December 03, 2004

• I don't know, better ask my wife.
• Nostril, you let your wife go out with other men? *goggle*
• How come, in the Age of Information, we don't know this much about our leaders? They couldn't keep any of these affairs secret, yet I'm still not positive if Bush has been putting it inside Condi. I know that Henry VIII boasted a fifty-seven-inch waist and a festering ulcer on his leg, yet I still don't know what that lump on Bush's back is. I'm disapointed that our media can't even match with the standards of the Dark Ages.
• "They want me to have children," he lamented in another letter. "How can one have them? If I could put the tip of my finger on the tiniest part of her body which was not covered by pimples, I would try to have a child." Argh!
• Barbara, Lady Castlemaine, described her royal lover Charles II as being magnificently endowed, prompting her friend Lord Rochester to write: Nor are his high desires above his strength His scepter and his prick are of a length. Hearing this couplet, Louis XIV's mistress the princesse de Monaco remarked that while Louis's power was great, his "scepter" was small compared to that of his royal cousin across the English Channel. And there you have it folks. Size has always mattered.
• I would bet that most of this information came out after the kings died. This is how we know way too much about JFK's sex life (wasn't there something about having sex in the bathtub to help with his back pain, and almost drowing a mistress in the process?).
• Rochester r0xx0rs. I would suggest for your literary edification The Imperfect Enjoyment, The Dying Lover to His Prick, Signior Dildo, and in fact a selection of his naughty verse.
• knickerbocker- the bulge was (and is) a bulletproof vest. poor scared wittle boy. don't worry, there are no brown people in the crowds you speak to, so you'll be ok.
• I don't mind if he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. I think all presidents should--even the ones who are doing a GOOD job... But hey, the topic here is royal fucking, not presidential fuck-ups... *I kid, I kid. A little.*
• Fabulously naughty! I love this stuff. Thanks, Ouchkit Queen!
• this is especially interesting in light of the most recent "diana tapes" (good LORD will we ever let that woman rest in peace??) anyhow. early in her marriage she confronted charles about camilla. supposedly charles said, "i'm not going to be the first prince of wales in history without a mistress." so diana hied herself to the queen, who responded something along the lines of, "oh THAT CHARLES. incorrigible."
• You know, this is the real reason we study history. I know I tell my students and other people it's all about understanding the human condition, where we've come from and where we're going - but in my secret heart of hearts, I know it's really all about the salacious gossip. Which is why I'm still annoyed that I can't get a full copy of "Charles II: the power and the passion" in Region1. 4 hours of wigs, huge skirts, playing around and the origins of party politics! Who doesn't want to see it? That said, it's easy to just have fun with stories of people dead for a few hundred years. Sidedish's comment about Diana reminds me of the human side, the hearts that were broken, the women reduced to "walking wombs". I think that in the past, many may have been more prepared for what their role was to be, but that wouldn't have made it much easier. Actually, the "Charles II" miniseries does deal sensitively with his relationship with his wife, which they present as not loving, but respectful, and sad. I don't know how accurate this is (I don't watch miniseries for accuracy), but does make the figures human characters.
• jb - region free DVD player. Just saying.
• Ouchkit, that's a great link (and nice job sticking around here).
• If you guys liked this one, wait until you hear about the tradition of initiating Scottish kings by insisting they have sex with a white horse in the town square. I kid you not. But maybe it's not that weird. I saw similar things in the countryside while bicycling through France in the early 80's. Of course, my web designer says that this happens in Wyoming, too. (Oh, and thanks for saying thanks, you guys.)
• Great link, Ouchkit Queen! Thanks for the post.
• I know, polychrome. But I currently don't own a DVD player except that in my laptop, which I can't really change. If I ever bought a freestanding DVD player (and a TV to play it with), I would get regionfree if possible, just for these emergencies. The special edition of one of my favorite movies is also only available on Region 2.
• Oooh, oooh, did I see a reference to Rochester's poetry up there? I second TenaciousPettle's recommendation. My favorite has always been Song of a Young Lady to her Ancient Lover. The book was cool, too, Ouchkit Queen. I put the paper version on my wish list.
• It's an interesting link, but it's a bit too narrowly focussed. Probably the most entertaining (and historically relevant) naughty stories come from the thrones of Spain and Austria, both neglected here. The Hapsburg dinasty, which reigned over Austria from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, and, at the time of Emperor Charles V, also over much of the known world, managed that feat by remorseless sticking to a policy of strategic marriages, which gave rise to the wry remark: "Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube!" (Let others wage war, you, happy Austria, marry!). It was that way that the Hapsburgs came to the throne of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella's only male heir, Juan, was married to Princess Margarita of Austria. However, the rather sickly Juan couldn't quite cope with the legendary lust of Margarita and died after just six months. This opened the way to the throne to the husband of Ferdinand and Isabella's eldest (and rather batty) daughter Juana, who just happened to be another Hapsburg. That's how their son Charles came to be ruler of Spain and Austria and, thanks to the gold from Spain's nascent American colonies, buy enough votes to be elected emperor of Germany... The Spanish Hapsburgs eventually became so intensely inbred that the last of them, Charles II, never quite figured out the "facts of life", dying heirless. The following dinasty was also quite frisky. Charles IV wife Maria Luisa, for instance, started an intense affair with a hunky guardsman, Manuel de Godoy. Because Charles IV was pretty dumb, or good-natured, she managed even to promote him all the way to Prime Minister. Unfortunately, Godoy was far less gifted as a statesman than in bed. Most notably, he entered an alliance with Napoleon against Britain that led to the destruction of the Spanish fleet in Trafalgar and ultimately to the loss of the Spanish empire (the Spanish colonies in America started revolting when told to join Napoleon's Continental blockade against Britain). Moreover, neither the Spanish people nor the heir to the throne saw the royal threesome kindly, which in turn led to a series of revolts, Napoleon installing his own brother on the Spanish throne and the Peninsular War. One generation later, an even worse mismatch led to Queen Isabel II being married to her very, very gay cousin Maria Fernando Francisco de Asis de Borbon. Not getting much sexual satisfaction from that side, she looked for it elsewhere, and followed her grandmother's example in turning her bed into a casting couch for primeministership. Unfortunately, unlike her grandma (who remained remarkably faithful to her lover Godoy all along her life), Isabel liked variety, which led to a pretty unstable time in Spanish politics... The end of the Hapsburg dinasty in Austria was similarly marked by bedroom antics. There was Sissi, of course, but most importantly her son's Rudolf affair with Maria Vetsera, and their suicide (?) in Meyerling. That led to Archduke Franz Ferdinand becoming heir to the Austrian throne and, ultimately, to Sarajevo and a lotta trouble.
• poor scared wittle boy. don't worry, there are no brown people in the crowds you speak to, so you'll be ok. WTF?
• Oh right. Jesus, I'm a fucking moron.
• SideDish: Yeah, well, Diana was a social-climbing moron. The deal with marrying the future king is that you get to be queen. If she wanted a loving marriage, she should have looked for that, instead.
• She wasn't a social climbing moron. She was a very young woman (only 19), who was very high up socially to begin with, and probably very protected. I didn't know at the time about the age disparity (I was only 7 or 8 myself), but if I heard now of any 19 year old marrying somone in their 30s or 40s, I would be worried for them, let alone someone in such a public position. Who knows how much she might have been pushed into it by interested friends and family? Lady Sarah Lennox was once in that position, in 1760 - being pushed at George III against her will, only to be the one to suffer when he didn't marry her. But the real nastyness came from the newspaper moguls (like Murdock) who decided they would print anything with Diana in it. It went well beyond normal paparrazism to something obscene - and the public wasn't demanding it, though they did allow it to continue. Her death was a real wake up call to the evil of what was being done - if it had not been the press, it would have been named stalking long before. The freedom of the press should not extend to that kind of immorality. Things have and will change. But it's too late for those innocent people who died.
• Meh, but she was what, all of 19 when they got married? Man, at that age she probably still believed in twue wuv.
• Er, what jb said.
• yeah i can still remember when diana and charles met the press to announce their engagement. there's "lady diana," literally rosy-cheeked, and the interviewer asks, "are you two in love?" and she gushes, "oh, of course!" and charles replies flatly, "whatever love is." that exact moment is when i started my countdown to tragedy. all along i thought it would simply be romantic tragedy, not a tragic death.
• or did he say, "whatever `being in love' means"? something like that. ick. still gives me the willies to think about it.
• Yes, SideDish - he may be the Prince of Wales, but he's no gentleman. Nice post, and a huge subject, as the fascinating supplementary stuff from Skeptic demonstrates.
• Democracy was the worst thing that ever happened to us other women. *grumble*
• Eleanor of Aquitaine was the queen of two kings (a feat I don't think has been accomplished since) AND of the notion of Courtly Love. Some of all this power must have come from sex. She outlived nearly every king she met or gave birth to. (I had links, but for some reason they ain't working.)
• "And that, boys, is the role of Sex in history." Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor rocked my world. That is one of the greatest plays/movies ever.
• Speaking of sex, women, and power, I'm having an argument with a male friend who believes that if women want men to talk to them, they should be willing to have sex with them first, since he claims it's sex that releases the chatty hormone in men.
• There's a chatty hormone?
• Ouchkit Queen, how did you refrain from smacking him upside the head?
• Well, here's the deal. The "chatty hormone" is oxytocin, the hormone that's released in women when they give birth, talk to girlfriends, feel romantic. Some neuropsychologists call it the "caring hormone." It apparently flows in women before they have an orgasm. It doesn't flows much in men until after they've come. Androgens (sex hormones), on the other hand, flow in women after they've had a strong dose of oxytocin (that's why we like snuggling, kissing, etc.) Androgen flows in men before they've had an orgasm. Only afterwards do they get a surge of oxytocin. That's why they seem more vulnerable at that time (assuming they're still awake). The theory is that if women want men to talk to them, they should go through the sex door first. And if men want women to have sex, they should try going through the talking door first.If you want to hear more of my thoughts on this, check out my Blog entry called:Musings on Sex. (But don't buy anything and please don't look around, or Nostrildamus will come after me again!) Oh, and here's a site I found with a decent explanation of how Oxytocin works.