ZOMG, I can't believe we've gotten this far in the fandom without a "who bottoms?" discussion about Fritz and his boyfriends.
Well, we may not have discussed it, but I'm sure you all could have guessed that I have given it ~extensive thought~ and am ready to produce an essay on the subject. :P
It's a tricky question, between control issues on the one hand and wanting to be taken care of on the other.
Yep, the tension between the two is exactly how I approach his relationships as well. There's also sexual topping and emotional topping to consider, also Fritz's low sex drive.
(How about with Fritz's other boyfriends, I mean, devoted and emo manservants?)
Well...you asked!
Suhm and Fredersdorf Fritz's dynamics with these two are so complementary in my mind that it's hard for me to discuss one without the other.
In a word, I think this discussion has finally given me the ability to articulate what I think Fritz's relationship with Fredersdorf was missing: emotional topping. I think Fritz's urge to be taken care of manifested as a craving for someone to hold him and adore him and reassure him on their own initiative, and I think the situation plus Fredersdorf's personality meant that Fredersdorf was too careful for that. I think he gave Fritz reassurance and emotional intimacy, but in a reactive way. When he took initiative, I expect it was having things ready for Fritz before he asked, maybe offering to play for him, but not, like, petting him.
I discussed this in the email thread with cahn that I shared here, but I actually kind of suspect the Fredersdorf relationship never went sexual. I think they both had to be way too careful in the beginning, Fredersdorf was warm but kind of reserved, and after ten years, they had an indispensable relationship that worked and they just never took the risk of messing with it.
I also kind of suspect 1740 was the year Fritz decided he just wasn't really into the sex act, as much as he might find men attractive. More on this later.
But that emotional topping that Fritz craved, I think he could get from Suhm. I don't think it was 100% Suhm topping, nor do I think Fritz wanted that. From the letters, I would describe them both as switches (to continue repurposing sexual vocabulary). But I think Suhm was able to *provide* the emotional topping that was probably the only thing missing from Fritz's relationship with Fredersdorf.
Their relationship must have evolved over time, what with Fritz being a child when they met, and in my mind it never actually went sexual, but the formative years of their relationship were teenage abuse victim Fritz needing comfort, and Suhm being twenty years older and a noble and a diplomat and had the self-confidence to provide it. And though it shifted into an intellectual relationship between adults, I think if Fritz ever looked like he needed a hug [like, idk, during that 1732 Christmas visit--because we know these winter holiday visits in the early 1730s were when Fritz and Suhm would hang out], their history meant Suhm could just do it without thinking about it. While Fredersdorf would be in the background unobtrusively making a cup of--well, one would normally make tea, but for Fritz, probably coffee :P--or something. And I suspect, along with selenak, that there were forms of affection that it was socially acceptable for Fritz to give to Suhm that he would hesitate over with Fredersdorf.
Fredersdorf, though, I think Fredersdorf satisfied Fritz's control needs so thoroughly that Fritz could relax and entrust him with all the most important things in the world. And like I've said, I am not 100% sure that Suhm, as a nobleman so much older and more experienced, would have been able to do that. Sexually? As noted, I doubt Fritz ever had sex with either, but if he had, ooh. I think he would have let Suhm top at least some of the time (Greco-Roman mores meeting the age difference here would have helped), and he probably would have wanted to let Fredersdorf but wouldn't have been able to bring himself to, between the social differences and his control issues.
Peter Keith My read on these two is 100% control issues. Fritz tops sexually, emotionally, socially, everything. I mean, not that there was anything going on after 1728, because everything went wrong. But in my AUs where they get to hang out more, or when I develop my wishful-thinking stories where they straighten out their miscommunications in the early 1750s, Fritz's control issues have a stranglehold on him where Peter's concerned, and there's not enough emotional depth for him to be left craving anything different.
Oh, iberiandoctor, if you didn't follow my whole discussion on the Fritz/Peter dynamic and why I think there were miscommunications, it goes like this.
What We Know 1728: 17-yo page Peter is caught fooling around with 16-yo Crown Prince Fritz, and banished from court all the way to Wesel, near the Dutch border. 1730: Peter is included in Fritz's escape attempt and is meant to meet up with him in England. Well, Peter makes it, but as you know, no one else does. :-( 1730-1740: Peter lives in exile. Fritz seems to know that he's alive and well, but they have no direct communication. 1740: Fritz pardons Peter and summons him back to Berlin. He's in Silesia when Peter arrives. 1741: Peter, through an intermediary, requests both a commission in the army and a raise. He gets the commission but not the raise. He also gets engaged just before going off to war. 1744: Fritz makes Peter an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and gives him a position as curator. 1750: Fritz gives Peter an unsolicited large lump sum of money and a letter addressed to his mother-in-law talking about how wonderful Peter is. 1753: Fritz gives Peter another lump sum of money and a letter (MIL is dead if you believe Wikipedia, so I don't know who it's addressed to, maybe his wife). He takes him as ADC to Silesia. 1755: Peter gets to escort Fritz's sister to the abbey where she's just been made an abbess. 1756: Peter dies, we don't know where or of what, age 45.
Some unspecified time after 1740: Fritz keeps Peter near the queen mother, if you believe a contemporary who wasn't particularly close to either but was present in Berlin.
Plus this Algarotti write-up up through 1745-1747, which is relevant for comparanda purposes.
And that's how you arrive at my whole hypothesis where Fritz and Peter, both meaning well, ran into Fritz's control issues and got into a feedback loop of mutual miscommunication.
If I ever get my writing ability back, I'd love to turn this into a fic, because it's really what I think happened, but I can't prove any of it. Self-indulgently, I want to give them a scene that's almost certainly AU, where they're sitting in the carriage on the way back from Silesia and talking, and they figure out what went wrong and achieve closure.
Algarotti Algarotti is interesting, because he apparently had a strong bisexual sex drive, spent time in the brothels in Berlin, was suspected to have picked up STDs, etc. He was also apparently hugely attractive both in looks and personality.
He developed what was apparently a mutual infatuation with Fritz in 1739/1740, and in 1740, when Fritz was on his trip west, Algarotti rode in his carriage with him and apparently there was mutual caressing and carrying on like Algarotti was a mistress.
So Algarotti has always been my most likely candidate for "actually scored with Fritz." And my totally speculative headcanon here is that they did it once or twice, Fritz didn't enjoy it enough for it to be worth it, and that was what convinced him that he didn't like sex, not even with men.
My headcanon is also that he had a similar experience with the Countess Orzelska twelve years earlier. Basically, on both occasions, Fritz came away thinking, "Well, if I don't like sex with *him*/*her*, I must not like sex with *anyone*." The difference being that with Orzelska, he was left questioning whether maybe he was just inexperienced, and so he had a couple more, probably unconsummated, affairs with women before deciding forcing it wasn't working.
I also think that he was clearly capable of admiring gifted women, but that he was still homoromantic, and that his drop-off in interactions with women that give historians and fans fodder for their no-homoing was when he stopped equating "I enjoy this woman's company" with "I am head over heels for this woman."
Likewise, I think Algarotti inadvertently helped him stop equating "I'm attracted to this person" with "I want to act on this attraction to the point of being sexually active."
Who was on top? Well, it has been pointed out by more than one biographer that Fritz's lifelong battle with hemorrhoids would likely get in the way of frequent anal penetration. And I just really don't see Fritz giving blow jobs. And Algarotti was a people pleaser. And Fritz had control issues.
Conclusion: hand jobs, or Fritz was on top.
Also, I suspect their relationship was largely intellectual and flirting, not emotional intimacy.
Voltaire One thing I know, though, that's the true reason why he and Voltaire must have kept it at handjobs. Not even blow jobs, because neither of them would ever shut up, and neither of them would ever allow the other one topping. Clearly!
It's so clear that I had independently come up with this! Including the "neither of them would ever shut up." :P
The only thing I have to add is: praise kink, much? (This featured heavily in the Fritz/Voltaire I outlined for Yuletide before I stopped having any hope of being able to write.)
Katte Saving the best and most complicated for last. I mean, notwithstanding that I ship Fritz with 5 other people, this remains my OTP. :D And as such, they have a deep and multilayered relationship that's hard to predict. And so their sexual dynamics for me depend entirely on which AU they're in.
I do think Katte, between social class and outgoing, charismatic personality, is capable of providing Fritz with an appropriate amount of emotional topping. I think Fritz was delighted when Katte ran around gushing over how much the Crown Prince loved him, and when he wanted to copy that miniature of Fritz and Wilhelmine and then refused to give it up. (I also believe, whatever Katte may have said during his repentant presentation at and after his trial, it wasn't solely or even mostly ambition: it was infatuation that he couldn't publicly admit to.)
So I think Katte will totally feel comfortable grabbing Fritz and squeezing him and gushing over him in private, or putting his arms around him and Fritz's head on his shoulder with a "There, there," when he needs it, and Fritz will eat it all up. And I think Katte is as close as Fritz ever gets to having a relationship on a roughly equal basis.
But sexually...well, in some AUs, Katte shows up again in 1740 and Fritz has already figured out he's not really into sex, "but have fun with your page or hunter." (Based on a letter to Fredersdorf.) "But emotionally you belong to me." Or in others, they're frantically switching and can't get enough of each other. Sometimes Fritz's control issues come to the fore, and Katte has to go along with it while trying to get him back into a place where he can let his guard down enough to bottom again. And in others, sometimes the depth and longevity and near-equality of their relationship means that Fritz's confusion over his sex drive comes to the fore, and then they have to spend a long time trying to figure that out. And in some AUs, they discover that, best of intentions and mutual attraction and all, they just can't figure out a way to be sexually compatible, between Katte having a conventional sex drive and Fritz having an unconventional one.
(They have a lot of AUs in my head, what can I say.)
So, um, you guys know me well enough that you saw the length and amount of detail coming, right? ;)
Re: The Suhm Letters: Shipping Mode
Well, we may not have discussed it, but I'm sure you all could have guessed that I have given it ~extensive thought~ and am ready to produce an essay on the subject. :P
It's a tricky question, between control issues on the one hand and wanting to be taken care of on the other.
Yep, the tension between the two is exactly how I approach his relationships as well. There's also sexual topping and emotional topping to consider, also Fritz's low sex drive.
(How about with Fritz's other boyfriends, I mean, devoted and emo manservants?)
Well...you asked!
Suhm and Fredersdorf
Fritz's dynamics with these two are so complementary in my mind that it's hard for me to discuss one without the other.
In a word, I think this discussion has finally given me the ability to articulate what I think Fritz's relationship with Fredersdorf was missing: emotional topping. I think Fritz's urge to be taken care of manifested as a craving for someone to hold him and adore him and reassure him on their own initiative, and I think the situation plus Fredersdorf's personality meant that Fredersdorf was too careful for that. I think he gave Fritz reassurance and emotional intimacy, but in a reactive way. When he took initiative, I expect it was having things ready for Fritz before he asked, maybe offering to play for him, but not, like, petting him.
I discussed this in the email thread with
I also kind of suspect 1740 was the year Fritz decided he just wasn't really into the sex act, as much as he might find men attractive. More on this later.
But that emotional topping that Fritz craved, I think he could get from Suhm. I don't think it was 100% Suhm topping, nor do I think Fritz wanted that. From the letters, I would describe them both as switches (to continue repurposing sexual vocabulary). But I think Suhm was able to *provide* the emotional topping that was probably the only thing missing from Fritz's relationship with Fredersdorf.
Their relationship must have evolved over time, what with Fritz being a child when they met, and in my mind it never actually went sexual, but the formative years of their relationship were teenage abuse victim Fritz needing comfort, and Suhm being twenty years older and a noble and a diplomat and had the self-confidence to provide it. And though it shifted into an intellectual relationship between adults, I think if Fritz ever looked like he needed a hug [like, idk, during that 1732 Christmas visit--because we know these winter holiday visits in the early 1730s were when Fritz and Suhm would hang out], their history meant Suhm could just do it without thinking about it. While Fredersdorf would be in the background unobtrusively making a cup of--well, one would normally make tea, but for Fritz, probably coffee :P--or something. And I suspect, along with
Fredersdorf, though, I think Fredersdorf satisfied Fritz's control needs so thoroughly that Fritz could relax and entrust him with all the most important things in the world. And like I've said, I am not 100% sure that Suhm, as a nobleman so much older and more experienced, would have been able to do that.
Sexually? As noted, I doubt Fritz ever had sex with either, but if he had, ooh. I think he would have let Suhm top at least some of the time (Greco-Roman mores meeting the age difference here would have helped), and he probably would have wanted to let Fredersdorf but wouldn't have been able to bring himself to, between the social differences and his control issues.
Peter Keith
My read on these two is 100% control issues. Fritz tops sexually, emotionally, socially, everything. I mean, not that there was anything going on after 1728, because everything went wrong. But in my AUs where they get to hang out more, or when I develop my wishful-thinking stories where they straighten out their miscommunications in the early 1750s, Fritz's control issues have a stranglehold on him where Peter's concerned, and there's not enough emotional depth for him to be left craving anything different.
Oh,
What We Know
1728: 17-yo page Peter is caught fooling around with 16-yo Crown Prince Fritz, and banished from court all the way to Wesel, near the Dutch border.
1730: Peter is included in Fritz's escape attempt and is meant to meet up with him in England. Well, Peter makes it, but as you know, no one else does. :-(
1730-1740: Peter lives in exile. Fritz seems to know that he's alive and well, but they have no direct communication.
1740: Fritz pardons Peter and summons him back to Berlin. He's in Silesia when Peter arrives.
1741: Peter, through an intermediary, requests both a commission in the army and a raise. He gets the commission but not the raise. He also gets engaged just before going off to war.
1744: Fritz makes Peter an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and gives him a position as curator.
1750: Fritz gives Peter an unsolicited large lump sum of money and a letter addressed to his mother-in-law talking about how wonderful Peter is.
1753: Fritz gives Peter another lump sum of money and a letter (MIL is dead if you believe Wikipedia, so I don't know who it's addressed to, maybe his wife). He takes him as ADC to Silesia.
1755: Peter gets to escort Fritz's sister to the abbey where she's just been made an abbess.
1756: Peter dies, we don't know where or of what, age 45.
Some unspecified time after 1740: Fritz keeps Peter near the queen mother, if you believe a contemporary who wasn't particularly close to either but was present in Berlin.
Plus this Algarotti write-up up through 1745-1747, which is relevant for comparanda purposes.
What I Think
This whole write-up.
And that's how you arrive at my whole hypothesis where Fritz and Peter, both meaning well, ran into Fritz's control issues and got into a feedback loop of mutual miscommunication.
If I ever get my writing ability back, I'd love to turn this into a fic, because it's really what I think happened, but I can't prove any of it. Self-indulgently, I want to give them a scene that's almost certainly AU, where they're sitting in the carriage on the way back from Silesia and talking, and they figure out what went wrong and achieve closure.
Algarotti
Algarotti is interesting, because he apparently had a strong bisexual sex drive, spent time in the brothels in Berlin, was suspected to have picked up STDs, etc. He was also apparently hugely attractive both in looks and personality.
He developed what was apparently a mutual infatuation with Fritz in 1739/1740, and in 1740, when Fritz was on his trip west, Algarotti rode in his carriage with him and apparently there was mutual caressing and carrying on like Algarotti was a mistress.
So Algarotti has always been my most likely candidate for "actually scored with Fritz." And my totally speculative headcanon here is that they did it once or twice, Fritz didn't enjoy it enough for it to be worth it, and that was what convinced him that he didn't like sex, not even with men.
My headcanon is also that he had a similar experience with the Countess Orzelska twelve years earlier. Basically, on both occasions, Fritz came away thinking, "Well, if I don't like sex with *him*/*her*, I must not like sex with *anyone*." The difference being that with Orzelska, he was left questioning whether maybe he was just inexperienced, and so he had a couple more, probably unconsummated, affairs with women before deciding forcing it wasn't working.
I also think that he was clearly capable of admiring gifted women, but that he was still homoromantic, and that his drop-off in interactions with women that give historians and fans fodder for their no-homoing was when he stopped equating "I enjoy this woman's company" with "I am head over heels for this woman."
Likewise, I think Algarotti inadvertently helped him stop equating "I'm attracted to this person" with "I want to act on this attraction to the point of being sexually active."
Who was on top? Well, it has been pointed out by more than one biographer that Fritz's lifelong battle with hemorrhoids would likely get in the way of frequent anal penetration. And I just really don't see Fritz giving blow jobs. And Algarotti was a people pleaser. And Fritz had control issues.
Conclusion: hand jobs, or Fritz was on top.
Also, I suspect their relationship was largely intellectual and flirting, not emotional intimacy.
Voltaire
One thing I know, though, that's the true reason why he and Voltaire must have kept it at handjobs. Not even blow jobs, because neither of them would ever shut up, and neither of them would ever allow the other one topping. Clearly!
It's so clear that I had independently come up with this! Including the "neither of them would ever shut up." :P
The only thing I have to add is: praise kink, much? (This featured heavily in the Fritz/Voltaire I outlined for Yuletide before I stopped having any hope of being able to write.)
Katte
Saving the best and most complicated for last. I mean, notwithstanding that I ship Fritz with 5 other people, this remains my OTP. :D And as such, they have a deep and multilayered relationship that's hard to predict. And so their sexual dynamics for me depend entirely on which AU they're in.
I do think Katte, between social class and outgoing, charismatic personality, is capable of providing Fritz with an appropriate amount of emotional topping. I think Fritz was delighted when Katte ran around gushing over how much the Crown Prince loved him, and when he wanted to copy that miniature of Fritz and Wilhelmine and then refused to give it up. (I also believe, whatever Katte may have said during his repentant presentation at and after his trial, it wasn't solely or even mostly ambition: it was infatuation that he couldn't publicly admit to.)
So I think Katte will totally feel comfortable grabbing Fritz and squeezing him and gushing over him in private, or putting his arms around him and Fritz's head on his shoulder with a "There, there," when he needs it, and Fritz will eat it all up. And I think Katte is as close as Fritz ever gets to having a relationship on a roughly equal basis.
But sexually...well, in some AUs, Katte shows up again in 1740 and Fritz has already figured out he's not really into sex, "but have fun with your page or hunter." (Based on a letter to Fredersdorf.) "But emotionally you belong to me." Or in others, they're frantically switching and can't get enough of each other. Sometimes Fritz's control issues come to the fore, and Katte has to go along with it while trying to get him back into a place where he can let his guard down enough to bottom again. And in others, sometimes the depth and longevity and near-equality of their relationship means that Fritz's confusion over his sex drive comes to the fore, and then they have to spend a long time trying to figure that out. And in some AUs, they discover that, best of intentions and mutual attraction and all, they just can't figure out a way to be sexually compatible, between Katte having a conventional sex drive and Fritz having an unconventional one.
(They have a lot of AUs in my head, what can I say.)
So, um, you guys know me well enough that you saw the length and amount of detail coming, right? ;)