ion id ="attachment_84866" align ="alignright" width ="340"] Did the ancients actually see monsters in lesbians? Pictured is Édouard-Henri Avril's painting "Sappho and her sexual partners". [/ Caption]
For centuries, the Greeks associated Lesbos, the island of Sappho, with girls looking for other representatives of the fair sex (as mentioned by the poet Anakreont in the 6th century BC).
The beauty contests for women organized there may have contributed to this - something completely unusual in the Greek world focused on boyish beauty. In addition, it was probably the ladies themselves who judged their friends.
In the Greek world, there was talk of a "type" of Lesbos girls. On the basis of this, the name:lesbian was created only in the early modern times. The Greeks did not know and did not use such a term as homosexuality. They did not tolerate similar intimacy between the fair sex. They coined a different term for a woman who had sex with another woman - hetairistria - however, it was more about a homosexual prostitute.
For the Greeks, such a love was incomprehensible, dissolute (because didn't any of the women in a loving couple have to play an active role, reserved for men?) And against nature (after all, there was no sex without the participation of a man!) . They mocked her and mocked her. Although in Plato's "Feast", the comedy writer Aristophanes saw the attraction of women to women as a consequence of the former division of the "female" proto-human, trying to reconnect his two halves, but it was only a poetic metaphor. Perhaps even comical to the ancients.
In sexual contacts between women, one of them had to play an active role. And that was beyond comprehension to the ancients. Women were treated as passive creatures. Picture by Simeon Solomon.
The hymns of the Spartan poet Alkman (7th century BCE) - containing content suggesting relationships between women - did not arouse much reflection. Likewise, during the Roman Empire, Plutarch, one of the greatest writers of antiquity, made it known in The Life of Lycurgus that the Spartans mated like a pederastic union of erastes and eromenosa it did not lead to deeper reflection. Even in dream books, physical love between the fair sex was described as abnormal. And St. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul criticized women who lead "unnatural" lives. And it has remained that way in Christian teaching.
Without a member, don't move
The ancient Greeks criticized the "women of Lesvos" and did not go into the details of their sex life. However, they did not imagine that the fair sex could seek satisfaction without the use of some penis substitute, for example an artificial penis, called olisbos . Such phalluses were made of leather, wood and stone. They did not always function as a gadget for erotic practices - they were rather a purely decorative element in the apartment, a kind of ornament or a talisman.
The existence of such leather dildos imported from Miletus was mentioned by Aristophanes in the comedy "Lysistrata". The shoemakers could earn good money on the illegitimate production of similar equipment. "How beautiful it is!" - they were delighted with the purchased olisbos women from "Friends, or a confidential conversation" by Herondas of Kos, a Greek poet who lived in the 3rd century BCE - “My eyes popped out with amazement, because our husbands never get so straight (...); in addition, like a dream itself soft ”. More than two thousand two hundred years ago, Greek women shamelessly talked to each other about a topic that makes many Polish women blush today.
This article was written during the author's work on the book "Ages of shamelessness. Sex and erotica in antiquity ”(CiekawostkiHistoryczne.pl 2018).
The Romans too often did not mention such "help" in women's games, although they could be useful to the famous dissolute Roman widows. But the arbiter of Nero's elegance, Petronius, wrote about stimulating the anus with a dildo (smeared with oil mixed with pepper and crushed nettle seeds) - but be careful, male!
The dildo could be replaced by a female clitoris, according to male ideas. The Greeks and Romans called lesbians tribads, or "thymeers" (from the Greek tribas ) - satisfying each other by touching each other with intimate parts. For example, in the missionary position or in the “scissors” position, where both partners are overlapping each other with their legs apart. The latter hand does not seem to have a dominant side.
While the Greeks made fun of lesbians, the Romans did not have any tolerance for homosexual relationships between women ... Illustrated from a Pompeian fresco.
The Roman poet Marcjalis could not, however, imagine sex without an active, or "male" side. It was obvious to him that one of the girls must pretend to be a man. That is why he wrote vulgarly about women practicing tribadism, because they dare to join "pussies" and think that "monstrous cunt" will replace "bird". As he concluded less bluntly:"I think the Sphinx himself would confess to this puzzle / In what adultery a man is unnecessary". Oral sex between the fair sex was no better for the poet. He was indignant that soon no one would have a clean mouth to pray with.
Zero tolerance
Not only Marcjalis, but even such a "cultured" poet as Ovid did not understand lesbians. Describing in Metamorphoses how Ifis - a woman disguised as a man - fell in love with Janthe, he expresses sympathy rather than tries to understand her dilemmas. There was no future before this love, unless Ifis actually became a man.
Nobody jumps over Seneca the Elder, the famous Roman orator, however. In passing, he related the story of a Greek who found his wife cheating on him with - as it turned out later - another woman. First, he killed a couple in bed, and only then did he discover with genuine disgust, upon closer inspection of the crime scene, that the intruder was not a man, but a woman with an oversized clitoris ...
The Romans had no tolerance for lesbians. No understanding. However, texts have survived that testify that in their opinion the too large clitoris mentioned by Seneca could be responsible for lesbian preferences . It was she who allegedly caused the woman to act like a man! So the medics developed a method of surgically reducing the clitoris. All with the thought that a defective representative of the fair sex could "normally" live ...
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The text was created during the author's work on his latest book. " Ages of shame. Sex and erotica in antiquity ” .