Two Cunts Together:

Sapphic Sex and Love Through the 17th Century

1

by Ginevra Fiammetta di Silvestri

(all images from Wikimedia Commons unless otherwise specified)

Source: Art Institute of Chicago

Definitions:

Sapphic: English; a woman or femme person attracted to other women and femme people�Cunnilingus: English; oral stimulation of the vulva�Duìshí (對食): Chinese; “to eat together”�Fregatore: Italian; sapphic, appears to be from the Latin “fricāre” meaning “to rub”�Fricatrix: Latin; a sapphic (from the word “fricāre” meaning “to rub”)�Gynaikerastria: Greek; a female erastes (older lover) of other women�Hetairistria: Greek; a sapphic�Lesbian: English; a woman or femme person attracted exclusively to other women and femme people�Mójìng (磨鏡): Chinese; “to rub mirrors” (tribadism)�Purushayita (पुरुषायित): Sanskrit; a woman acting in the role of a man, esp. sexually�Sahq: Arabic; root word meaning to rub or grind, from which several words relating to lesbianism are derived��

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Definitions:

Sodomia foeminarum: Latin; sex between women including anal or vaginal insertion of objects�Svairini (स्वैरिणी): Sanskrit; independent woman who has sex with other women�Tribadism: English; the rubbing of vulvas together�Tribas: Latin; a sapphic (from the Greek “tríbō” meaning “to rub”)�

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Introduction:

• Crossover with trans/gender nonconforming people
• Most evidence we have is vague/difficult to substantiate
• eg kissing on the mouth
• accusations as smear tactics
• some evidence has been censored or destroyed
• A lot of what we have involves religious or legal condemnation, or derogatory commentary
• What are we looking for? Physical intimacy, emotional intimacy
• art: allegorical, mythological, moral/religious scenes
• Some dates are not exact, slides are ordered by approximate possible start date

4

What is “lesbian-like”?

“I first coined the term ‘lesbian-like’ in the 1990s, using it to broaden the sparse social history of medieval lesbians (little more than a dozen cases between 500 and 1500) to include women with affinities to modern lesbianisms: women whose lives offered opportunities for same-sex love; women who resisted conventions of feminine behavior based on heterosexual marriage; and women who lived in circumstances that especially encouraged the nurture and support of women... There will always be only a few women in the distant past for whom we can be confident about lesbian sexual activity, especially given the difficulties of determining, in Karma Lochrie’s words, ‘what counts for the sexual or erotic in the past.’ But these need not be the only women whose stories are relevant to lesbian history, and relevant, as well, to a women’s and gender history that needs to be more open to lesbian possibilities.”��(cont.)

5

What is “lesbian-like”?

“This hyphenated construction both names ‘lesbian’ and destabilizes it. The ‘lesbian’ in ‘lesbian-like’ articulates the often-unnamed, forcing scholars to deal more forthrightly with possibilities of lesbian expressions in the past. Yet at the same time as the term names the often-unnamed, the ‘like’ decenters ‘lesbian,’ introducing a productive uncertainty born of likeness and resemblance, not identity. It allows us to expand lesbian possibilities beyond a narrow focus on women who engaged in certifiable same-sex erotic contact (a certification hard to achieve for many living women) and to incorporate women who, regardless of their sexual pleasures, lived in ways that offer affinities with modern lesbians—not only women who chose joint burials, but also sexual rebels, gender rebels, marriage-resisters, cross-dressers, singlewomen, and women who found special sustenance in female worlds of love and ritual.”� �Source: “Remembering Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge” by Judith M. Bennett, in The Lesbian Premodern, edited by Noreen Giffney, Michelle M. Sauer, and Diane Watt

6

Timeline:

21st century BCE: Ewanika and Adi-matum

7

Old Assyrian

c 2025–1400 BCE

Source: Met Museum

“Ibni-Sîn, son of Ennam-Assur, will wed the daughter of Ewanika and Adi-matum. If they give their daughter to another (?), E. and A. shall pay Ibni-Sîn two minas of silver. If Ibni-Sîn marries the daughter of a native person here (nuā’u) and does not marry their daughter, Ibni-Sîn shall pay to E. [and A. two minas] of silver. He (?) may give the girl (ṣuḫartu) to wherever he (?) wishes.”

Timeline:

15th century BCE: Idet and Ruiu

8

Egyptian, Theban Necropolis

1480-1390 BCE

Source: Museo Egizio

Idet is the figure seated on the right, the place of honor, and is called “lady of the house” (nebet per). No title is given for Ruiu. They are portrayed in a pose typical of married couples.

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Timeline:

8th century BCE: Zeus and Callisto

9

Greek

In mythology, Callisto was a nymph who followed Artemis. Zeus transformed himself into the guise of Artemis to get close to her and seduce her. When the resulting pregnancy was discovered, Artemis banished Callisto, who was later transformed into a bear by a jealous Hera.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

7th century BCE: One Woman Courts Another

10

Greek

​

Two women holding crowns, which were typical love gifts. One person touching the other's chin is a gesture typical of courtship scenes. The woman on the left may be older, suggested by her white hair and courtship gesture. Female same-gender relationships, like male ones, may have been mostly age-differential in this period.

Source: University of Texas

Alt: Wikimedia Commons

Source: “Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents” edited by Thomas K. Hubbard, illustration 3, between pp. 267 and 268

Timeline:

7th century BCE: Papyrus Carlsberg XIII (Demotic Dream

11

Interpretation)

Egyptian, Demotic

c. 650 BCE–5th century CE

“If a married woman has intercourse with her, she will have an ill fate, and one of her children will…"¹

(Papyrus Carlsberg XIII, b2, 33)

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¹Manniche, Lise. Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt. London: Kegan Paul, 2002.

Source: Demotische Traumdeutung

Timeline:

7th century BCE: Sappho

12

Greek

c. 630 – c. 570 BCE

Sappho was a poet from the island of Lesbos and is known for her lyric poetry. Most of her poems are now lost. Her love poetry for other women is what gave rise to the terms “sapphic” and “lesbian.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

13

Fragment 94:

�I have not had one word from her

Frankly I wish I were dead

When she left, she wept

a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be

endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy

but remember (you know

well) whom you leave shackled by love

"If you forget me, think

of our gifts to Aphrodite

and all the loveliness that we shared

"all the violet tiaras,

braided rosebuds, dill and

crocus twined around your young neck

"myrrh poured on your head

and on soft mats girls with

all that they most wished for beside them

"while no voices chanted

choruses without ours,

no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."�

Translated by Mary Barnard�Source: https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/221saph.html

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Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

14

Fragment 1:��...arriving quickly--you, Blessed One,

with a smile on your unaging face

asking again what have I suffered

and why am I calling again

​

and in my wild heart what did I most wish

to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade

back into the harness of your love?

Sappho, who wrongs you?

​

For if she flees, soon she'll pursue,

she doesn't accept gifts, but she'll give,

if not now loving, soon she'll love

even against her will." ...�

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Translated by Diane Rayor��Source: https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/221saph.html

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Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

15

Fragment 31:��To me it seems

that man has the fortune of gods,

whoever sits beside you, and close,

who listens to you sweetly speaking

and laughing temptingly;

my heart flutters in my breast,

whenever I look quickly, for a moment –

I say nothing, my tongue broken,

a delicate fire runs under my skin,

my eyes see nothing, my ears roar,

cold sweat rushes down me,

trembling seizes me,

I am greener than grass,

to myself I seem

needing but little to die.

But all must be endured, since...

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Translated by Diane Rayor��Source: http://webhome.auburn.edu/~downejm/exercises/srayor.html

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Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

6th century BCE: Two Women Share a Cloak

16

Greek

ca. 550 BCE

Two women wrapped together in the same cloak or blanket. This may be meant to represent lesbian intimacy as suggested by the other two sides of the pyxis, which show scenes of homosexual intercourse and heterosexual courtship.

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Museum link: https://ummuseum.catalogaccess.com/objects/2119

Source: Perseus

Source: “Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents” edited by Thomas K. Hubbard, illustration 4a, between pp. 267 and 268

Timeline:

6th century BCE: Maenads Embrace

17

Greek�c. 540 BCE

Two Maenads embrace while presenting a hare to Dionysus. This may suggest that female intimacy was a feature of Dionysiac rites.

Source: Médailles et Antiques - BNF

Source: “Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents” edited by

Thomas K. Hubbard, illustration 9, between pp. 267 and 268

Timeline:

6th century BCE: Ruth and Naomi

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18

Jewish

6th–4th centuries BCE

Ruth 1:16-17, King James Version:�

16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

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17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

5th century BCE: Crouching Woman Touches � Another's Privates

19

Greek

490-480 BCE

One naked woman touches the genitals of another. Various interpretations say the crouching one is applying perfume, removing the standing woman’s pubic hair, or stimulating her genitals with her fingers.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: “Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents” edited by Thomas K. Hubbard, illustration 13, between pp. 267 and 268

Timeline:

5th century BCE: Aristophanes' Speech in Plato's

20

Symposium, 189c-193d�Greek�c. 385–370 BCE

Aristophanes claims that humans once had doubled bodies and three genders - all male, all female, and androgynous (half male, half female). Zeus punished them for rebelling by dividing them in half. Ever since, people search for their other half - the former androgynous people are heterosexual, the former all “male” people gay, and the former all “female” people lesbians - the latter called hetairistriai.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

5th century BCE: Two Women Listening to a Lyrist

21

Greek

ca. 460 BCE

On this vessel attributed to the Danaë Painter, a seated woman plays the lyre. Two women stand listening, one of whom rests her chin and hands on the shoulder of the other. The performer may be the poetess Sappho.

Source: Met Museum

Timeline:

5th century BCE: Eros Flies Between 2 Women

22

Greek�c. 430 BCE

Eros flies between two women to crown one with a wreath. In similar scenes this suggests romantic attraction. The two women appear to be playing a game based on their positions.

Source: British Museum

Timeline:

3rd century BCE: Asklepiades’ Epigram 5.207

23

Greek

“Bitto and Nanniŏn of Samos will not go to the house of Cypris* by the road the goddess ordains, but desert to other things which are not seemly. O Lady Cypris, look with hate on the truants from thy bed.”

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*“Cypris” is an epithet of Aphrodite

Source: Louvre

see “Two Women of Samos” in “The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome” edited by Martha C. Nussbaum and Juha Sihvola

Timeline:

2nd century BCE: Two Seated Women

24

Greek

c. 100 BCE

Compare this figure of a �shy bride and bridegroom:

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Two women sitting on a bed or bench and leaning in close together.

Timeline:

1st century BCE: Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 1.2.23

25

Roman

c. 54 BC – c. 39 AD

Seneca wrote a fictional legal case in which a husband caught his wife in bed with another woman and killed them both. But before doing so, he first checked to see if the interloper’s phallus was “natural or sewed-on."

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Source: Love Between Women on the Internet Archive

Alt: SENECA THE ELDER, Controversiae | Loeb Classical Library

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

1st century CE: Lamp featuring cunnilingus scene

26

Roman

1-99 CE

Terracotta lamp with a scene of a woman performing cunnilingus on another woman; closed shape, mould-made.

Source: British Museum

Timeline:

1st century CE: Pompeii Suburban Baths Mural

27

Scene V - Roman, pre-79 CE

Scene V of the famous mural showing variants of sexual intercourse. Couple in bed. The hair of the figure on the left, as well as their matching skin tones, indicates that this is a lesbian sex scene. The woman on the right wearing a fascia pectoralis [breastband] lies back on a bed or a klinē.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

diagram from John R. Clarke’s book “Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250

Timeline:

1st century CE: Pompeii Suburban Baths Mural

28

Scene VII - Roman, pre-79 CE

Scene VII of the famous mural showing variants of sexual intercourse. Foursome of two men and two women in bed. The man on the left penetrates the man to his right, who receives fellatio from a woman, who in turn receives cunnilingus from the rightmost woman.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

diagram from John R. Clarke’s book “Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250

Timeline:

1st century CE: CIL 4.5296

29

Roman�pre-79 CE

An unfinished love poem graffitied on a wall in Pompeii:

Would that I might hold my (your) arms embraced around your (my) neck and give kisses with my tender lips. Go now, poppet, and entrust your joys to the winds. Believe me, men’s nature is fickle. When in my desperation I was lying awake in the middle of the night, often, thinking over things with myself, (I said) «Many whom Fortune has raised aloft, these she subsequently oppresses, suddenly hurled down headlong. Similarly after Venus has suddenly united the bodies of lovers, daylight separates them…

Source: Luca Graverini, “Ovidian Graiti: Love, Genre and Gender on a Wall in Pompeii. A New Study of CIL IV 5296 - CLE 950”

Timeline:

1st century CE: Iphis and Ianthe

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30

Greek

8 CE

In mythology, Iphis was the daughter of a poor couple who could not afford a dowry, so they raised her as a son. They eventually arranged for her to marry Ianthe, and the two fell in love. Iphis prayed to the goddess Isis for help, and Isis transformed her into a man.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

1st century CE: Phaedrus’ Fabulae 4.16

31

Roman

died mid-1st century CE

Someone asks Aesop what had produced tribadic females and effeminate males. Aesop replies that Prometheus molded people out of clay. He made the genitals separately, and was interrupted by an invitation to dinner with Bacchus. He returned home drunk, and by accident put penises on women and vaginas on men.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: Hallett and Skinner’s Roman Sexualities

Timeline:

1st century CE: Dorotheos of Sidon

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32

Greek

c. 75 CE - ?? CE

In his Carmen Astrologicum, Dorotheos says that women born when Venus and the moon are in a particular location “will be a Lesbian, desirous of women.” He also mentions conditions that result in women “who do in women the act of men.”

​

Source: Love Between Women on the Internet Archive

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

1st century CE: Lycurgus, chapter 18, section 4

33

Greek

75-100 CE

Plutarch: “...Moreover, though this sort of love was so approved among them that even the maidens found lovers in good and noble women, still, there was no jealous rivalry in it, but those who fixed their affections on the same boys made this rather a foundation for friendship with one another, and persevered in common efforts to make their loved one as noble as possible.”

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Source: Plutarch's Lycurgus on Perseus Digital Library

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

1st century CE: Martial’s Epigram XC, Book I

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34

Roman

86-103 CE

“Since, Bassa, I never saw you snog a male,

since none of the talk gave you a fancy man,

but all your needs were always satisfied

by a crowd of your own sex – no man came near –

you seemed, I must admit, a model wife:

but you, it’s criminal! – Bassa, you fucked women.

You find the nerve to bring two cunts together

and fake a man’s part in abnormal sex.

You’ve made a riddle worthy of the Sphinx:

here, where no man is found, adultery's rife.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Translated by Gillian Spraggs�Source: http://www.gillianspraggs.com/translations/bassa.html

Timeline:

1st century CE: Martial’s Epigram LXVII, Book VII

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​

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35

Roman

86-103 CE

“Philaenis the bulldyke buggers boys

and hornier than a married man

she screws eleven girls a day.

...

After all this, it’s time to fuck.

Pricks she won’t suck; she thinks it’s sissy,

but gobbles up the cracks of girls.

Philaenis, may the gods bestow

what you think butch – a cunt to lick.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Translated by Gillian Spraggs�Source: http://www.gillianspraggs.com/translations/philaenis.html

Timeline:

1st century CE: Martial’s Epigram LXX, Book VII

​

​

​

36

Roman

86-103 CE

“Rubber¹ of all girl-rubbers, Philaenis,

you quite rightly call the woman you fuck² your girlfriend.”

​

¹ “tribade”

² Normally, futuō specifically means to be the penetrating partner in vaginal sex.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Translated by Mark Brustman�Source: https://people.well.com/user/aquarius/martial.htm

Timeline:

1st century CE: The Bible, Romans 1:26-27

37

early Christian

King James Version:

​

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

​

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Source: Yale Art Gallery

Timeline:

2nd century CE: The Apocalypse of Peter

​

​

38

early Christian

32 And other men and women being cast down from a great rock (precipice) fell (came) to the bottom, and again were driven by them that were set over them, to go up upon the rock, and thence were cast down to the bottom and had no rest from this torment. And these were they that did defile their bodies behaving as women: and the women that were with them were they that lay with one another as a man with a woman.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: The Apocryphal New Testament by Montague Rhodes James

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Juvenal’s Satire II

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​

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39

Roman

Laronia, an adulteress, fires back at a detractor that unlike “effeminate” men [like him] who engage in fellatio with other males, "such an abominable specimen of conduct will not be found among our sex / Tedia does not lick Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla."

Source: Bernadette J. Brooten’s Love Between Women, page 48

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans

40

Greek

c. 125 – after 180 CE

Dialogue 5 features the courtesan Leaina recounting being seduced by two other courtesans, Demonassa and Megilla, the latter of whom calls herself Megillos, acts masculine, and calls Demonassa her wife. When asked if she has a penis, Megilla replies “I haven't got what you mean... I don't need it at all. You'll find I have a much pleasanter method of my own.” She tells Leaina, “just give me a chance, and you'll find I'm as good as any man.”

​

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

2nd century CE: daughter of Galen

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41

Greek

Galen: c 129-2?? CE

According to Abul Hasan Ali Ibn Nasr Al-Katib’s 10th century work Encyclopedia of Pleasure, Galen, the second-century Greek physician, had a daughter who was a lesbian. Upon examining her labia and surrounding veins he concluded that her lesbianism was caused by “an itch between the major and minor labia” that could only be soothed by rubbing them against another woman's labia.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Source: "Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbian-Like Women" by Sahar Amer

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Laws of Manu

42

Indian

c. 2nd or 3rd century CE

From Chapter 8: “If a virgin does it to another virgin, she should be fined two hundred (pennies), be made to pay double (the girl’s) bride-price, and receive ten whip (lashes). But if a (mature) woman does it to a virgin, her head should be shaved immediately or two of her fingers should be cut off, and she should be made to ride on a donkey.”

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Source: The Laws of Manu, translated by Wendy Doniger and Brian K. Smith

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Buddhacharita

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43

Indian

early 2nd century CE

A court chaplain encouraging a group of women to seduce the Buddha says, “By your knowledge of the telltale signs of emotion, your flirtation, your perfect beauty, you are able to enflame the passion even of women, so how much more is this so of men?”��Source: Redeeming the Kamasutra by Wendy Doniger, page 122

Source: Museum Rietberg

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Clement of Alexandria's Paedagogus

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44

Greco-Romano-Egyptian

c. 198 CE

Clement describes women who, contrary to nature (para physin), behave like men (andrizontai), and marry other women (both actively and passively, i.e., with both the active and passive participles of “to marry” (gamousai and gamoumenai]).��Source: Love Between Women on the Internet Archive

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Nike and Pantous

45

Greek/Egyptian

101-200 CE

Source: Twitter

TABLET A

“Horion, son of Sarapous, make and force [drawing of a mummy] Nike, daughter of Apollonous, to fall in love with Pantous, whom Tmesios bore.”

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TABLET B

“Make Nike, daughter of Apollonous, fall in love with Pantous, whom Tmesios bore, for five months.”

Timeline:

2nd century CE: Sarapias and Herais

46

Greek/Egyptian

101-200 CE

“I adjure you, Euangelos, by Anoubis and Hermes and all the rest down below [i.e., deities]; attract and bind Sarapias whom Helen bore, to this Herais, whom Thermoutharin bore, now, now; quickly, quickly. By her soul and heart attract Sarapias herself, whom (Helen) bore from her own womb. maei ote elbōsatok alaoubētō ōeio [...] aēn. Attract and [bind the soul and heart of Sarapias], whom [Helen bore, to this] Herais, [whom] Thermoutharin [bore] from her womb [now, now; quickly, quickly].”

Source: University College London

Timeline:

3rd century CE: Gorgonia and Sophia

47

Greek/Egyptian

201-400 CE

Source: Twitter

“...drive Gorgonia, whom Nilogenia bore, to love Sophia, whom Isara bore; burn, set on fire the soul, the heart, the liver, the spirit of burned, inflamed, tortured Gorgonia, whom Nilogenia bore, until she casts herself into the bath-house for the sake of Sophia, whom Isara bore; and you, become a bath-woman.”

Timeline:

3rd century CE: Kama Sutra

48

Indian

2nd half of the 3rd century CE

• Book 5 chapter 6 describes women using dildos, bulbs, roots, or fruits on one another.
• Book 7 chapter 1 mentions the possibility of a girl losing her virginity to a girlfriend or a servant girl.
• In the 13th century, Yashodhara Indrapada’s commentary on book 2 chapter 9 mentions cunnilingus practiced by women in the harem. His commentary on Book 7 chapter 1 specifies that the loss of virginity involves using a finger.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

5th century CE: The Talmud, Shabbat 65a.17-65b.1

49

Jewish/Hebrew

c. 450 - 550 CE

The William Davidson Talmud:

​

65a.17 “[Abba bar Abba] did not allow [his daughters] to lie next to one another. Let us say that this supports the opinion of Rav Huna, as Rav Huna said: Women who rub against one another motivated by sexual desire

65b.1

“are disqualified from marrying into the priesthood. The act renders a woman a zona [“loose woman”]. It is prohibited for a priest to marry her.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

5th century CE: Taêse and Tsansnô

50

Egyptian, Coptic Christian

​

A woman named Taêse was accused of running after a woman named Tsansnô “in friendship and physical desire.” A woman named Tsansnô (likely the same person) was accused of running after her neighbors (probably meaning women with cells near hers in the monastery) in “friendship.” For this the women were sentenced to beatings on the feet with a stick by Shenute, the abbot, via a letter.

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Source: Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World, edited by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Lisa Auanger

Source: Among Women page 309

Timeline:

7th century CE: Penitential of Theodore

51

Christian

c 670 CE

Book One section II part 12 states: “If a woman practices vice with a woman, she shall do penance for three years.”

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Source: Medieval Handbooks of Penance by John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

c 7th-11th century CE? Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

“The sculpture is over 1000 years old and part of a temple �city in Bhuveneshvar.”

Source: Giti Thadani

52

Timeline:

8th century CE: Penitential of Bede

53

English, Christian

c 730 CE

Stipulates three years penance for “a woman fornicating with a woman,” and seven years for “nuns with a nun by means of an instrument.”

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Source: Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others by Ruth Mazo Karras

Source: Corpus Christi College, MS 183 f. 1v

Timeline:

8th century CE: ascribed to Makhul

54

Syrian

d. c. 733 CE

Sihaq al-nisa’ zinan baynahunna (Women's Tribadism Constitutes Fornication between Them), was a legal opinion that unfortunately has not survived.

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Source: Crossing Borders: Love Between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures by Sahar Amer

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

9th century CE: Abbasid Caliphate

55

c. 801–873 CE

Philosopher al-Kindi wrote:

Lesbianism is due to a vapor which, condensed, generates in the labia heat and an itch which only dissolve and become cold through friction and orgasm. When friction and orgasm take place, the heat turns into coldness because the liquid that a woman ejaculates in lesbian intercourse is cold whereas the same liquid that results from sexual union with men is hot. Heat, however, cannot be extinguished by heat; rather, it will increase since it needs to be treated by its opposite. As coldness is repelled by heat, so heat is also repelled by coldness.

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Source: Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbian-Like Women by Sahar Amer

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

9th century CE: Yu Xuanji*

56

Chinese

c 840–868 CE

A Chinese poetess, courtesan, and Daoist nun during the late Tang dynasty. Claimed by some to be China's first openly bisexual female.*

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

Norse Lesbians?

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There are no recorded instances of lesbian couples in the Viking Age (~800–1050 CE); however, men could have concubines in addition to their wives, and in many cultures where polygyny is common, lesbian relationships could and did exist.

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Source: Homosexuality in Viking Scandinavia by the Viking Answer Lady

57

9th century CE: Scandinavia

Timeline:

10th century CE: Arethas

58

Byzantine

914 CE

In his commentary on Clement of Alexandria's comment on women marrying other women, Arethas equates tribades, hetairistriai, and Lesbiai (plurals of hetairistria and Lesbia) in the earliest known attestation of "Lesbian" for a woman erotically oriented toward other women, making "lesbian" etymologically the oldest of any of the terms currently used for people in same-gender relationships.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

10th century CE: Encyclopedia of Pleasure by Ali ibn Nasr al-Katib

59

Arabian

Contains the tale of the poetess al-Zarqā and 7th century Christian princess al-Hurqah - after al-Zarqā died, al-Hurqah went into mourning and lived an ascetic life until her death. She also built a monastery to commemorate her love for al-Zarqā.

​

Source: Medieval Arab Lesbians and Lesbian-Like Women by Sahar Amer

Source: Madrid, Escorial Library, El Libro de los Juegos fol. 54r

Timeline:

10th century CE: Wallada bint al-Mustakfi

60

Al-Andalus�c 994-1091 CE

The daughter of a caliph who openly had male and female lovers. She was a talented poet, though few of her poems have survived. She also hosted literary salons and mentored other poets. Her poems to her lover, Muhja bint al-Tayyani, were sexually explicit and therefore suppressed and lost.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

10th century CE: Kitāb al-Fihrist by Ibn al-Nadim

61

Abbasid (Islamic)

Lists twelve books (now lost) about lesbian couples:

• Rihana and Qoronfel
• Ruqayya and Khadija
• Mo'ees and Zakiyya
• Sakina and al-Rabab
• al-Ghatrifa and al-Dhulafa'
• Hind and Bint al-Nu’man
• ‘Abda al-’Aqila and ‘Abda al-Ghaddara
• Lu'lu'a and Shatira
• Najda and Zu'um
• Salma and Su’ad
• Sawab and Surur
• al-Dahma' and Ni’ma

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

10th-11th century CE: Erotic temple sculpture

62

Indian

999-1002 CE

Source: Wikimedia Commons

detail from Vishvanath Temple in Khajuraho showing a woman stimulating the genitals of another woman with her hand.

Timeline:

11th century CE: Erotic temple sculpture

63

Indian

11th-12th CE

An erotic scene of one woman performing cunnilingus on another, carving on the ruins of a temple roof in Panagal

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

12th century CE: Hildegard von Bingen and Richardis von Stade

64

German�c 1136-1152 CE

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Hildegard was an abbotess who had an intense attachment to the nun Richardis, who helped her compile her work “Scivias,” a description of 26 religious visions she experienced. In 1151, Richardis was chosen to be abbess of a different convent. Hildegard was so distressed she sent letters to increasingly higher authorities, culminating with the Pope, in an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to have the decision reversed.

Source: Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis of Stade: The Discourse of Desire by Susan Schibanoff, in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages, edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn

Timeline:

12th century CE: Livre des manières by Étienne de Fougères

65

French�c 1168-1178 CE

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Source: Jousting without a Lance: The Condemnation of Female Homoeroticism in the Livre des Manieres” by Robert L.A. Clark in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn

Timeline:

A few non-academic websites describe this sculpture as depicting two women. I personally cannot attest to whether the features (eg hairstyles) delineate the figures as women. I have seen a very similarly posed sculpture where one of the figures has an erect penis.

66

13th century CE: Erotic temple sculpture*

Source: Erotic Scenes from the Koṇārka Temple

Konark Sun Temple, Odisha, India

Timeline:

Yde and Olive

67

French

13th century CE

An epic poem tells the story of the princess Yde, who dresses as a man to flee her father’s incestuous advances and goes on adventures. She eventually is married to Olive, the daughter of the king she serves, and her secret is discovered. The women pray for salvation and an angel turns Yde into a man.

Source: DocPlayer

Timeline:

13th century CE: Codex Vindobonensis 2554

68

French

1220s CE

Unusually, this depiction of the “sin” of same-gender relations in an illustrated Bible includes women as well as men.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

Another depiction of Zeus as Artemis with Callisto.

69

14th century CE: Pierre Bersuire’s De formis figurisque deorum and Ovidius moralizatus (Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, Memb. I 98 fol. 14r)�Bologna, Italy�1348 CE

Timeline:

15th century CE: University of Valencia BH Ms. 0387 f 7v

70

French

c.1405 CE

Detail of “Miniature of Deduit’s Garden and the court dancing the carolle” from a copy of Roman de la Rose. “Two very charming maidens with their hair in a single braid and dressed only in their tunics were led into the dance by Pleasure, who bore himself most nobly; but I need not say how beautifully they danced: one would approach the other very elegantly, and when they were close together, their lips would touch in such a way that you might have thought they were kissing one another’s faces.”

Source: Larousse

Source: "The Romance of the Rose" translation by Frances Horgan

Timeline:

Agnes Oxenbridge (died 4 August 1480) and Elizabeth Etchingham (died 3 December 1452) have a joint memorial brass on the floor of The Assumption of Blessed Mary and St Nicholas church in Etchingham, England. The arrangement of the memorial brasses resembles those made for married couples. The lack of mention of husbands, their uncovered heads, and the intimacy evoked by their poses are all significant.

Source: “Remembering Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge” by Judith M. Bennett, in The Lesbian Premodern, edited by Noreen Giffney, Michelle M. Sauer, and Diane Watt

71

15th century CE: Agnes Oxenbridge and Elizabeth Etchingham

Etchingham, England

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15th century CE: Elsa and Lohengrin's farewell

72

German

1470 CE

Heidelberg University Library, Cod. Pal. Germ. 345 fol 82v: Elsa and Lohengrin say goodbye to the imperial court. In the foreground, in the presence of her ladies-in-waiting, the Empress hugs Elsa goodbye. Their two husbands are in the background.

Source: Heidelberg University Library

Timeline:

15th century CE: Paris, Bibl. Ste-Geneviève, MS 0246, f 3v

73

French

c. 1475 CE

Detail from the “Detraction and Charity” section of the terrestrial city below (as opposed to the celestial city above).

Source: BVMM

Source: BVMM

This page of the manuscript depicts the City of Man (or the Earthly City), consisting of people who have embraced the material world, below the City of God, comprised of people who forgo earthly pleasure in favor of Christian ideals.

Timeline:

15th century CE: Katherina Hetzeldorfer

74

German

1477 CE

The first recorded woman to be executed for female homosexuality. She moved to Speyer in 1475 dressed as a man with a woman she called her sister. She was prosecuted after confiding to someone that they lived as man and wife. It was discovered that she had also paid for sex from two women, both of whom claimed not to have known she didn’t have a penis. One stated that she had used a strap-on dildo made with red leather. She was executed by drowning.

​

Source: Puff, Helmut. "Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477)." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30, no. 1 (2000): 41-61.

Source: Nieuwsblad

Timeline:

16th century CE: BNF Français 2237 fol 2r

75

French

Justice and Peace kissing (while King Francis I of France holds their hands)

Source: Gallica

Timeline:

Source: Wikimedia Commons

76

16th century CE: “Woman and Her Maid” or “Two Women” by Giovanni Antonio da Brescia aka Zoan Andrea

Italian�1500 CE

Located in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. The taller woman lifts her gown to show her genitals, while wrapping her arm around the shorter woman and glancing at her. The shorter woman’s dress is also lifted, and she reaches up underneath the other woman’s bodice. In other examples of a woman’s gown being lifted in medieval art, the person lifting is usually a man.

Source: Feminae

Timeline:

16 century CE: �Two Resting Nymphs�by Palma Vecchio�Italian�ca. 1510 – 1515 CE

77

Source: Städel Museum

Believed to depict Zeus and Callisto

Timeline:

16th century CE: Laudomia Forteguerri and Margaret of Parma

78

Italian�c 1515–1555 CE

Margaret of Parma

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Of Laudomia’s six surviving sonnets, five are dedicated to Margaret. According to a contemporary, “As soon as Laudomia saw Madama and was seen by her… suddenly with the most ardent flames of Love each burned for the other, and the most manifest sign of this was that they went to visit each other many times.” In contrast, Margaret seemed to have no interest in the men she married, having no children with her first husband and refusing to consummate for five years with the second, and after giving birth chose to live separately from him.

Source: "Laudomia Forteguerri" in Same-sex Desire in the English Renaissance: A Sourcebook of Texts, edited by Kenneth Borris.

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Timeline:

16th century CE: Diana and Actaeon

79

Italian�1524 CE

Detail of a fresco by Parmigianino in the Rocca Sanvitale in Parma, Italy.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

16th century CE: Two female figures as caryatids by Bernardino India

80

Italian�c 1528-1590 CE

Source: Louvre

Louvre INV 8831, Recto. A caryatid is a sculpted female figure used as a column or pillar.

Timeline:

16th century CE: Jupiter and Callisto by �Michiel Coxie I

81

Source: British Museum

Netherlandish�early 1530s CE

Detail of British Museum number 1861,0112.10.

Another Zeus and Callisto

Timeline:

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16th century CE: Women Bathing by Jean Mignon

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82

French, after Italian work�c. 1535 - 55 CE

Detail from a print based on a drawing by Luca Penni. Metropolitan Museum of Art, object number 1989.1012.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Timeline:

16th century CE: Diana and Callisto by Andrea Schiavone

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83

Source: Blanton Museum of Art

Italian�1540s CE

Detail from Blanton Museum of Art, object number 2017.1362.

Timeline:

16th century CE: Eleno de Céspedes

84

Afro-Spanish�c. 1545 – died after 1588 CE

Eleno was a intersex person born to an enslaved black Muslim woman and a free, Christian, Castilian peasant man. They were freed as a child, and as they were AFAB (named Elena) they married a man around age 15 or 16, who left while they were pregnant. They gave birth to a boy, whom they left with a friend, and began travelling, during which they began presenting as a man. They later married a woman, and were examined and found to have a penis and testicles, and a vagina.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

16th century CE: Agatha Dietschi, aka Hans Kaiser

85

German�died after 1547 CE

Another AFAB person who was originally married to a man. Later, they changed their name to Hans Kaiser and married a woman with children in Niedingen. They moved away for a time, then moved back, claiming the woman and her children had died. They then married Anna Reuli. Reuli began having an affair, and divulged Dietschi’s secret in hopes of having their marriage dissolved. Witnesses claimed to have seen Dietschi and Reuli involved in sexual activity in a barn, and evidence was presented that Dietschi had manufactured a dildo. Dietschi was was instead pilloried and exiled from the city, but spared the death penalty.

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Source: “Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400-1600” by Helmut Puff

Timeline:

16th century CE: Three Women in the Bathhouse by Sebald Beham

86

German

1548 CE

Just three average ladies hangin’ in a bathhouse. What are they doing? The British Museum’s copy just says “touching” - but there’s a tag for “eroticism/sex.”

Source: SKD

Timeline:

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16th century CE: Four Bathing Women by Monogrammist GK

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87

Italian�c. 1550 - 1570 CE

Detail from a print based on a drawing by Luca Penni. Rijksmuseum, inventory number RP-P-OB-105.236.

Source: Rijksmuseum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Allegory of Peace and Justice by Frans Floris I

88

Netherlandish�1555 CE

Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, number Ж-1155

Source: Pushkin Museum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Felipa de Souza

89

Portuguese Brazilian�1556 - c. 1600 CE

A remarried widowed seamstress who flirted with and/or seduced at least six women - in at least one case while her partner’s husband was home. She regularly “boasted about” being with several women, whom she sought out “for the great love and carnal affection that she felt” upon seeing them. For two years, 1588-89, Felipa and Paula de Siqueira limited themselves to one another’s caresses, kisses, letters, and hugs with lascivious intentions. After an inquisition, she was sentenced to be publicly whipped and banished from Bahia.

Source: “Female Homoeroticism, Heresy, and the Holy Office in Colonial Brazil” in Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America, edited by Zeb Tortorici

Timeline:

16th century CE: War and Peace by Hendrick Goltzius

90

Source: National Gallery of Armenia

Dutch�c. 1558-1617 CE

National Gallery of Armenia, number 6540. Another allegorical image, labelled War and Peace, but may be Justice and Peace instead.

Timeline:

16th century CE: Justice and Peace by an unknown painter

91

Source: Musée Dobrée

Musée Dobrée number 896.1.3801

French�1560 CE

Timeline:

16th century CE: Dish with Diana and Her Nymphs Bathing

92

Italian�c. 1560-1570 CE

Walters Art Museum number 48.1316 - a maiolica dish depicting Diana bathing with her nymphs. Lots of very hetero activity going on here - embracing and pursuit and helping each other wash each others’ crotches.

Source: Walters Art Museum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Pierre Brantome, The Lives of Gallant Ladies (trans. Alec Brown)

93

“Whence I will put the following question and one moreover which I think has never been examined by anybody, nor I think even conceived, namely — if two ladies are amorous one of another, as one can find, for such pairs are today often seen sleeping together, in the fashion called in imitation of the learned Lesbian Sappho, donna con donna, can they be said to commit adultery and by their joint act make their husbands cuckolds?”

(cont.)

French, travelling in Italy�1566 CE

Timeline:

(cont.)

“I knew a courtesan in Rome, old and knowing if ever there was one, called Isabella de Luna, who took another courtesan named Pandora as lover, one of the loveliest of the time in the whole of Rome, who had just been married to a butler of the Lord Cardinal d'Armagnac, though without relinquishing her old trade, and she was kept by this Isabella and regularly slept with her, and, unrestrained and disorderly in her speech as this Isabella was, I often heard her say that she had made Pandora more of a whore than before and caused her to put the horns on her husband's head more than any other roisterer with whom she had made love. I do not know in what sense she meant this, unless she was basing herself on Martial’s epigram.”

94

Timeline:

16th century CE: Moderation disarming Vanity by Jan van der Straet

95

Italian

1569 CE

Allegorical painting by Stradanus (Jan van der Straet) featuring the personifications of Moderation (or Modesty) and Vanity.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

16th century CE: Peace and Justice by Maerten de Vos

96

Hermitage State Museum, St. Petersburg, number 7724

Flemish�c 1575 CE

Timeline:

16th century CE: Justitia and Pax by Jacob de Backer

97

Detail of Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, number 6

Flemish�c 1575-1600 CE

Timeline:

16th century CE: Mary de Vitry

98

French�died September 1580 CE

According to the travel journal of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, seven or eight AFAB people near Chaumont-en-Bassigni decided to dress and live as men. One of them called themselves “Mary” and moved to Vitry, where they worked as a weaver and were "a well-behaved young man friendly with everyone." After a failed first engagement, they fell in love with and married a woman, and they lived happily together for four or five months before Mary was recognized by someone from their hometown. Mary said they would rather be hung than return to “a girl’s state,” and was executed thusly “for the illicit inventions used to supplement the defect of her sex.”

Timeline:

16th century CE: Fidutia/Spes (Hope and Trust)

99

Dutch

1580-1584 CE

Detail from one of a series of four related allegorical prints of kissing virtues by Hendrick Goltzius

Source: Rijksmuseum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Justitia/Prudentia (Justice and Prudence)

100

Dutch

1580-1584 CE

Detail from one of a series of four related allegorical prints of kissing virtues by Hendrick Goltzius

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Source: Rijksmuseum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Fortitudo/Patientia (Strength and Patience)

101

Dutch

1580-1584 CE

Detail from one of a series of four related allegorical prints of kissing virtues by Hendrick Goltzius

Source: Rijksmuseum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Concordia/Pax (Unity and Peace)

102

Dutch

1580-1584 CE

Detail from one of a series of four related allegorical prints of kissing virtues by Hendrick Goltzius

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Source: Rijksmuseum

Timeline:

16th century CE: Maddalena Campiglia

103

Source: Musei Civici di Vicenza

Italian�1588 CE

A poetess who separated from the husband she was pressured into marrying without ever consummating the union. She wrote extensively in praise of chastity, including her most famous work Flori, about a nymph mourning the death of her beloved “friend” Amaranta who

agrees to marry a man only if their marriage is sexless, which contains the phrase "loving a woman despite being a woman." Calisa: Egloga is another work about Flori, in which she gives a speech in defence of lesbian love. Maddalena herself may have had feelings for her patroness, Isabella Pallavinici Lupi, to whom she dedicated sonnets, as well as Giulia Cisotti, an abbess in whose tomb she was buried.

Source: "Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II" edited by Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon

Timeline:

16th century CE: Benedetta Carlini (CW: sexual assault mention)

104

Italian�born 1590 CE

Benedetta was an abbess who claimed to receive visions from Jesus and to regularly be possessed by angels. She was investigated twice by the Church. Other nuns in the convent claimed to have seen her faking marks and stigmata.�During the second investigation, a nun named Bartolomea Crivelli confessed that Benedetta would physically force her to engage in sex acts, claiming to be possessed by an angel called Splenditello. She manipulated Bartolomea into keeping it secret by pretending to be Splenditello and Jesus speaking through her. Acts included touching and kissing her breasts and neck, mutual masturbation, tribadism, “kissing genitals,” “telling her words of love," and masturbating in front of her.

Source: "Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy" by Judith C. Brown

Timeline:

16th century CE: Tapestry with the story of Jupiter and Callisto by workshop of François Spiering

105

Source: Rijksmuseum

Detail of Rijksmuseum number BK-2006-75

Dutch�c 1593-1600 CE

Timeline:

Bonus:

17th century CE: Mercy and Truth by Padovanino�Italian�c 1630-35 CE�Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia

106

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Timeline:

Bonus:

17th century CE: Justice and Peace by Padovanino�Italian�c 1630-35 CE�Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia

107

Source: Wikimedia Commons