Pirate Booty

[Texguy84]

So, was chatting with a friend, and we came up with an idea I figured I'd bounce here, see what other folks might do with it. Essentially, it's about a pirate wench, serving (as it were) aboard a pirate ship. What different ways could we have fun with this?

Her thoughts were that by day she'd do various small tasks around the ship, cleaning, cooking, etc. and every evening, she'd partake in a card game with some of the men. She was the jackpot (particularly since she wasn't any good at cards). Each night, she goes to bed with the winner to be used as he pleases. The catch here is that she's very good at manipulating people, and is basically working her way up the chain of command, planning to take over once she's worked her way to the top.

She might deal with men who are more trouble than they are worth by getting the other men to kill him (you'd be amazed what a man might do for a pretty face) or by getting rid of them herself in various sneaky ways (poisoning, shoving him overboard when nobody's looking, etc.)

We haven't decided how she gets on the ship. Her thought was that she ran away from home and met a cute pirate guy. My suggestion was that she had graduated from college with a Masters degree in English and "Pirate Wench" was simply the best job available.

So yeah, what other takes could we do on this (I've got my story more or less figured out, but I figured I could use this to get your creative juices flowing for other stories). Space pirates? Maybe instead of an ambitious sneaky girl, she's simply a whore who loves getting fucked? Was she kidnapped off another ship and is a more reluctant crewmember? Does she partake in the pilliaging herself and deals with the pirates on a more even ground?

Comon, throw your ideas at me.

 

[emap]

I shit you not, there was a lady pirate captain. She shared the ship with a guy. The guy was the sailing captain because he could sail really well. She was the boarding captain because she kicked ass. They got together because she was going to get married to a guy she didn't know. The pirates attacked the ship she was on and captured it. The original captain of the pirate ship she killed and then well sparks and she and the first mate got together and co-captained the ship.

This was in the 1700's I think, they were the scourge of the sea's for five years in all. After two years, she gets captured and sent to her arranged husband. She was a island Mayor's daughter so technically royal and they figured sending her to him would work. Didn't work he let her escape and get back on the ship. At some point after this they get another woman on board, she had been pretending to be a man to work on a ship. She fought well enough the lady captain offered her a berth.

The male captain caught them making out shortly after. He was all set to kill her for trying to boink his 'wife'. They both talked him down and turned it into a threesome. At the end of their time as pirates the ship is boarded by I think the Royal Navy. Everyone is put in chains and taken to an island. The men are hung right away, the women get a delay because they are pregnant.

Take your pick on who fathered the kids, they sat in the prison for a month before sentencing. The second woman dies during childbirth, the captain is hung after having a daughter I think it was.

I watched a Pirates show on History last year I think. They talked about those two, a teetotaler and redbeard. Redbeard was one scary dude.

 

[Texguy84]

To be honest? I'm pretty sure my friend wouldn't mind her avatar getting in a pirate threesome with another chick at all.

 

[JRaven]

I think I probably watched the same program that Emap watched.

For the story, I think your lady pirate should be booty form another ship that the pirates attacked. Often times, pirates would give the crew a choice of being sent adrift in a longboat, or joining the crew of the pirate ship. It made a great recruitment tool! But for your story, she could be just a piece of the booty. (or piece of ass)

Another thing to consider, pirate ships were very democratic. Captains were elected by the crew. If a group of crew members called for a vote, it was quite possible that the captain could lose the election. To maintain his position, he had to ensure good profits and fair dealings with the crew. I'm sure your lady pirate could fuck enough crew to win an election.

I believe the lady captain Emap mentions may have become co-captain in much the same way. Still, she had to prove herself when it came to attacking other ships.

Jenny

 

[emap]

Yeah, see the problem is pirate crews were more superstitious than regular crews. Many of the regular merchants and even most of the navy wouldn't let a woman on board. Granted if someone in authority said she's going to here take her there they would. Pirates are worse and they only listen to one person, sorta.

Pirate captains have to produce treasure or they don't keep their crews. So to get a woman on board a pirate ship she would have to either go in drag, or be really good at something that does not involve being on her back. The lady captain I mentioned above, when she came on board they had half the crew disappear at the next port.

It's unknown of she say screwed the rest of the crew or not. They had a sloop and a crew of oh I think it was thirty for most of the time.

 

[DarkBee]

I like the idea of a group of space pirates with a female captain (but more serious than Lesbian pirates from outer space); imho, it would make more sense to have women on board in the future (just think of Star Trek).

 

[RicoLouis]

Here from wikipedia

Female piratesWomen entered the career of piracy as well (most usually disguised as men). The two best-known female pirates were Anne Bonny (also sometimes spelled Bonney) and Mary Read.

Bonny grew up ferocious, and, unable to leave an earlier marriage, eloped with Rackham, with whom she was in love. Mary Read had been dressed as a boy all her life by her mother, and had spent time in the British military. She came to the West Indies (Caribbean) after the death of her husband, and fell in with Calico Jack and Anne Bonny.

When their ship was assaulted, the two women were the only ones that defended it. The other crew members were too drunk to fight. In the end they were captured and arrested.After their capture, both women stalled their death sentences (the punishment for piracy) by claiming to be pregnant. Read died in jail, many believe of a fever or complications of childbirth. Bonny disappears from the record entirely.

More here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_piracy

 

[Cleophila]

Quite a few of the pirates cited on that wikipedia list are almost certainly fictional (e.g. Maria Cobham/Lindsey who it sort of tries to list as two separate people, and who there is no contemporary record of). While people have always enjoyed the blurred gendering of women going to sea or being pirates, there are actually barely any reliable records of it happening. The only two we can definitely be sure where active during the so-called Golden Age of Piracy (a few decades in the 1700s when all the famous pirates were operating and all the stereotypes come from) are those mentioned by RicoLouis, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Of course we only know about them because they were caught and put on trial (court records always some of the most reliable), so it’s always possible that there were others who simply lived more successfully and convincingly as men and were never discovered.

Unfortunately, as with contemporary accounts of most famous pirates, there are precious few reliable stories, mostly emanating from a book called the General History of the Most Notorious Pirates by an apparent Captain Johnson (no record of whether he was a real person or a pseudonym), a book more concerned with a good story than the truth. Hence, sensationalised stories like the one emap and Jenny seem to have watched about Bonny and Read. The real story, in so far as such things can be found has the two of them serving in the crew of ‘Calico’ Jack Rackam, a dandy and a womaniser, known for being quite restrained when it came to violence, and generally pretty small-time as pirates go, commanding a crew that was just ten men and the two women and capturing mostly fishing boats rather than real treasure.

They joined up with him in 1719 and by 1720 were arrested (hardly five years). Anne was married to a sailor, but met Jack in a tavern, he seduced her in the manner he used to attack a ship: ‘no time wasted, straight up alongside, every gun brought to play, and the prize boarded’ (genuine quote there). She had his child and then joined his crew disguised as a man. Mary joined the crew as a captured merchant sailor from another ship, nobody knew she was a woman. It is true that contemporary reports suggest an attraction between Anne and the new crewman, but Mary revealing she was a woman seems to have put an end to it (it is certainly something that makes for interestingly mixed up ideas of gender and sexuality for a story, though).

They were known for drinking, swearing and fighting more than their male crewmates and they were, indeed, the only ones that fought back when their ship was captured. It is also true that, when sentenced to death, they were, somewhat surprisingly, both pregnant (although not necessarily by Jack) and thus escaped the gallows. Mary died of a fever (not in childbirth), when in prison, the fate of Anne and her (not necessarily a daughter) child isn’t recorded. Rackam and a bunch of the other soldiers were hanged. All that is mostly from the record of their trial and so is probably pretty accurate, Johnson has a lot more stories about their life before piracy, but it’s open to debate how much is true. He says Mary was raised as a boy to replace her brother who died, got a job as a footman, left to become a soldier, married a soldier in her regiment, then went to sea as a merchant sailor when he died. Anne, apparently, was the illegitimate child of a lawyer (not a mayor or anything) and had to be dressed as a boy so her father could have her live with him and avoid scandal, until she decided to marry a sailor anyway and got turned out of the house.

What Jenny said about pirate crews being democratic (in a way) is pretty supported by historical research. They could certainly vote out an unsatisfactory captain (that’s how Blackbeard got to be captain – and Rackam too - with his disgruntled ousted predecessor taking a pardon and turning to hunting down pirates for the government), they definitely, as emap said, had to produce results in order to keep a crew happy, and power was a lot more shared than it was in the regular Navy. A (also elected) quartermaster was also responsible for most of the day to day organisation and navigation stuff, with the captain more about strategy and engagement, so emap’s idea about co-captains could be expressed in those terms.

Of course, as Captain Johnson (whoever he was) knew well, none of these facts should ever really get in the way of a good story anyway!

 

[Texguy84]

What Jenny said about pirate crews being democratic (in a way) is pretty supported by historical research. They could certainly vote out an unsatisfactory captain.

They can do the same thing in the military. Of course, then it's called a mutiny.

Of course, as Captain Johnson (whoever he was) knew well, none of these facts should ever really get in the way of a good story anyway!

And I'm not seeing any reason why I should feel any differently here

Probably I'll have some historical flavor, but I'm not gonna let the facts and details get in the way of the story I'm telling (it's not like anyone comes to Lit hoping for historically accurate documentaries or anything. )

 

[TaraJean]

Great idea

I've written a few stories and this is a great idea. I'm thinking of a kidnapping of an innocnt followed by the manipulation of the crew and captain, and of course lots of sex and murder!
Look for chapter 1 soon.

-Tara

 

[RicoLouis]

I've written a few stories and this is a great idea. I'm thinking of a kidnapping of an innocnt followed by the manipulation of the crew and captain, and of course lots of sex and murder!
Look for chapter 1 soon.

-Tara

Lots of sex? what kind of site do you think this is. I am... Oh, wait. Nevermind.

 

[Cleophila]

And I'm not seeing any reason why I should feel any differently here

Probably I'll have some historical flavor, but I'm not gonna let the facts and details get in the way of the story I'm telling (it's not like anyone comes to Lit hoping for historically accurate documentaries or anything. )

No, the historical accuracy of dirty, stinking pirates is probably a lot less sexy than the fantasy, as, for many people, would be the fact that, in order to be successful in the male pirating world, women would have to pass as completely convincingly masculine (so less of the pirate wench, really). Like I said, this is one area when even the best attempts at true history often descend into fantasy, so there's certainly no reason for a sex story to be any different at all.

However, the real(ish) historic facts can throw up a fair bit of interesting stuff, contexts and stories that would make a fictional fantasy work better. It's just a case of picking and choosing what you like. It worked for Captain Johnson (which, surprisingly nobody has mentioned, sounds like the name of a captain in some porn parody anyway).

 

[Texguy84]

Captain Johnson in The Maiden Of Spithead!

 

[DarkBee]

No, the historical accuracy of dirty, stinking pirates is probably a lot less sexy than the fantasy, as, for many people, would be the fact that, in order to be successful in the male pirating world, women would have to pass as completely convincingly masculine (so less of the pirate wench, really). Like I said, this is one area when even the best attempts at true history often descend into fantasy, so there's certainly no reason for a sex story to be any different at all.

However, the real(ish) historic facts can throw up a fair bit of interesting stuff, contexts and stories that would make a fictional fantasy work better. It's just a case of picking and choosing what you like. It worked for Captain Johnson (which, surprisingly nobody has mentioned, sounds like the name of a captain in some porn parody anyway).

That's why I think the realm of science fiction is better suited for female pirates; they still do pirate-y stuff, but in outer space.

 

[Texguy84]

Chatted with my friend, she's attached to the sailing pirates idea, but thinks the space pirates sound fun. So we're thinking another story with one of the first character's descendents (who by coincidence will basically be the same character in a different setting.)

 

[Cleophila]

That's why I think the realm of science fiction is better suited for female pirates; they still do pirate-y stuff, but in outer space.

Or just set it in a fantasy world where women have a different status, like sci-fi but the pirating stuff can still be onboard sailing ships.

Alternatively, some people (like me) are interested in stories like this precisely because society tried harder back then to force people into gender roles and, thus, people breaking out of those roles is interesting and sexy, so a bit of real history might work for some in this regard.

My suggestion for a pirate story about gender roles would have a nervous effeminate man on board the pirate ship and a headstrong young woman taking passage on a merchant ship from Britain to America where she is to be married, much against her will as a free spirited sort of girl. When the pirate ship captures the merchant one, the two see an opportunity to change their fates and swap places, she disguised as a man gets to join the pirate crew, where the pirates find themselves strangely attracted to their fresh faced new shipmate, while he, disguised as a woman, gets to travel to America to settle down as a woman in the new world, providing he can keep the hands of the sailors off him as they spend more and more time away from the women back on shore. And what about the commanding, macho pirate captain and his annoyance at the perceived homosexual behaviour in his crew's attitude to the new recruit, how will he deal with the trouble caused by the new "boy"? And what of the husband that awaits the virginal young "woman" should she ever make it across the Atlantic?