cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

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Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, hey, of course the Orgasm Poem is read by Fry later on

I figured it would be. It got pretty popular, which is part of the reason Algarotti is on everyone's radar (and faithful Fredersdorf's not).

Also, all the siblings are Not Appearing In This Podcast.

Sigh. One passing mention and it was WRONG.

no Heinrich (Fritz is the Big Mastermind of the Polish partition of course, Catherine who?

Fritz: Score one for my history-rewriting!

Sadly, this is a pretty common take, as is the (Fritz's) story that Fritz and Joseph totally planned it all out at Neisse. Even respectable histories have it.

Sanssouci is "filled almost exclusively with homosexual or bisexual men" -

Lol! I've seen this take too, but...less respectably.

Of course they take Voltaire's bottoming anecdote as is

Oh FFS.

but I'm laughing that Zimmermann's "everyone believed he was gay" gets quoted but that they leave out the "BUT IT WAS ALL A CUNNING PLAN" bit entirely. He's totally rolling in his grave.

Fritz: My cunning plan worked! Everyone believes I was gay! ~~because I was~~

ETA: Also, thank you for your tolerance for listening to things that are WRONG on the INTERNET! It is a great service to salon. (I think our comment count on this post almost doubled in the space of an hour. :P)

Edited Date: 2022-12-14 07:54 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

It got pretty popular, which is part of the reason Algarotti is on everyone's radar (and faithful Fredersdorf's not).

In the English speaking world, my dear. Back when I had reason to google all those 2012 German articles dealing with Fritzian sexuality apropos the big centennary, not one of them mentioned Algarotti or the poem, which is why I learned of Algarotti's existence only through salon, but a great many of them quoted from the Fredersdorf letters, especially your favourite one. Gott bewahre Dir!

Seriously though, given that and the Bad Gays podcast, I wish one of us would do a podcast of their own where we could do an hour introduction to Fritz, friends and foes wherein we prove there's more than enough sensationalist gossip to be head which actually bears some resemblance to reality so you don't have to resort to demonstrable falsehoods.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

In the English speaking world, my dear.

Well, yes, this is an English-speaking broadcast we're discussing. I expect what's well-known and what's not to be different in the German speaking world!

Seriously though, given that and the Bad Gays podcast, I wish one of us would do a podcast of their own where we could do an hour introduction to Fritz

I agree!