{"id":13200,"date":"2016-12-15T12:41:56","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T17:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=13200"},"modified":"2016-12-15T12:41:56","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T17:41:56","slug":"sex-education-for-catherine-the-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex Education for Catherine the Great"},"content":{"rendered":"

What was sex education like before the Age of Internet?\u00a0Catherine the Great<\/em><\/a> (Massie):<\/p>\n

Catherine\u2019s premarital nervousness did not come from fear of the nocturnal intimacies that marriage would demand. She knew nothing about these things. Indeed, on the eve of her marriage, she was so innocent that she did not know how the two sexes physically differed. Nor had she any idea what mysterious acts were performed when a woman lay down with a man. Who did what? How? She questioned her young ladies, but they were as innocent as she. One June night, she staged an impromptu slumber party in her bedroom, covering the floor with mattresses, including her own. Before going to sleep, the eight flustered and excited young women discussed what men were like and how their bodies were formed. No one had any specific information; indeed, their talk was so ill-informed, incoherent, and unhelpful that Catherine said that in the morning she would ask her mother. She did so, but Johanna\u2014herself married at fifteen\u2014refused to answer. Instead, she \u201cseverely scolded\u201d her daughter for indecent curiosity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How did the arranged marriage work out?<\/p>\n

The next day, Madame Krause questioned Catherine about her wedding night. Catherine did not answer. She knew that something was wrong, but she did not know what. In the nights that followed, she continued to lie untouched at the side of her sleeping husband, and Madame Krause\u2019s morning questions continued to go unanswered. \u201cAnd,\u201d she writes in her Memoirs, \u201cmatters remained in this state without the slightest change during the following nine years.\u201d<\/p>\n

two weeks after their wedding, Peter finally had something to say to Catherine: with a broad smile, he announced that he had fallen in love with Catherine Karr, one of the empress\u2019s ladies-in-waiting.<\/p>\n

The woman carefully selected by Bestuzhev to oversee and administer these tasks was twenty-four-year-old Maria Semenovna Choglokova, Elizabeth\u2019s first cousin on her mother\u2019s side.\u00a0Madame Choglokova had a remarkable reputation for virtue and fertility. She idolized her husband and produced a child with almost annual regularity, a domestic accomplishment meant to set an example for Catherine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the author, Catherine never did have a baby with her husband. Her first-born son Paul<\/a> was the child of a lover, Sergei Saltykov and the subsequent children were fathered by different lovers.<\/p>\n

Catherine the Great valued sexual variety and youth. Regardless of her own age, her boyfriends were generally in their 20s and the sexual relationship lasted for about two years:<\/p>\n

WHEN CATHERINE, then Sophia, arrived in Russia at the age of fourteen, she learned that \u201cfavorite\u201d was the term used to describe an established and formally recognized lover of the woman on the throne, Empress Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

Most of Catherine\u2019s favorites were young officers originally selected for their handsome faces …<\/p>\n

When Catherine dismissed lovers, it was not because they lacked virility but because they bored her. One need not be an empress to find it impossible to talk in the morning to a person with whom one has spent the night.<\/p>\n

Catherine had twelve lovers. What shocked her contemporaries was not this number, but the age difference between Catherine and her later favorites. She crafted an explanation: she categorized these young men as students whom she hoped to develop into intellectual companions. If they did not completely measure up\u2014and she did not pretend that one would become another Voltaire or Diderot, or even another Potemkin\u2014then she could at least say that she was helping to train them for future roles in administering the empire.<\/p>\n

Most of the favorites were young men whose youth and social inexperience offered a striking contrast to the dignified demeanor of their imperial patroness. The differences in age and station confused the court and created a whirlwind of gossip in Europe. But the specific manner and intimate practices by which these favorites pleased Catherine are unknown. Only in the cases of Potemkin and Zavadovsky is private correspondence available, and, in this regard, it is unspecific. Those seeking physical details of Catherine\u2019s romantic liaisons will learn nothing; neither in her own words nor in the words of others are there any references to sexual preferences and behavior. Her bedroom door remains closed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Note that Catherine’s 18th-century behavior is similar to what lawyers interviewed for Real World Divorce<\/em><\/a> told us about choices made by\u00a0their female clients. Catherine got her position and wealth from a husband and then discarded him (not through divorce court, but by having him murdered). As there was no marital partner who could add substantially to her wealth going forward, she settled into a long cougarhood where she used the cash she’d gotten from her marriage to fund a series of sexual relationships with attractive young men.<\/p>\n

The husband’s death occasioned little more interest than a present-day divorce lawsuit:<\/p>\n

At Catherine\u2019s request, [French Ambassador] Pictet sent a long account to Voltaire, explaining the intolerable situation in which she had found herself after her coup, and her innocence in the murder itself. Voltaire accepted this account, and brushed it aside by saying, \u201cI know that \u2026 [Catherine] is reproached with some bagatelle about her husband, but these are family matters in which I do not mix<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

]<\/p>\n

More: Read\u00a0Catherine the Great<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was sex education like before the Age of Internet?\u00a0Catherine the Great (Massie): Catherine\u2019s premarital nervousness did not come from fear of the nocturnal intimacies that marriage would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSex Education for Catherine the Great - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sex Education for Catherine the Great - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What was sex education like before the Age of Internet?\u00a0Catherine the Great (Massie): Catherine\u2019s premarital nervousness did not come from fear of the nocturnal intimacies that marriage would […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-15T17:41:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"Sex Education for Catherine the Great\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-15T17:41:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\"},\"wordCount\":884,\"commentCount\":5,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\",\"name\":\"Sex Education for Catherine the Great - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-12-15T17:41:56+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sex Education for Catherine the Great\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"description\":\"A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\",\"name\":\"philg\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2047,\"height\":2560,\"caption\":\"philg\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/author\/philg\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sex Education for Catherine the Great - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sex Education for Catherine the Great - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","og_description":"What was sex education like before the Age of Internet?\u00a0Catherine the Great (Massie): Catherine\u2019s premarital nervousness did not come from fear of the nocturnal intimacies that marriage would […]","og_url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/","og_site_name":"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","article_published_time":"2016-12-15T17:41:56+00:00","author":"philg","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"philg","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/"},"author":{"name":"philg","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"headline":"Sex Education for Catherine the Great","datePublished":"2016-12-15T17:41:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/"},"wordCount":884,"commentCount":5,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/","name":"Sex Education for Catherine the Great - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-12-15T17:41:56+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/sex-education-for-catherine-the-great\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sex Education for Catherine the Great"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/","name":"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog","description":"A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months...","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e","name":"philg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg","width":2047,"height":2560,"caption":"philg"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20210525-philip-greenspun-sea-turtle-release-scaled.jpg"},"url":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/author\/philg\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paokyZ-3qU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}