Chapter 1
lesbian
(Greek origin) A person from the Isle of Lesbos. The adoption of this term for a female homosexual is inarguably due to the association with Sappho, however the path has a few tangles. Greek comedic writers of the 5th c BCE used the word to indicate a sexually assertive (heterosexual) woman, especially one who practiced oral sex. One sometimes hears mistaken claims that the use of lesbian for sexual orientation is a modern invention. The earliest suviving use clearly indicating homosexuality is from Lucian in the 2nd century CE. Byzantine commentaries of the 10th c on the 2nd c religious writings of Clement of Alexandria directly equate lesbian and tribas. The earliest known use in English in this sense is in the 1730s.
LHMP entry
While the academic “queer studies” movement has analyzed a great many “high culture” works in literature and art, looking for evidence of same-sex impulses, this approach has been less useful for (or perhaps less interested in) an understanding of the ordinary lives of average people who might have had those same impulses. For this purpose, identifying lesbian motifs in works like the Roman de Silence or interpreting nuns’ adoration of vulva-like images of the wounds of Christ as homoerotic is somewhat beside the point.
Pages
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
