18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Comments

Re: Pompadour gossip

[mildred_of_midgard]

but Francis I. was definitely present in the room when teenage son Henri consumed the marriage to equally teenage Catherine de' Medici, and described the consumation as a "valiant joust" to the court therafter.

Ha! I'm sure I will encounter that anecdote soon, as my next planned bio is one of Catherine. :D

I'm thinking that wasn't the norm, though? At least all the examples I can think of are ones where the sex or lack thereof wasn't witnessed, only putting them in bed together.

Re: Pompadour gossip

[selenak]

I don't think it was the norm, no. But I seem to recall that it did happen to other unfortunate young couples, rarely, but it did, though I couldn't give you an immediate second example out of my head.

(Well, not of an arranged royal marriage being consumated in front of a witness or witnesses. I could tell you which Beatle lost his virginity in Hamburg with the rest present in the same room - George Harrison. Which we know because George said so.)

Beatles gossip

[cahn]

(Well, not of an arranged royal marriage being consumated in front of a witness or witnesses. I could tell you which Beatle lost his virginity in Hamburg with the rest present in the same room - George Harrison. Which we know because George said so.)

Wait, really? That sounds really unpleasant!

Re: Beatles gossip

[selenak]

Once upon a time there was a group of late teens and barely 20s, two of whom were still underage, who got their first foreign gig in Hamburg. In a seedy club owned by a guy namned Koschmider who also owned a cinema. So rather than pay his musicians enough for them to rent rooms during their months in Hamburg, he stored them in two tiny rooms behind the big screen of the cinema. Neither room had a bath, of course - they had to use the cinema's toilet for anything related to hygiene care, which was one reason why once they made friends with some Germans, they used said friends' showers a lot. Private space certainly was not to be had during that Hamburg trip, and so here's George Harrison, looking back decades later on the travails of losing one's virginity (he was 17, Paul was 18, John was 20):

In the late Fifties in England it wasn't that easy to get it. The girls would all wear brassieres and corsets which seemed like reinforced steel. You could never actually get in anywhere. You'd always be breaking your hand trying to undo everything. I can remember parties at Pete Best's house, or wherever; there'd be these all-night parties and I'd be snogging with some girl and having a hard-on for eight hours till my groin was aching - and not getting any relief. That was how it always was. Those weren't the days. There's that side of it which will always be there, with the different sexes and their desires and all that Testa Rossa-terone bubbling up. And there's the other side of it - the peer-group pressure: 'What, haven't you had it yet?' It becomes, 'Oh, I've got to get it,' and everyone would be lying: 'Yeah, I got it.' - 'Did you get some tit?' - 'I got some tit.' - 'Well, I got some finder pie!' I certainly didn't have a stripper in Hamburg. I know Pete met one. There were young girls in the clubs and we knew a few, but for me it wasn't some big orgy. My first shag was in Hamburg - with Paul and John watching. We were in bunkbeds. They couldn't really see anything because I was under the covers, but after I'd finished they all applauded and cheered. At least they kept quiet whilst I was doing it.

Re: Beatles gossip

[cahn]

!! Oh wow. That's, uh. Well, the late 50's was a different time too, that's all I'm saying :P