#sissy staff

[misskims-blog]

[orlaroe]

My mistress account has been closed temporarly because she reported illegal content on tumblr, how can that be right? sound like they made a right mess of things.

Tumblr support need to pull their finger out their ass and get her account back open so she start posting her captions and hypno here again for us all to enjoy

reblog and show your support, she has been an integral part of tumblr for many years, post captions and hypno.

now from her backup page @abbeydaze

I support you ❤️

[atom-bomb-baby]

Hey @staff @support What The Fuck is this?

The feminism tag is just filled to the BRIM with uncensored NSFW sissy content and it's now TRENDING

I AM NONBINARY AND QUEER AS HELL IF YOU ARE A TERF FUCK OFF I HATE YOU

[dosshie]

my mom, that studied african religion for more than a decade and is part of umbanda, live reaction to ororon and iansan:

"I don't care if you make them white with blue eyes, at least study the gods you're basing them from!!!!"

im too afraid of twitter so imma post this here, but for short: the skin color is not the only problem! lol

i asked my mom who is very knowledgeable of the religion for her opinions and this is what we talked!! please don't take this post as an flawless analysis, you should also hear the opinions of people from umbanda, candomblé, and specially from nigeria. i'm mainly doing this because this religion barely gets any representation at all, so this will be the first time many people will be introduced to this culture and while i'm happy that it's included in a game that i play, it's important to recognize its shortcomings, anyway enough rambling!

for iansan, her character is based on iansã, the orixá (deity/god) of the winds and storms, she is seen as a warrior and is associated with the color red

she said that they easily could've given her buffalo horns on her mask, since iansã's animal is the buffalo (tho i know some people may think this is insensitive since yknow, giving one of the few dark-skinned charactes an animal skull doesn't look very good), the other thing she said is that they could've given her some braids in her hair, because in history thats what iansã and her army used to wear when they were going in combat (which was like, VERY on point??? i didnt tell her natlan was the nation of war beforehand)

other than that she didn't gave much imput, probably because her design does look like someone who fights

now, as for ororon... he is based on olorum, the orixá closest to a god/creator, and is commonly associated with...... the color white..... and one of his visual features is his staff

she said that they could've easily given him light hair/eyes, for her ororon doesn't seem to resemble olorum in the slightest, i also asked jokingly what she thought about him being a wolfboy and she said that it was fine lol

she asked me what power (vision/weapon) they gave to him and i said that i didn't know, but from the leaks they said that he's a bow character, and she immediately said that they made logunedé, in her words: "HE'S A HUNTER AND HE LOOKS A BIT SISSY, IT'S LOGUMEDÉ!"

logumedé is the son of the orixás oxóssi and oxum, he is a hunter like his father and takes care of his looks like his mother* (that's why she called him sissy LOL), his weapon is the bow, his colors are blue and yellow and he's associated with the animal peacock, which was what made my mom make that connection, ororon's scarf reminded her a lot of a peacock feather

*the word used here is vaidoso but... that doesn't exist in english lmao?? the closest we have is "vain" but vain is much more akin to superficial, which is not a synonymous of vaidoso, so yeah, weird translation quirk here, vaidoso means that you care of yourself/your looks because they are important to you

erhmmm anyway 1 like and i'll redesign them based on the actual orixás (/hj i still have artfight attacks to finish lmao)

[needle-thread-thimble-spear]

I find the cultural phenomena of the maid as opposed to its direct descendant (the generalized domestic laborer) to be really interesting, particularly in the transfeminine sphere. This post is gonna be kinda rambly and not have much a point and involve discussion of kink topics, abusive relationships, transmisogyny, colonial violence and its consequences, etc so heads up for that but anyway.

Starting with the regency/early victorian era Europe, there's this gradual development of a complex household structure among the upper classes, which caps out in the late victorian/edwardian era. This environment forges the "prototypical" idea we have of the maid, whom you'll see in period pieces and historical fiction. She might have worn a (modest!) black and white outfit, she might not have. If her employer is relatively poor she may supply her own clothes. Regardless though, she's a servant for someone wealthy enough to keep her on. Her employer might have inherited their wealth, or found success in a relatively new and burgeoning capitalism, but they were definitely a member of one of the upper classes. She might come from a working class family, or depending on her role, from the petty bourgeois/lesser nobility (it wasn't uncommon for a young lady to have a "companion", often poorer relative with no prospects of her own). It's interesting (though in hindsight not particularly surprising) how the space from where some women might become maids, wasn't very far away from the space where a family might keep on 1-3 people on staff (if you'd like to read more on this, Emily Post's original etiquette, written in 1922 is available for free on Project Gutenberg. Its a really interesting text, here's a summary of the maid section I wrote).

Anyway. Its around the height of this period that the "french maid" is codified. Apparently (my research on this isn't the most extensive I'll freely admit) it wasn't uncommon then for the english upper classes to hire maids from France. Wealthy men became quickly fascinated with them, and before long the french maid is a staple in the erotic material of the age. My understanding is that this is how the black-and-white stereotypical maid dress entered the public consciousness, since that was common at the time (indeed, other time periods and places had different standards for uniforms!) and is what the french maid in life would have worn.

After the world wars, the social landscape of wealthy people changed, the concept of the "middle class" crystalized, and a number of household appliances changed the nature of housework quite drastically. Most of the families that would have been considered middle class a few generations earlier stopped keeping on a "maid of all things". Very wealthy households would hire fewer members of staff, or simply stop hiring a permanent staff altogether. From then on, it would be the role of the housewife to do the domestic labor, or otherwise one keeps on a cleaner or a cleaning service who comes around every once a while. Eventually we enter the modern understanding of domestic labor, where live-in servants are rare and when they do exist they are often supplemented by cleaning services with no allegiance to any one household.

Meanwhile, the french maid continues along as a stock character, not just in explicitly erotic material but comedies and even historical/speculative fiction (and thus quite removed from her possibly more apt "prototypical" counterpart, see most anime/manga maids and "butlers"). At this point she may or may not bother with being french, and she may or may not bother with any domestic labor. The maid outfit (later costume) ends up as a stereotypical, almost trite set of clothing for sexual roleplay. It's in this environment that some early culture of "sissy" or "forcefem" kink latched onto the french maid. Since that avenue of kink focuses on feminization as humiliation, the positioning of the sub as a domestic servant for the (petty) nobility (which to be frank, is a pretty humiliating role all on its own, speaking from experience) dovetails into the whole shtick quite neatly.

Others more clever (and more concise...) than I am have written about how what makes forcefem hot is the transmisogyny. The transfemme is set up to hate herself, to self destruct, to feel shame and self-disgust, to feel terrified of herself, for what she is. I'm not gonna bother spelling out the connection here. A lot of transfemmes (even if they are terrified of it and try to avoid it like I did) find their way into that space pretransition. Or if they don't, they certainly become aware of it after they begin! And then we get all this response within our own culture. We reclaim "forcefem" as a term, maids become a common motif in the form of dolls in empty spaces type literature, but that undercurrent of internalized misogyny and shame still sits there I think. Don't mistake me, this isn't some sort of sex negative tirade against maidkink (that'd be a hypocrisy anyhow!) Rather I'd like to make the argument that we're frequently reclaiming something traumatic through it, even if we don't quite realize it. As transfemmes we often self efface when it comes to (trans)misogyny I think. It's easy for us to say we had an easy ride or that it wasn't so bad. But even so, ask yourself, would you be interested in maids so much if you weren't really badly hurt?

I want to end this going back to domestic labor. It has hardly been my career to this point. In fact, I've only spent a few months of my life as a housecleaner, several years ago before I transitioned. Those also happened to be some of the most grueling and torturous months of my life. A lot went wrong that summer. The work was physically demanding and the hours were long. It was one of my first experiences really working and I felt very loyal to my boss, whom I had a tangential personal relationship toward. I was alright at the work but I did it slowly, putting me behind my quotas. But the worst of it was the cementing of the unhealthy relationship I had with my ex into an abusive one. I won't bore you with the details, and beside they're torturous to relive. I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it, I don't think I've felt so much shame and fear so intensely and for so long a duration since then. A screening of Silence of the Lambs was involved. What we've been through, what we've been subjected to, frequently leaves us pliable doormats, eager to please and easily abused. Many are eager to use us for that, and few things can feel so good as kind words from an abuser. If you're like me, maids are a lot about those feelings. The (trans)misogyny we undergo is a real phenomena. Maids for me is an acknowledgement of that.

Post Script: I think it's important to acknowledge how the history of domestic labor has been shaped by racial violence as well as (trans)misogynistic violence. In the United States, the prototypical maid could be white or black to suite the tastes of the employer. In northern culture, the maid was generally whiter than snow, because she was presumed to be better than her counterparts, thought to be less likely to steal and better mannered. That's what made the northern lady comfortable. In the south, the maid (who was often, maybe almost always black I'll have to do more research) was either enslaved or had ancestors who had been recently. Domestic staff being black was part of the mechanism of settler colonialism in the south. The southern lady was more comfortable seeing black women explicitly beneath her, so they were maids. I say was, but these attitudes persist, in one form or another, across the US today and influence who works where. In the modern domestic labor field, a lot of the workers are immigrants. When I did work cleaning houses, I met a lot of people from the Caribbean or Latin America. Remember when I said before that live in maids are rare, and often supported by outside cleaners? One of the women I met doing that job was a live in maid from the Caribbean (I wish I remember where but I'm afraid I don't. I was going through a lot at the time my memory of it all is difficult to access in good circumstances) who was responsible for cooking and laundry. We came in to do wetwork and dusting/vacuuming. That family had more money than grains of sand, and they weren't even so rich tbqh. At my agency, we'd usually get a temp staff from Eastern Europe to do the work but they were unavailable at the time due to the pandemic, so Americans were hired instead. It should be little surprise that a settler colonial state will oft assign the women of its (oft imported) underclasses to do any sort of difficult manual labor (particularly the kind that happens behind the scenes!). The institutions of sex, which disadvantage women (and trans women still further), are but one avenue of hierarchical social violence and these intersect with one another tightly.

Hope you enjoyed reading this ramble, and that you found it illuminating!

EDIT: removed a poorly constructed sentence that doesn't read well and utilizes figurative language in a place that should be more clear

[esthermika]

incredible that staff will jump at the opportunity to ban or remove content from trans women but still let's all these fucking sissy blogs who post nothing put straight up porn run around! Not to mention all the creepy 60 year men in my DMs asking to be my sugar daddy! I was lucky to not have to deal with terf shit a whole lot but not a week goes by where these fuckers don't make themselves known.

I hate this fucking place.

[rainbowsky]

Xiao Zhan - Elle China September 2024

Now it has been 8 years since Xiao Zhan's first acting career. Looking at his resume, he has played the leading role in various TV dramas. But he still feels that he is a newcomer and hopes to work with more experienced production teams in the future. He doesn't think too much. He doesn't actually know the work plan divided by year. He only cares about what the next stage of work will be, rather than "asking about things that are too far away." #肖战ELLE Light and Shadow Blockbuster##肖战maintains curiosity and desire to explore##肖战ELLE Golden September Cover#

Photography: @于聪YuCong

Styling: @CloeDong

Makeup/Hairstyle: Qingjun (DDJSTUDIO)

Written by: Green

Editor: JIAWEI

Design: SHU

Art Creation: Feng Ruihua

Producer: Conan (在伍THOO)

Contact Editor: SISSI CHEN

Photography Assistant: Zhang Jun

Producer Assistant: Tianqi (在伍THOO)

Art Execution: Tiantian

Fashion Assistant: Baozhi, M, Kangkang, Xiaofan

Studio Equipment Provided by: Beijing Shangde Elephant

Two black curtains reach the top of the studio, neatly isolating the shooting area from the surroundings. You have to go through the maze-like curtains to get to the core of the small space. Pure white, too much air conditioning, and the high-frequency and continuous camera shutter sounds. Xiao Zhan wears all black clothes and rarely makes unnecessary movements. For a while, the lights broke and the shooting was suspended, so he stood in the dark with one foot on a wooden box; when the staff and photographer discussed the photos and adjusted the shape, he also stood in front of the display screen, with the faint screen light covering him… We recorded Xiao Zhan from another angle.

Xiao Zhan ELLE light and dark light and shadow blockbuster##Xiao Zhan maintains strange heart and explores desire##Xiao Zhan ELLE golden nine cover

Behind-the-scenes photography: Yuanqing Xie

Editor and coordinator: JIAWEI

Halfway through the interview, Xiao Zhan suddenly said that he had a conflicting feeling about long interviews. On the one hand, he was worried about not growing enough and showing his timidity in the conversation. On the other hand, he wanted to explore some subtle feelings through the conversation because he thought he was not good at recording them in words. Observation, feeling, understanding, and expression are the essence of an actor's creativity. "Dialogue is also muscle memory." Xiao Zhan said, "Although I am very i, I am not autistic. Because I think actors need to learn to express, express your inner thoughts, and digest the content handed to you by the other party.

[prissytutu]

The new dress code for the office sissies was sure to delight the rest of the staff

[deniedbetahusband4]

The Law

Slave is to never expect pussy or any kind of sexual stimulation and is forbidden to ask for it.

Slave is forbidden to have an orgasm, except for procreation.

Slave is only allowed a release through nocturnal emissions. Goddess likes her cum in her balls.

If more than a drop of cum is emitted from Goddess’s cock, slave is to inform her, apologize, and ask for forgiveness.

If he sins and has an emission while being teased, he must slurp up every drop. Except for wet dreams, if cum is released, it is to be swallowed by slave.

Goddess’s cock must be locked up at all times unless Goddess wants to use it. When she is done using it, it goes back in the cage. Erections require permission and Goddess’s presence.

Slave is forbidden to complain about chastity and may never ask to have the cage removed.

Slave must always be collared. Permission is required for removal.

Slave must always sit to pee to illustrate that he’s not a dominant man, but a sissy submissive bitch.

Slave may only wear panties, no men’s underwear. This is to remind him that he is the submissive bitch in the marriage.

Slave is strictly forbidden to look directly at other women, except on screen where he can look at her face, and forbidden to use peripheral vision to see their breasts, cleavage, or assess.

Slave is strictly forbidden to make eye contact with other women.

Slave is strictly forbidden from seeing another woman’s bare breasts, ass, or pussy even indirectly.

Slave is strictly forbidden from watching porn, even censored porn.

Slave is strictly forbidden to masturbate.

Slave is strictly forbidden to stimulate Goddess’s cock in any way.

Slave is forbidden to thrust his hips without permission.

Slave must have permission to touch his genitals when he needs to adjust the cage due to discomfort. Scratching is to be done over the panties.

Slave must inform Goddess when he is highly attracted to a woman on screen.

Slave must ask to kiss or smell Goddess’s pussy at least once a day to show his desperation and devotion to it.

Slave must lick Goddess’s pussy well anytime she requires and until she’s satisfied.

When Goddess asks or commands slave to do anything, he is is to respond with “yes Goddess” and immediately do as told without hesitation or complaining.

Slave is forbidden to speak to the hostess and wait staff in restaurants. Goddess will order for him and see to any issues he has such as refills.

Slave is forbidden to curse.

Slave must have permission to drink alcohol.

Slave is forbidden to smoke cigarettes.

Slave is strictly forbidden to use recreational drugs and must follow medication’s directions

Slave must have permission to go anywhere and Goddess must know where he is at all times. He will be tracked via Life360.

Slave must always tell Goddess when he’s horny.

Slave must tell Goddess when his cock is trying to get hard.

If able, slave must show Goddess his cock when it strains against the cage.

Slave is strictly forbidden to entertain thoughts of other women for more than a second.

Slave must greet Goddess with a kiss when she arrives home or he comes home after being gone for some time.

When Goddess snaps her fingers, slave is to immediately kneel.

Slave is strictly forbidden to initiate a conversation with a woman.

Slave may never say no to Goddess’s requests and must comply immediately and without question.

Slave is strictly forbidden from reading erotic stories.

If slave breaks a rule, he must confess immediately and if Goddess is near, on his knees. He then must beg for punishment. If he delays his confession even slightly he must confess that as well.

When slave becomes horny, he must repeat his mantra and stare at the photos of Goddess’s pussy.

At least twice a day slave will carefully read and mediate on the law, spend some time staring at Goddess’s pussy as he repeats his mantra and send her a devotion message.

Slave must have Goddess’s permission to smell her panties.

Slave must confess if he sins against Goddess in his dreams and must beg for punishment.

Slave is strictly forbidden to steal anything.

Slave will receive daily maintenance discipline. There will be a minimum of 20 thrashes plus 5 more for each time he displeased Goddess during the day.

If slave breaks a rule, he will be thrashed his daily 20 plus more according to Goddess’s discretion.

If slave views pornography or a naked woman’s body, Goddess will shock her balls multiple times, be paddled a minimum of 100 times in addition to the daily 20 and be sentenced to total sexual neglect for a minimum of two weeks and possibly more at her discretion.

If slave directly views another woman’s breasts, cleavage, or ass or he views censored pornography, Goddess will shock her balls, be paddled at her discretion and sexually neglected for a minimum of one week, possibly more.

If slave gives himself an unauthorized emission he will be thrashed a minimum of 100 in addition to the daily 20, have Goddess’s balls shocked multiple times and be taken out in public on leash and collar.

If slave tells a lie, he will be thrashed a minimum of 200 times.

Slave is forbidden to look at Goddess when being punished.

Slave is forbidden to allow his medications to run out.

[octuscle]

hey support, I need some help. So I work as a waiter at a restaurant and we recently got bought out by one of these giant chains. They’re very big on this whole “Australian theme” and already started redecorating and stuff. They were at least nice enough to not fire the staff so we all still have jobs, but they keep saying that we need to get into the company’s mindset. And recently I’ve been noticing I’ve been calling my friends “mate” and my voice keeps cracking. Everyone else seems to be fine with it but I don’t like it ‘ere.

You're actually a waiter trained in top gastronomy. You don't know what bothers you more. The quaint and rustic new interior. Or your very casual dress code. You're no longer allowed to come freshly shaved. And your shirts must have at least the top two buttons undone. And the sleeves must be rolled up at least to the elbows. It looks really ridiculous with your thin arms. Anyway, you need the job. So put on a good face. And greet your next guests.

"Welcome ta the grill downundah. I'm christian 'n i'm yah waider fawr tonight. Can i get ya somethin' ta drink already?" You almost have to bite your tongue. Did you really just say that? Your guests look at each other and start to laugh. "Wonderful, so authentic!" says the woman to her companion.

The evening is hell. At the beginning, you try to speak sensibly. But especially with your colleagues, you speak in a language that sounds more like a dock worker than a waiter. In fact, the tips that evening are not bad at all. And the crocodile fillet served after work is actually quite tasty.

The next morning you have the breakfast shift. Getting up early has never been a problem for you. You do a few push-ups to get your circulation going, spread two slices of bread with Vegemite, drink your filter coffee, get on your bike and set off. You like the morning shift. The air is fresh. And you like setting up the tables on the terrace. At least it's physical work for once. Not that the 20,000 steps you take a day aren't strenuous enough. But carrying the tables also exercises your upper body. And as long as the store is still closed, you can do it bare-chested. You love making your pecs dance. And you like the smell of fresh male sweat. And most of your customers love that too.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like one of the Hemsworth brothers?" the hot guest flirts with you. He looks like a model himself. You smile your $5,000 smile and say "Hey, I'm Liam's hotder cousin, ya bastahrd! Too right, mate." He smiles back at you and asks what you're doing after work today.

You love this damn job here. Working in this restaurant won't make you homesick for Sidney. Just real honest Australian mates working here. You go through the fire together. No matter how awful your guests can be, you're always in a good mood. Because you know that at the end of a hard day's work, there's at least one good shag in the staff toilet.

And if things go really well, you and your mates play a bit of football in the park afterwards. None of that sissy American stuff. Australian football. Sport for real men. The kind that only exists down under.

[pochqmqri]

undefined

In celebration of the premiere of the 26th Detective Conan movie, “Black Iron Submarine,” the official YouTube channel posted a cover of the 60th TV ending theme, “Sissy Sky" by Ai Haibara’s voice actress, Megumi Hayashibara, sung as her character. The ending theme of course, is themed around Haibara, as is the most recent movie.

The original video on YouTube is region-locked and appears to be only available for a limited time only until May 7, so here’s a mirror.

The official Twitter announcement included a message from Haibara herself:

Congratulations on the release of the anime-based movie, “Detective Conan: The Black Iron Submarine,” as well as File 1111 of the original manga.

This is the one year where I can’t be in hiding too, so I’m even doing my best to move around as much as I can.

While making an effort, I was able to experience recording a cover for the first time.

I was very nervous, but the entire staff was kind, and moreover, the original artist of the song, Airi Miyakawa, even came to support me, which made me very happy.

You might say, that I did this to prevent Edogawa-kun from singing, right...? Haha.

Please listen to the song, “Sissy Sky,” covered by me, Ai Haibara.

[starsandhughes]

intrusive sissy and trevor thought- there’s one occasion where sissy, trevor, jamie, and a few others are out one night. of course sissy is touchy(er) when she’s drunk, so she’s basically an extension of jamie and z. but someone (maybe a bartender) comes up later in the night, and they’re confused on who she’s with. sissy pulls out her theater skills from high school and is like “both” just to fuck with everyone. and now anytime they go in that bar, they pretend to be a throuple just to keep the bit going.

“why do i have to pretend you three are dating?” mason asked.

he was coming with you, trevor, and jamie to your favorite post game bar where the entire staff has been lead to believe that you three are dating.

“because steph, our favorite bartender, couldn’t tell who y/n was dating because she’s a clinging machine and when she asked, y/n said both of us,” trevor said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“and you went along with it?” mason continued to question this ordeal.

“she’s very convincing,” jamie said.

“she is. she tricked me into loving her,” trevor said.

“and now i’ve got you locked in,” you joked, wiggling your ring finger. “mwahahahahaha!”

trevor raced towards you and snatched you to his chest, sending you into a fit of giggles.

“i can’t wait to marry you so i can divorce you for that comment,” trevor joked.

“what comment?”

“about tricking me into loving you!”

“i don’t know what you’re talking about. jamie?” you joked.

“not a clue. you’ve never done anything wrong,” jamie played along.

“stop collectively gaslighting me! tonight is about gaslighting others!”

“you’re the practice round, babe!” jamie laughed.

“enjoy!”

[dollmaidcrystal]

Ways Our Lifestyle Doesn't Match Sissy Tropes

I don't want to be a girl. I don't want to go back to being a boy either. Gender binaries are stupid, and I don't care as long as I get to be pretty.

Mistress isn't particularly sadistic to her sissies. Her goal is to be able to lounge in luxury while a staff of beautiful, devoted sissies take care of her every whim. She can't have that unless she takes the time to turn a trainee into a beautiful doll first.

I'm not a tiny, cute twink. I'm too tall and too old to fit that stereotype anymore.

Mistress does not like sissies in chastity. Why would she put so much effort into training sissy sex slaves if she wasn't a fan of sissy cock?

I don't get any thrill from being cuckolded, shameful or otherwise. All I want is for Mistress to be happy, and if she enjoys having a sidepiece, so be it.

Mistress does get jealous every time she loans a sissy out, and frets constantly about if they'll be back. She still does it because it's an extremely effective form of training.

Neither of us get instantly horny from wearing latex. We wear rubber constantly around the house, so we feel at home in rubber more than anything else.

Mistress does invite other femdoms over for parties where they're served by sissy maids. These very rarely end in any kind of orgy. Usually, the parties consist of a couch full of drunken dommes watching Disney+, while the maids handle snacks.

[unicorns-and-whiskey]

I've been around Tumblr for a while. This particular account is a little over 9 years old, and I had my first account (which I no longer remember the login for) in late 2013. I was here a good six months before DashCon.

I'm willing to have this account nuked to point something out.

Since the decimation of Predstrogen (the memory of her account a blessing), a lot of the transgender tag— I'd say roughly 70% of it— is more about feminization and sissy porn than actual trans folk.

And I just wonder, out of curiosity, maybe @staff can answer this for me but:

Is this what @photomatt wants? Does he only want the "good" trans girls he can beat off to without having to think of them as real people?

Call me when I get nuked.

🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵

[archduchessofnowhere]

Is it true that empress sissy was bad mother? Or just rumours

I think it really depends on what do you understand as being “a bad mother”. First of all royal women were not expected to be the main carers of their children: this job was divided among the many people in charge of the well-being of the kids. Parents usually only saw their kids little on a daily basis, since they did not even ate together. So one shouldn’t expect Elisabeth to have been changing diapers and heating milk bottles. The second thing to consider is just how young she was when she became a mother; giving birth to three consecutive babies in such a short time spam (with the additional stress of knowing everyone is expecting you to produce an heir) must have take a huge toll on her, so I don’t think is that surprising if she didn’t smoothly adjust to the role of mother.

Even so, she did love her children, as this letter she wrote to a Bavarian relative soon after the birth of her first child shows:

My little one really is already very charming and gives the Emperor and me enormous joy. At first it seemed very strange to me to have a baby of my own; it is like an entirely new joy, and I have the little one with me all day long, except when she is carried for a walk, which happens often while the fine weather holds. (Hamann, 1986)

But Elisabeth had no control in how her eldest children were raised: her mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, took charge of them. Something important to keep in mind, however, is that taking charge of them doesn’t mean that she personally cared them (again, this wasn’t the role of royal woman), but that she chose the staff of nursemaids, nannies, governesses and tutors that oversaw the children’s caring and later education. But this lack of control over her children ended up being a great source of sorrow for the young mother.

During this time the first big conflict between Elisabeth and Sophie arose: the children’s nursery was placed on the same floor as Sophie’s appartements, which meant that she could go over to see her granddaughters with a lot more of freedom than Elisabeth, whose appartements where on a different floor. Being on a different floor meant than she could only see her daughters during the times set by protocol, and always in company of her retinue of ladies and lackeys, which ended up limiting even more the time she could spend with them in privacy. She told to her lady-in-waiting Marie Festetics in 1872:

Only now do I understand what bliss a child means. Now I have finally had the courage to love the baby and keep it with me [her fourth child Marie Valerie]. My other children were taken away from me at once. I was permitted to see the children only when Archduchess Sophie gave permission. She was always present when I visited the children. Finally I gave up the struggle and went upstairs only rarely.

This statement comes from almost twenty-years after the events, so it should be taken with a bit of a grain of salt (in the first letter I quoted Elisabeth mentions that she had Baby Sophie with her “all day long”, so she wasn’t “taken away at once” as she claims here). The most important takeaway from this statement to me is that even after all those years the fact that she wasn’t allowed to see her girls freely hurt her. So it’s not surprising that her first act of “rebellion” at court was when she decided to move the nursery to her floor in 1856.

After successfully moving the nursery near to her appartements, slowly Sisi started to take more and more control of her children. At the end of 1856 Franz Josef and Elisabeth went on a state visit to Lombardy-Venice and they took Baby Sophie with them. This tour was relatively successful, and months later they tried to replicate its success on Hungary. For this tour the parents decided to take not only Baby Sophie but also Gisela, since it was planned to last two months and they didn’t want to be separated from their daughters for such a long time.

As it’s known, Baby Sophie sadly died of typhus during this trip. Although is often repeated that Archduchess Sophie blamed Elisabeth for the child’s death, she in fact was very sympathetic towards the young mother, since she also had lost an infant daughter and could understand her pain. But Elisabeth seemed to blame herself regardless, and soon fell into a deep depression that lasted months and filled her entire family with worry.

By the end of 1857 she showed signs of being pregnant again, and in September of 1858 she finally gave birth to the long awaited heir, Crown Prince Rudolf. And just as with her daughters, Elisabeth had no control over the boy’s upbringing.

In 1860 Elisabeth started to become ill - of what, nobody knew. I won’t go much into this (since that’s just an entirely different post), but by the end of the year, after exhausting all possible treatments, it was decided that the Empress should go away from court to recover from her mysterious illness. This was the beginning of Elisabeth’s two years trip - first to Madeira and then to Corfu. Franz Josef offered her to take Gisela with her, but since she couldn’t also take Rudolf (the heir had to remain in Vienna), she decided to leave her behind because she didn’t want to separate the siblings, who were very close (Winkelhofer, 2022).

Elisabeth returned a changed woman, much more confident in herself, no longer the shy girl who was easily intimidated by courtiers. But she still had no control over how her children were educated. Or that was until Rudolf started his formal education. At the age of six he was separated from his sister and governess, given his own household, and Count Gondrecourt was assigned as his tutor. Gondrecourt had the mission of “toughening up” the boy, since he was considered to be weak of mind; his method to achieve this consisted in psychologically torturing Rudolf, and after he fell ill, seemingly of a nervous collapse. When Elisabeth discovered what her son was going through she was horrified and decided to step in. So she did something almost unprecedented, not only for her personally, but also in general for a woman of her status: she gave her husband an ultimatum:

I wish to have reserved to me absolute authority in all matters concerning the children, the choice of the people around them, the place of their residence, the complete supervision of their education, in a word, everything is to be left entirely to me to decide, until the moment of their majority. I further wish that, whatever concerns my personal affairs, such as, among others, the choice of the people around me, the place of my residence, all arrangements in the house etc. be reserved to me alone to decide.

Even more surprisingly for the time, Franz Josef agreed, and gave her full control of the children’s education. Gondrecourt was dismissed and Colonel Josef Latour was personally chosen by Elisabeth in his place. Latour was highly unpopular at court because he wasn’t an aristocrat and had very liberal political ideas, but Elisabeth protected him and he kept his job. Latour ended up becoming a close friend to his pupil until his death. But even though she now had what she had always wanted, total control of her children’s upbringing, she never became really close to her eldest daughter and son.

This is the part in which we can talk about her being “a bad mother”. When you compare her relationship to her fourth and last child, Marie Valerie, born ten years after Rudolf out of her desire to have another baby, raised entirely by her (as always keeping in mind that this means she had full control of the staff that took care of Valerie), to how she was with Gisela and Rudolf, the clear favoritism is evident. It seems that she felt more distant towards the eldest, probably a combination of her not having a saying in their upbringing until they were older and her constant trips away from court didn’t help her to close the gap. Gisela, who was a very down-to-earth person, a lot like her father, doesn’t seem to have minded this (or at least she never showed it), but Rudolf always craved for a close relationship with his mother, which he never could truly have. He adored her and was always grateful for her intervention when he was little, but seeing how all his mother’s love and attention went towards Valerie made Rudolf jealous of his younger sister; because of this the siblings also never managed to become close.

Valerie ended up feeling overwhelmed by her mother’s love. Elisabeth was very emotionally dependent on her daughter and made her her constant companion and support, which isolated the girl from the rest of her family. Valerie adored her father and felt that her mother put her against him, and Elisabeth insistance in raising her as a Hungarian (Valerie’s mother tongue wasn’t German, but Hungarian) made her hate Hungary. She turned out to be quite different to what her mother had planned, and that was probably just the result of having so many expectations imposed on her since she was born. But even so Elisabeth loved her and only wanted her to be happy. And this is shown by the fact that (unlike Queen Victoria with her daughter Beatrice) she didn’t want her to stay by her side forever, but to marry for love and form her own family. So she supported her decision to marry Archduke Franz Salvator, who out of all her suitors was the least favorite (Franz Josef wanted her to marry the Crown Prince of Saxony and Rudolf Archduke Eugen).

So was she a bad mother? It’s complicated. She loved her children (and I do think she loved all of them, despite Gisela being often considered the “forgotten” child), fought to have control on how to raise them (which was unusual for the time) and when she lost them she deeply grieved them. But she couldn’t be the support that her son needed, and the child she did gave her constant love felt suffocated. Sometimes an answer isn’t as a easy as yes or not, and I think we should keep that in mind when looking at Elisabeth as a mother. I hope you find my answer helpful, and sorry if it’s too long!

SOURCES:

Hamann, Brigitte (1986). The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (translation by Ruth Hein)

Winkelhofer, Martina (2022). Sissi. La vera storia. Il camino della giovane imperatrice (translation by Federica Saccucci)

[eggybubblegum]

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