No, actually. It's because in ancient times, the women of Lesbos were renowned for giving the best blow jobs in all of the Mediterranean. The Victorians coined the phrased for homosexual woman half out of irony and half because, well, oral sex is a staple of rezbian sex. Sappho's reputation as a wonderful poet survived from antiquity, but it wasn't until around 1920 that a complete poem was rediscovered. Everything else we have is teeny fragments, and a lot of it has had a spin put on it. Keep in mind that until the Victorians, there was no concept of homosexuality, and Sappho was not only married but wrote about loving at least one man.
I don't understand why we can't just say gay to mean men and women. I mean, a lot of people do already. Let's just make it official.
I've never understood it either, unless it's based on the belief that it's two separate sexual orientations, i.e. attracted to women, attracted to men. If you think about it, in a way it's kinda weird that gay men and gay women are considered one group at all. For myself, I don't think anything's that simple; there are gradations and not everyone who says they're gay is exclusively attracted to just one sex (although of course some are). You can probably blame this on my own orientation and the ideas my mom passed down to me. ;3
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Date: 2008-05-03 09:27 pm (UTC)No, actually. It's because in ancient times, the women of Lesbos were renowned for giving the best blow jobs in all of the Mediterranean. The Victorians coined the phrased for homosexual woman half out of irony and half because, well, oral sex is a staple of rezbian sex. Sappho's reputation as a wonderful poet survived from antiquity, but it wasn't until around 1920 that a complete poem was rediscovered. Everything else we have is teeny fragments, and a lot of it has had a spin put on it. Keep in mind that until the Victorians, there was no concept of homosexuality, and Sappho was not only married but wrote about loving at least one man.
I don't understand why we can't just say gay to mean men and women. I mean, a lot of people do already. Let's just make it official.
I've never understood it either, unless it's based on the belief that it's two separate sexual orientations, i.e. attracted to women, attracted to men. If you think about it, in a way it's kinda weird that gay men and gay women are considered one group at all. For myself, I don't think anything's that simple; there are gradations and not everyone who says they're gay is exclusively attracted to just one sex (although of course some are). You can probably blame this on my own orientation and the ideas my mom passed down to me. ;3