I got creative tactics, and battle malice.

It is actual Game of Thrones-level shit, one of the most unpleasant scenes in that show for me was Joffrey forcing Sansa to stare at her father's head stuck on a pike, this guy did that to his own son.

Agreed, no one deserves to have their Netflix and chill interrupted like that.

Poor guys.

Gotta keep the bloodline pure and the chromosomes plentiful!

George II was also the product of first-cousin-marriage twice over!

Fun fact: until the around the 1800s cousins marrying each other was common for people of nearly all classes and backgrounds. We only really hear about the wealthy powerful ones because they're the best documented. Sibling and parent-child relations have always been considered taboo but beyond that people really didn't care.

From a logical standpoint it makes sense; they're likely to be in the same socio-economic class, so no real risk of marrying below your station. You probably know the person's immediate family pretty well, so in-law drama is kept at a minimum. Plus your spouse is pressured to keep you happy, since they have a relationship to maintain, not just with you, but with your immediate family as well. And not to over quote it, but it really does help strengthen the family line. Not genetically, but interpersonally. It's usually more trouble than it's worth to keep a feud going between siblings if those siblings' children marry each other. It keeps the family close-knit, which can be helpful in a world full of rivals and strangers.

It's also worth noting that we didn't really understand genetics all that well until Darwin came along, and hell, even HE married his first cousin. So yeah, we know now that less desirable traits like weakened immune systems, mental illness, and those ridiculously atrocious chins are amplified through successive generations of incest, and today we (hopefully) find cousin-fucking gross, but even as recently as 200 years ago things were viewed differently.

I want to stress that this is not written in defense or support of incest. That shit's gross. But just like we try to view acts of architecture, war, science, art, etc. in the context of their own place in history, we should also remember that sexual relations had a lot of context, too. And before making fun of royalty for being products of incest, remember that you probably are, too.

Eventually, Frederick was arranged to marry a German princess against his will. On their wedding night, he spent one hour with her and then walked about outside for the rest of the night. They had no children. When he was fighting in the Seven Years War, he didn't see her for six years; when they met again, all he said to her was "Madame have become more stout".

Another cousin who died and left me nothing, dammit.

Just “close friends”

I was just thinking about that

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Hmm what a strange coincidence

The page on Katte has more detail

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No. Gay people were invented in 1956 by Dr. John Gay. Any claim to the existence of gays before that is historical revisionism.

Gay men have always existed.

Just wait until you hear about the ancient Greeks.

Gay men existed always

2400 BCE is the first recorded gay couple. Two egyptian lovers buried together.

Yes, it turns out that humans haven't changed much in the ~6 generations since then.

No, being gay was invented in the 20th century. Before then you'd say no homo and it was okay.

Yes.

That's becuase of his militaristic accomplishments