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This article is about same-sex desire and sexuality among females. For other uses, see Lesbian (disambiguation).

A lesbian is a female who is exclusively emotionally, sexually, romantically and/or aesthetically attracted to other females.

Etymology of "lesbian"

See also: Terminology of homosexuality

The word lesbian derives from Lesbos (Λέσβος), a Greek island located in the East Aegean Sea. Lesbos was the home of the ancient Greek lyric poet Sappho and the site of an all-girls school [1] she ran in the 6th century BC. Many of her poems are about her passion for her students, termed in antiquity gynerasty, the female counterpart male pederasty. Sappho's literary association with love between females has led to the term lesbian having its modern meaning, as well as its rarer synonym Sapphism.

Other words used to describe lesbianism over the past 2000 years have included tribadism, Amor lesbicus, and urningtum.

There are many slang terms for different kinds of lesbians including dyke and bulldyke (typically used to describe a lesbian with a traditionally masculine gender expression). Both of these terms are almost always used pejoratively.

On the other hand, the term dyke is acceptable within the community when it is used to refer in a friendly manner to a fellow lesbian. Some lesbians individually have claimed the word for themselves as a way to self identify. Similarly, some African Americans have claimed the word nigger to use within their own community and to self identify. Both lesbians and blacks claimed a pejorative once used against them and turned it into a positive expression of self identity.

The butch/femme identity is arguably an integral part of lesbian history, but also an evolving paradigm.

History

The first mentions of same-sex love between women come from ancient Greece. Sappho, the eponym of "sapphism," is thought to have had a complex love life — some ancient accounts describe her as having love affairs with men as well; while one ancient source, Maximus of Tyre, claimed that her relationships with the girls in her school were purely platonic. Modern scholarship, basing itself on ancient texts, suggests a parallel between the ancient Greek constructs of love between men and boys, and the relationships between Sappho and her students, in which "both pedagogy and pederasty played a role."[2][1] Lesbian relationships were also reported from ancient Sparta. Plutarch, writing about the Lacedaemonians, reports that "love was so esteemed among them that girls also became the erotic objects of noble women." [2] Accounts of lesbian relationships are also found in poetry and stories from ancient China, but are not documented with the detail given to male homosexuality. During medieval times there are reports from Arabia of relations between residents of the harem. These were often suppressed, one example being the beheading of two girls surprised during lovemaking, carried out at the order of the caliph Musa al-Hadi. [3]

Public policy

In Western societies, explicit prohibitions on women's homosexual behavior have been markedly weaker than those on men's homosexual behavior.

In the United Kingdom, lesbianism has never been illegal, in contrast with male sodomy which often was punished with hanging or jail; sexual activity between males being legalised in England and Wales only in 1967. There are various apocryphal stories about why lesbianism was not criminalised in the UK. One relates that Queen Victoria refused to sign a bill outlawing it, insisting, "ladies did not do such things." However, lesbian publications such as The Well of Loneliness were declared obscene and seized.

Jewish religious teachings condemn male homosexual behavior but say little about lesbian behavior. However, the approach in the modern State of Israel, with its largely secular Jewish majority, does not outlaw or persecute gay sexual orientation; marriage between gay couples is not sanctioned but common law status and official adoption of a gay person's child by his or her partner have been approved in precedent court rulings (after numerous high court appeals). There is also an annual Gay parade, usually held in Tel-Aviv; in 2006, the "World Pride" parade is slated to be held in Jerusalem.

Western-style homosexuality is rarely tolerated elsewhere in the Middle East, with the possible exception of Turkey. It is punishable by imprisonment, lashings, or death in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Though the law against lesbianism in Iran has recently been revoked, the law against Gay men still stands.

Reproduction and Parenting Rights

See also gay parenting

In some countries the right of lesbian women's access to assisted birth technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) has been the subject of debate. In Australia the High Court rejected a Roman Catholic Church move to ban access to IVF treatments for lesbian and single women. However, Prime Minister John Howard sought to amend legislation in order to prevent access to IVF for these groups, which raised indignation from the gay and lesbian community.

Many lesbian couples seek to have children through adoption, but this is not legal in every country.

Sexuality

Gustave Courbet, The Sleep
Three 18th Century women

Sexual activity between women is as diverse as sex between heterosexuals or gay men. Some women in same sex relationships do not identify as lesbian, but as bisexual. As with any interpersonal activity, sexual expression depends on the context of the relationship.

Recent cultural changes in western and a few other societies have enabled lesbians to express their sexuality more freely, which has resulted in new studies on the nature of female sexuality. Research undertaken by the U.S. Government's National Center for Health Research in 2002 was released in a 2005 report called 'Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002'. The results indicated that among women aged 15-44, 4.4 percent reported having had a sexual experience with another woman during the previous 12 months. When women aged 15–44 years of age were asked, "Have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with another female?" 11 percent answered "yes".

There is a growing body of research and writing on lesbian sexuality, which has brought some debate about the control women have over their sexual lives, the fluidity of female-to-female sexuality, the redefinition of female sexual pleasure and the debunking of negative sexual stereotypes. One example of the latter is lesbian bed death, a term invented by sex researcher Pepper Schwartz to describe the supposedly inevitable diminution of sexual passion in long term lesbian relationships; this notion is rejected by many lesbians, who point out that passion tends to diminish in almost any relationship and many lesbian couples report happy and satisfying sex lives.

Culture

File:Homosexualitystein.jpg
Gertrude Stein and lover Alice B. Toklas.

Throughout history, hundreds of lesbians have been well-known figures in the arts and culture. (See List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people.)

Before the influence of European sexology emerged at the turn of the twentieth-century, in cultural terms female homosexuality remained almost invisible as compared to male homosexuality, which was subject to the law and thus more regulated and reported by the press. However with the publication of works by sexologists like Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter and Magnus Hirschfeld, the concept of active female homosexuality became better known.

As female homosexuality became more visible, it was described as a medical condition. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Sigmund Freud referred to female homosexuality as inversion or inverts and characterised female inverts as possessing male characteristics. Freud drew on the "third sex" ideas popularized by Magnus Hirschfeld and others. While Freud admitted he had not personally studied any such "aberrant" patients, he placed a strong emphasis on psychological, rather than biological, causes. Freud's writings did not become well-known in English-speaking countries until the late 1920s.

This combination of sexology and psychoanalysis eventually had a lasting impact on the general tone of most lesbian cultural productions. A notable example is the 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, in which these sexologists are mentioned along with the term invert, which later fell out of favour in common usage. Freud's interpretation of lesbian behavior has since been rejected by most psychiatrists and scholars, although recent biological research is now providing some findings that may bolster a Hirschfeld-ian "third sex" understanding of same-sex attraction.

The Black Triangle was used to identify "socially unacceptable" women in concentration camps by the Nazis. Lesbians were included in this classification. Since then lesbians have appropriated the Black Triangle as a symbol of defiance against repression and discrimination as gay men have similarly appropriated the Pink triangle.

During the twentieth century, lesbians such as Gertrude Stein and Barbara Hammer were noted in the US avant-garde art movements, along with figures such as Leontine Sagan in German pre-war cinema. Since the 1890s, the underground classic The Songs of Bilitis has been influential on lesbian culture, and this book provided a name for the first campaigning and cultural organisation in the United States, the Daughters of Bilitis.

During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a rise in lesbian pulp fiction in the US and UK, many of which carried "coded" titles such as Odd Girl Out, The Evil Friendship by Vin Packer and the Beebo Brinker-series by Ann Bannon. British school stories also provided a haven for "coded", and sometimes outright, lesbian fiction.

During the 1970s, the second wave of feminist era lesbian novels became more politically oriented, works often carried the explicit ideological messages of separatist feminism, and the trend carried over to other lesbian arts. Rita Mae Brown's debut novel Rubyfruit Jungle was a milestone of this period. By the early 1990s, lesbian culture was influenced by a younger generation who had not taken part in the "Feminist Sex Wars", which strongly informed post-feminist queer theory and the new queer culture.

Since the 1980s, lesbians have been increasingly visible in mainstream culture: in music (Melissa Etheridge, K.D. Lang and the Indigo Girls), in sports (Martina Navrátilová), and in comic books (Alison Bechdel and Diane DiMassa). More recently, lesbian homoeroticism has flowered in fine art photography and the writing of authors such as Pat Califia, Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters. There is an increasing body of lesbian films such as Desert Hearts, Go Fish, Watermelon Woman, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Everything Relative and Better than Chocolate (See List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films.) Classic novels such as those by Jane Rule have been reprinted.

Media depictions

Lesbians often attract media attention, particularly in relation to feminism, love and sexual relationships, marriage and parenting.

Mainstream Broadcast Media

File:Lesymuralccsf.JPG
Two women depicted kissing on a mural at City College of San Francisco

In addition, some characters are claimed to be lesbians (often jokingly), though whether they actually are is unknown. In some cases, the show's producers most likely did not intend any implications of sexuality; in others, it is often implied but not stated outright.

  • Xena and Gabrielle in Xena: Warrior Princess. These characters were not officially "outed" in the storyline, but their relationship was implied through comically ambiguous dialogue and actions laced with double-meaning, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions, and perhaps to avoid criticism while showing tolerance to lesbians.

The 1980s television series L.A. Law included a lesbian relationship, which caused much more controversy than lesbian TV characters did a decade later. The 1989 BBC mini series Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit was based on lesbian writer Jeanette Winterson's novel of the same title. Russian pop-duo t.A.T.u were popular in Europe during the early 2000's, gaining attention and TV airplay for their pop videos because they were marketed as lesbians, even though they weren't (it remains unknown whether this idea came from the duo themselves or their promoters).

Sci-fi series Babylon 5 featured, in one episode, an implied lesbian relationship between two characters (Talia Winters and Commander Susan Ivanova). However, this is never explicitly stated or shown, and in any case did not go beyond this episode, as Winters was revealed at the end of the episode to be an unconscious spy for Psi Corps. However, Ivanova later says that she loved Talia, and is openly said to be bisexual.

Well known sci-fi series Star Trek: Deep Space 9 also featured several episodes including elements of lesbianism. Most famously, the episode "Rejoined" centers around two female characters (Jadzia Dax and visiting scientist Lenara Khan) who love each other but cannot pursue a relationship due to cultural taboos, and which featured a lesbian kissing scene that got the episode banned in several states. In the episode itself, the taboo is said to be a Trill taboo on "reassociation", referring to relationships that linger after a Trill has passed onto a new host; the fact that both characters are women is never mentioned, and it is made quite clear that in the 24th century, this is so accepted that it does not even come to people's minds. This episode earned the show praise from the GLBT community. However, the actual relationship between these two characters were not of the two women, Jadzia and Lenara, but of the androgynous Trill symbionts that inhabited them, Dax and Khan. Previous hosts for the Dax and Kahn symbionts, Torias Dax and Nilani Kahn, had been married in a heterosexual relationship. Also in DS9, the mirror universe versions of several principal characters are either Lesbian, Bisexual, or Pansexual.

Actress and comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian in 1997, and her character on the sitcom Ellen did the same soon after. Ellen, then in its fourth season, became the first American sitcom with a lesbian lead character. The coming-out episode won an Emmy, but the series was cancelled after one more season.

In 2000, the character of Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel) was revealed to be gay in the ABC Daytime Drama Series All My Children. From 2000 - 2005, Bianca was the focus of many storylines involving her sexuality but she is perhaps best known for a storyline in which her character was raped and then the resulting child from the rape was stolen from her. While many have praised the fact that a lesbian character was given such a prominent storyline, others have criticised the way in which the show seemingly would not allow Bianca to have a successful long-running relationship with another woman, instead preferring to keep Bianca in a constant state of trauma.

In 2004, The L Word was primarily focused on the lives of a group of lesbian friends, and Ellen DeGeneres had a popular daytime talk show. In a 2005 episode of The Simpsons titled "There's Something About Marrying", Marge's sister Patty came out as a lesbian.

In 2005 on Law & Order it was revealed during the final appearance of assistant district attorney Serena Southerlyn that the character was a lesbian. Prior to the revelation there had been no overt reference to her sexuality but there had been possible clues prior to this such as the character's American liberalism views, defence of same-sex marriage and several other subtle implications.

Cinema

File:Madchen.jpg
A scene from Mädchen in Uniform (Germany, 1931), the first lesbian feature film. It was immediately banned in the United States but then released in a heavily cut version. It was later banned in Nazi Germany, after which director Leontine Sagan and many of the cast fled the country. (Scriptwriter Christa Winsloe eventually joined the French resistance, likely because of this banning, and was executed by the Nazis in 1944).

The first lesbian-themed feature film was Mädchen in Uniform (1931), based on a novel by Christa Winsloe and directed by Leontine Sagan, tracing the story of a schoolgirl called Manuela von Meinhardis and her passionate love for a teacher, Fräulein von Nordeck zur Nidden. It was written and mostly directed by women. The impact of the film in Germany's lesbian clubs was overshadowed, however, by the cult following for The Blue Angel (1930).

Until the early 1990s, any notion of lesbian love in a film almost always required audiences to infer the relationships. The lesbian aesthetic of Queen Christina (1933) with Greta Garbo has been widely noted, even though the film is not about lesbians. Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, referred more or less overtly to lesbianism, but the two characters involved were not presented positively: Mrs. Danvers was portrayed as obsessed, neurotic and murderous, while the never-seen Rebecca was described as having been selfish, spiteful and doomed to die. All About Eve (1950) was originally written with the title character as a lesbian but this was very subtle in the final version, with the hint and message apparent to alert viewers.

At age 26, playwright Lillian Hellman had her first play on Broadway, original play, produced in 1931. The story is about a private girls' boarding school headmistress and a teacher who are the victims of a malicious whispering campaign of insinuation by a disgruntled schoolgirl; they soon face public accusations of having a lesbian relationship. In the final act, the charges are discovered to have been fabricated,[4] but the lesbian undertones leave many wondering.

The Pulitzer-nominated play was banned in Boston, London, and Chicago, [5] but broke all U.S. records with 691 consecutive performances at a New York Broadway theatre. [6]

Hellman was banned from Hollywood for some years, but in 1961, the screenplay adaptation of The Children's Hour starred feminists Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine as the schoolteachers. An insightful description of the play's deep and pervasively dark themes are presented here [7]

Films with explicitly lesbian content, sympathetic lesbian characters and lesbian leads began appearing during the 1990s. By 2000 some films portrayed characters exploring issues beyond their sexual orientation, reflecting a wider sense that lesbianism has to do with more than sexual desire. Notable mainstream theatrical releases included Bound (1996), Chasing Amy (1997), Kissing Jessica Stein (2001), and Rent (2005, based on the Jonathan Larson musical). There have also been many non-English language lesbian films such as Fire (India, 1996),Fucking Åmål (Sweden, 1998) ,Blue (2001 film)(Japan, 2002) and Blue Gate Crossing (Taiwan, 2004).

See also: List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films.

Comics

In the weekly DC comic mini series, 52, a new version of Batwoman will be introduced. According to pre-releases, the new Batwoman, known as "Kate Kane" will differ from all past versions in part by being portrayed as a lipstick lesbian, who was once in a relationship with Detective Renee Montoya.

A member of Marvel comics' team the Runaways, named Karolina Dean is an extraterrestrial homosexual.

One of the main foci of the Japanese graphic novel Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō is the developing romance between characters Alpha and Kokone.

In manga and anime lesbian content is called shojo-ai whereas lesbian sex without a plot is called yuri.

Video games

SaGa Frontier, a PlayStation title produced by Squaresoft features a lesbian central character named Asellus. A fair deal of the dialogue regarding her lesbianism and female/female relationship was censored out of the game's English translation, however[3]. An additional character closely tied in with Asellus's story, a young girl named Gina who tailors her outfits, frequently discusses her deep attraction to Asellus, her exhilaration while being in her presence, and jealousy of other women with whom she is closely associated. Another Playstation title, Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix which is a prequel to Fear Effect, revealed that Hana Tsu Vachel, one of the main characters in both games, developed a sexual relationship with a female character named Rain Qin.

Feminism

Women protesting for same-sex marriage.

Historically, lesbians have been involved in womens' rights. Late in the 19th Century, the term Boston marriage was used to describe romantic unions between women living together while contributing to the suffrage movement. Continuing a tradition of inclusive acceptance, in 2004 Massachusetts became the first American state to legalize same-sex marriages.[4]

During the 1970s and 80s, with the emergence of modern feminism and the radical feminism movement, lesbian separatism became popular, and groups of lesbian women came together to live in communal societies. Women such as Kathy Rudy in Radical Feminism, Lesbian Separatism, and Queer Theory, remarked that in her experience, stereotypes (along with the hierarchies to reinforce them) developed in the lesbian separatist collective she lived in, ultimately leading her to leave the group.

During the 1990s, dozens of chapters of Lesbian Avengers were formed to press for lesbian visibility and rights.

Transwomen and Trans-inclusion

The relationship between lesbianism and lesbian-identified transgender or transsexual women who identify as lesbian has been a turbulent one, with historically negative attitudes, but this seemed to be changing by the close of the twentieth century.

Some lesbian groups openly welcome transsexual women and may even welcome any member who identifies as lesbian, but a few groups still do not welcome transwomen. The Lesbian Avengers have historically had a very inclusive policy.

Disputes in defining the term lesbian along with enforced exclusions from lesbian events and spaces have been numerous. Some who hold a non-inclusionist attitude often make reference to strong, typically second-wave feminist ideas such as those of Mary Daly, who has described post-operative male-to-female transsexuals as constructed women. They may attribute transsexualism to mechanisms of patriarchy or do not recognize a MTF transsexual's identification as female and lesbian. By defining lesbian through these views, they subsequently defend the non-inclusion of women with transsexual or transgender-backgrounds.

Inclusionists claim these attitudes are inaccurate and derive from fear and distrust, or that the motivations and attitudes of transgender or transsexual lesbians are not well understood, and so they defend the inclusion of transwomen into lesbianism and lesbian spaces.

Both views are common. One incident due to this divisiveness arose during the early 1990s in Australia, when the wider lesbian community raised money to purchase a building devoted to lesbian women along with a uniquely lesbian-only space called The Lesbian Space Project. After the organisation successfully bought the building, a debate over the inclusion of transwomen polarised the lesbian community, the building was later closed and the funds were moved to help support the Pride Centre, a lesbian and gay community centre in Sydney.

An example often cited among the transgender and transsexual communities is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, a well-known and primarily lesbian event restricted to womyn-born womyn. Camp Trans, an organization oriented towards transwomen, was started as a result.

References

See also

Media Depictions

Magazines

Notes

  1. ^ Ellen Greene (ed.), Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. ISBN 0-520-20195-7
  2. ^ "Lycurgus" 18.4)
  3. ^ The History of al-Tabari, Vol. XXX, p.72-73, Albany: SUNY Press, Albany 1989).
  4. ^ http://www.enotes.com/feminism-literature/hellman-lillian
  5. ^ http://classiclit.about.com/od/bannedliteratur1/tp/aatp_bannedplay.htm
  6. ^ http://www.playersring.org/2004_2005_Season/Children's_Hour.htm
  7. ^ http://gayleft1970s.org/issues/gay.left_issue.05.pdf
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