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Sexuality of Frederick the Great

Portrait sketch of the 51-year-old Frederick II by Johann Georg Ziesenis (1763).[1]

It is almost certain that Prussian King Frederick the Great (1712–1786) was primarily homosexual, and that his sexual orientation was central to his life.[2][3][4][5][6] However, the nature of his actual relationships remains speculative.[7]

Though he had an arranged marriage, Frederick produced no children and was succeeded by his nephew. His favoured courtiers were exclusively male, and his art collection celebrated homoeroticism. Persistent rumours connecting the king with homosexual activity circulated around Europe during his lifetime, but there is less surviving definitive evidence of any sexual relationships of his, homosexual or otherwise. However, in July 1750, the Prussian king unmistakably wrote to his gay secretary and reader, Claude Étienne Darget: “Mes hémorroïdes saluent affectueusement votre v[erge]” (“My hemorrhoids affectionately greet your cock”), which strongly suggests that he was sexually involved with men.[8][9]

Furthermore, at an advanced age, the king advised his nephew in a written document against passive anal intercourse, which from his own experience was "not very pleasant".[10] That he actually did desire men is also clear from statements by his famous contemporaries, Voltaire and Giacomo Casanova, who personally knew him and his sexual preferences. Significantly, Voltaire nicknamed Frederick "Luc". When read backwards, it means "cul" (the vulgar French term for "anus" or "butt").[11] According to Wolfgang Burgdorf, “Various foreign envoys ... reported on Frederick’s ‘unnatural vice’. ... None of them bothered with the idea of influencing the Prussian court's policy by launching a new mistress. Saxony and France, however, repeatedly managed to place good-looking young men near him. Sanssouci was a women-free zone during the Friderican era.”[12] Frederick himself once shocked a dinner party with a misogynist rant against "ghastly women you smelled ten miles around."[11]

A certain hereditary predisposition seems plausible, since both Frederick's younger brother Henry and their maternal great uncle Ernest Augustus were gay. The latter's maternal great-grandfather (and great-great-great-grandfather of Frederick and Henry) was, in turn, the bisexual James VI of Scotland and I of England (see: Personal relationships of James VI and I). Of course, knowledge about biology and sexual orientation was not yet known at that time and genetic influences in sexual orientation were even less so.[13]

Frederick's sexuality was rejected by professional historians for centuries after his death, but was embraced by homosexual publications of Weimar Germany, which featured him on their covers and praised him for governing while homosexual.[14]

  1. ^ Wikimedia Commons page. Disputedly this is the only portrait for which Frederick is said to have sat during his reign. According to Karin Schrader, Der Bildnismaler Johann Georg Ziesenis (1717–1776) (Münster 1995), pp. 101–119, it is not clear that Frederick sat for this portrait. In fact, Frederick had a large, hooked nose and considered himself as ugly as a scarecrow. Therefore, he refused to sit for official state portraits which show him either stoic or heroic while this overly handsome portrait shows him smiling and facing. Arthistoricum.net page of the University of Heidelberg
  2. ^ Blanning 2016, p. 193.
  3. ^ Henderson, Susan W. (1977). "Frederick the Great of Prussia: A Homophile Perspective". Gai Saber. 1 (1): 46–54.;
    also see: Johansson, Warren (2016). "Frederick II (The Great) of Prussia (1712–1786)". In Dynes, Wayne R. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Vol. I. Oxfordshire, UK: Taylor & Francis. pp. 428–429.
  4. ^ Bernd Krysmanski, "Evidence for the homosexuality and the anal erotic desires of the Prussian king", in Does Hogarth Depict Old Fritz Truthfully with a Crooked Beak? – The Pictures Familiar to Us from Pesne to Menzel Don’t Show This, ART-dok (University of Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net, 2022), pp. 24–30. https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00008019
  5. ^ Krause, Tilman (20 March 2019). "So Schwul War Deutschlands größter König" [Germany's Greatest King Was So Gay]. Welt (in German). Archived from the original on 17 November 2020.
  6. ^ Krysmanski, Bernd (2019), "Belege für die Homosexualität und die analerotischen Gelüste des Preußenkönigs," in Nur Hogarth zeigt den Alten Fritz wahrheitsgemäß mit krummem "Zinken" – die uns vertrauten Bilder von Pesne bis Menzel tun dies nicht (Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net). https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/6399 ("Evidence for the Homosexuality and the Anal-Erotic Desires of the Prussian King," in Only Hogarth Depicts the Old Fritz Truthfully with a Crooked "Beak" – The Pictures Familiar to Us from Pesne to Menzel Don't Do This), p. 27: "Dass der Preußenkönig homosexuelle Neigungen hatte, war schon dem 18. Jahrhundert wohlbekannt." ("That the Prussian king had homosexual tendencies was well known as early as the 18th century.")
  7. ^ Blanning 2016, pp. 55–77; Clark 2006, pp. 186–189; Fraser 2000, pp. 39–42; MacDonogh 2000, pp. 106–107.
  8. ^ Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand, Tome XX, Correspondance Tome V: IV. Correspondance de Frédéric avec M. Darget (Mai 1749 - 6 Septembre 1771), no. 6.
  9. ^ Krysmanski, "Evidence for the homosexuality and the anal erotic desires of the Prussian king", p. 28. https://doi.org/10.11588/artdok.00008019
  10. ^ In his "Matinées" (a kind of guide written for his heir to the throne) to be found in the royal archives in Potsdam, the older monarch took a more sceptical view of his homosexual activities. Though on the one hand he admits that Amor knows no mercy and that it is useless to defy him, yet, on the other hand, he advises his nephew not to follow his example, because it could have serious consequences for him: "the commanders and officers would be more interested in pleasure than glory, and your army would end up in a collection of pederasts, like your Uncle Henry's regiment. From my personal experience I can assure you that that Greek pleasure has little appeal..." See Gaston Vorberg, "Der Klatsch über das Geschlechtsleben Friedrichs II." (Gossip about Frederick II's sexual life), in Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Sexualforschung (Treatises from the field of sexual research), vol. III, no. 6 (1920-21), pp. 6-7.
  11. ^ a b Oliver Das Gupta, "Der schwule Fritz," Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23 January 2012.
  12. ^ Wolfgang Burgdorf, “Königliche Liebschaften: Friedrich der Große und seine Männer,” in Norman Domeier and Christian Mühling (eds.), Homosexualität am Hof: Praktiken und Diskurse vom Mittelalter bis heute (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus), p. 133.
  13. ^ In 1993, Dean Hamer and colleagues published findings from a linkage analysis of a sample of 76 gay brothers and their families and found that the gay men had more gay male uncles and cousins on the maternal side of the family than on the paternal side: Hamer DH, Hu S, Magnuson VL, Hu N, Pattatucci AM (July 1993), A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. This was subsequently confirmed in further studies: Wilson G, Rahman Q (2008). Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation (2nd ed.). Peter Owen Publishers. ISBN 9780720613094.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Beacock was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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