#reddeaddufus

Red Dead Redemption 2 does an excellent job keeping the entire game remarkably sex-less (pardon a couple notable examples). To the chagrin of perverts everywhere, we never got to see Arthur Morgan get his freak on. Fortunately, about 1k+ listings on AO3 help correct the issue. But considering the rate of accidental childbirth and STIs, 1899 sex wasn’t always the safest. Afab folks had their own assortment of more or less lethal effective methods of birth control. But folks with a penis, not so much.

So how would our loveable protagonists have gotten their dicks wet?

Condoms. They existed, but they weren’t fun. You had, in essence, 3 options: 

animal intestine reusable “skins” (often permeable and quickly developed holes*)

mass produced rubber penis sheaths (Essentially the condom we know today, but reusable, fairly thick, “one size fits all” in the worst way, and uncomfortable)

Custom fitted rubber glans-only condoms (expensive, custom fitted, and often still fell off during sex)

The third option, the glans-only condom, was at the time the most attractive (albeit costly) option. However, it entailed a trip down to the physician’s office where you had to a) get hard, b) get your dick measured with by a doctor**, and c) wait several weeks until it arrived in the mail. 

I’d like to offer the fan theory that Arthur Morgan remained celibate not due to stress or out of fear of having children, but of an extreme desire to not have to get his dick fitted. 

 In celebration of yeehawgust and in conjunction with @inber​, I present...

* Aine Collier (2007). The Humble Little Condom: A History. Buffalo, N.Y: Prometheus Books. p. 371. ISBN 978-1-59102-556-6.

Do you long for historically accurate slang in your fanfictions? Do you want to know whether to call your OC’s butt a ‘roby douglas’ or a ‘crupper’?’

Green’s Dictionary of Slang is your friend! If you’re a purist for paper copies you can shell out a cool ~$800 for all three volumes. If you’re literally anyone else you can use the entire thing online for free. It’s basically Urban Dictionary for history (but with sources).

I may or may not name my firstborn after this bad boy. 

Why is this monster of a historical database significant? Let me tell you. This thing’s search engine is gold. You can search by word meaning, headword, source, time period, etymology, and usage. This is sexy stuff. You know why? Because I can do this.

Every little tally up there is a different instance of usage in published historical text. I can read each quotation complete with source, country of use, and year of publication. I can also use this to sort between 1800 and 1899 to find the exact usage of “butt” I want. This is important - if you’re anal AF and want your historical fanfic to be as accurate as possible (even though literally no one else cares aside from all two of us), you can.

Say we want to talk about butts in our writing. Our story is set in 1899. You pop over to this search engine and sit down to see what’s what.

You can see that around 1882 in England the word changes to mean the butt of a cigarette rather than buttocks, as they were before.  Around the turn of the century you can see using “butt” to talk about buttocks becomes the norm again, pretty much all over the world. In 1918 in Australia we can see the definition expands again to now also include it as a definition for the end of a prison sentence in. In 1943 in the USA it means the end of an enlistment period. 

Well that’s not helpful for our purpose today. I guess we could still use the word “butt” in our boy-love fanfic set in 1899, but what else can we use? Let’s go back to our sexy, sexy historical thesaurus. 

LOOK AT ALL THESE HISTORICALLY ACCURATE WORDS WE CAN USE TO DESCRIBE BUTTS. 

“Nathalie knows what she wants?” John choked on a laugh.

He was interrupted as Arthur leaned into Nathalie, giving her some more of the length she was practically shaking for. Nathalie moaned again, long and loud.

Arthur just grinned. He stilled again, but this time one of his hands left its place on her hip and slid to press two fingers firmly against Nathalie’s clit. She hissed at the feeling and jerked into the touch. Arthur bent lower until Nathalie could feel his stubble against her skin.

“What do you want, Nathalie?” Arthur asked. His voice was dangerously, deliciously rough.

“I want you to fuck me,” Nathalie spat, frustrated. Her words were followed by Arthur’s dark chuckle.

Arthur and his trusty steed, Pygmalion, the Mahogany Bay Tennessee Walker. (It’s just “Pyg” when he runs into trees.)