Just a word origin question here. I don’t want this to turn into a debate on sexuality.
Why are female homosexuals called Lesbians? The poet’s name was Sappho. Lesbos is just where she came from. Seems a bit misleading to me.
Because there still is an island Lesbos. And people there, believe it or not, are still called Lesbians. And I assume most of them aren’t female homosexuals (not that there is anything wrong with that).
Again, why? And while we’re at it, what does Sapphic then mean? Someone use it in a sentence please.
Thank you in advance for your kindly and civil replies .
The Wikipedia entry on the term “lesbian” indicates that its use for a homosexual woman is relatively recent (dating to ~1870), and that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both “lesbian” and “sapphic” were used interchangeably; it also notes that, by the 1920s, the former term started to become more prominent.
And finally, not all inhabitants of the region formerly known as Tartary are domineering or irascible, and not all twins from Thailand (Siam) are… well, you get the idea.
These are, however, all based on stereotypes that at one time had some (perceived) basis in reality, unlike the use of Lesbian. There was never a stereotype about people from Lesbos all or mostly being Sapphic women. It is just a quirk of accumulated preference for the term by a variety of people over time. Maybe it’s easier to say, or to remember how to spell correctly.
Good point, although IIRC there are also other examples of the toponymic epithet of just one individual later being applied to an entire group.
The one that comes to mind is “Stagirites” for followers of Aristotelian philosophy, since Aristotle came from the city of Stagira. But AFAIK there was never any stereotype about people from Stagira in general being philosophers.
As understand the only connection between Lesbos and lesbians is Sappho herself.
Somewhat fitting IMO (though I’m a cishet white man) basically we know about the Sappho’s sexuality from mediocre male Greek writers (who basically no-one remembers), who wrote snickering about the hilarity and scandal of a Woman teacher having sexual relationship with their female student (something that was 100% acceptable for men with their male students at the time of course.) That in turn was picked up a couple of millennia later by Victorian classicists (again mediocre male writers who no one remembers) who used the term “lesbian” to refer to her poetry as she was from Lesbos.
So every time the term is used its specifically commemorating (by all accounts great) female poet.
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