History of lesbianism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Early Greece (776–480 BC)
It is speculated that many men in ancient Greece sought homosexual relationships because of the low intellectual status of women, as in classical Athens. However, this was not always so: in Homeric times, women appear to have been less constrained. The freedom that women shared with men seems to have especially lingered on the Isle of Lesbos, the home of Sappho, circa 610.
Sappho
Because she wrote love poems addressed to both women and men, Sappho has long been considered bisexual. The word "lesbian" derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos; her name is also the origin of its nowadays less common synonym "sapphic". The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) women have for men, but descriptions of physical acts between women are debatable. Her love poems should be placed in the seventh century (BC) context. The poems of Alcaeus and later Pindar record similar romantic bonds between the members of a given circle.
The 3rd Century philosopher Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho was "small and dark" and that her relationships to her female friends were similar to those of Socrates, without having sexual relations:
Sappho was married and eventually gave birth to a daughter.
Plato dubbed Sappho the "tenth muse." The metrical form she developed came to be known as the Sapphic meter.
Many of her poems deal with Aphrodite, a common theme in Greek poetry in general. Modern literary critics have praised the intense imagery in Sappho's work: "You came and I was longing for you; you cooled my heart which was burning with desire", "Love shook my heart like a wind falling on the oaks on a mountain", "Once again limb-loosening Love made me tremble, the bitter-sweet irresistible creature".
Judea
Although Hebrew scriptures outright condemn acts of male homosexuality, particularly in the book of Leviticus, there is no mention of lesbianism.
The Talmud records that Rabbi Huna (d. 296 AD) decided that "women who practice lewdness with one another are disqualified from marrying a priest." (A priest's wife must be a virgin.) However, this mild sanction was rejected by the Talmud, which accepts the opinion of Rabbi Eleazar (c. 150 AD) who felt that lesbianism should not bar a woman from marrying a priest, since "the action is...mere lewdness."
Rome and Greece (323 BC—138 AD)
The lesbian love story between Iphis and Ianthe, in Book IX of Ovid's the Metamorphoses, is most vivid. When Iphis' mother becomes pregnant, her husband declares that he will kill the child if it is a girl. She bears a girl and attempts to conceal her sex by giving her a name that is of ambiguous gender: Iphis. When the "son" is thirteen, the father chooses a golden-haired maiden named Ianthe as the "boy's" bride. The love of the two girls is written sympathetically:
They were of equal age, they both were lovely,
Had learned the ABC from the same teachers,
And so love came to both of them together
In simple innocence, and filled their hearts
With equal longing.
However, as the marriage draws ever closer, Iphis recoils, calling her love "monstrous and unheard of." The goddess Isis hears the girl's bemoans and turns her into a boy.
References to love between women are sparse. Phaedrus attempted to explain lesbianism through a myth of his own making: Prometheus, coming home drunk from a party, had mistakenly exchanged the genitals of some women and some men - "Lust now enjoys perverted pleasure."
It is quite clear that paiderastia and lesbianism were not held in equally good light, possibly because of the violation of strict gender roles. Seneca the Elder mentions a husband who killed his wife and her female lover and implies that their crime was worse than that of adultery between a male and female. The Babyloniaca of Iamblichus describes an Egyptian princess named Berenice who loves and marries another woman. This novelist also states that such love is "wild and lawless". Martial satirized a woman named Philaenis as an athlete who plays ball in a bikini, wrestles in the mud, vomits wine before dinner, gorges on food, and drinks once more. Philaenis also sodomizes boys to prove her masculinity. Martial also theorized that lesbians have long clitorises that allow them to sexually penetrate other women.
Another hypermasculine stereotype of the times was documented in Lucian's Dialogue of the Courtesans, in which Megilla renames herself Megillus and wears a wig to cover her shaved head. She marries Demonassa of Corinth, although Megillus is from Lesbos. Her friend Leaena comments that "They say there are women like that in Lesbos, with faces like men, and unwilling to consort with men, but only with women, as though they themselves were men". Megillus seduces Leaena, who feels that the experience is too disgusting to describe in detail. This is far from the sophisticated aestheticism of Sappho's group.
In another dialogue ascribed to Lucian, two men debate over which is better, male love or heterosexuality. One man protested that if male affairs were legitimized, then lesbianism would soon be condoned as well, an unthinkable notion.
The apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter describes the punishment of lesbians and gay men in Hell: Template:Cquote
Middle Ages (476—1049 AD)
Greece was the most accepting of homosexual relationships. When Rome came to power, it began to frown on such relations. Later, Penitentials were developed by Celtic Monks in Ireland. They were unofficial guidebooks which became popular, especially in the British Isles. These books listed crimes and the penances that must be done for them. For example, "...he who commits the male crime of the Sodomites shall do penance for four years." The penitentials of Theodore of Tarsus, who became archbishop of Canterbury in the 7th century, made special references to lesbianism. He states, "If a woman practices vice with a woman she shall do penance for three years." Penitentials soon spread from the isles to mainland Europe. From the 6th to the 11th centuries, there are thirty-one penitentials that punish male homosexuality and fourteen that punish lesbianism.
The Old French legal treatise Li livres de jostice et de plet (c. 1260) is the earliest reference to legal punishment for lesbianism akin to that for male homosexuality. It prescribed dismemberment on the first two offences and death by burning for the third: a near exact parallel to the penalty for a man, though what "dismemberment" could mean for a medieval woman is unknown. If these legal principles became actual law or if they were ever enforced, it has not come down to us.
See also
- Lesbianism in erotica
- History of lesbianism
