Sexuality of Frederick the Great

Most modern scholars agree that Prussian King Frederick the Great (1712–1786) was primarily homosexual, and that his sexual orientation was central to his life. However, the nature of his actual relationships remains speculative.

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 teasingly 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.

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". 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'). 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." Frederick himself once shocked a dinner party with an offensive rant against "ghastly women you smelled ten miles around."

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.