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courtesans

 

A courtesan is a professional companion, typically educated and sophisticated, whose duties may include sex. It was a regular motif that courtesans might sometimes have female clients, or that they might enjoy sexual relationships with women as a change from “work.”

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LHMP entry

LHMP #335 Gilhuly 2015 Lesbians are Not from Lesbos

This paper looks at the evolution of how the word “lesbian”, originally simply a geographic/ethnic identifier meaning “person from the island of Lesbos” came to pick up a separate meaning of “female homosexual.”

Gilhuly begins with a (very brief) discussion of the abstract uses of locational and geographic language, how geographic signifiers very often acquire secondary meanings rooted in some association with the place (e.g., “Spartan accommodations”), and how classical Greek writers were highly prone to developing these sorts of metonymic geographic shorthands.

LHMP #334r Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 4: Epilogue - Lucian’s Dialogues

Those familiar with the corpus of classical references to sex between women may have noticed a gap in the material covered up to this point. In a chapter labeled “Epilogue: Lucian and the saturation of signs” Boehringer tackles Lucian’s Dialogue 5 from Dialogues of the Courtesans, in which the narrator describes her sexual interactions with a female** couple who present themselves as “married”.

LHMP #315 Burford 1986 Wits, Wenchers and Wantons

Burford’s book is a popular-oriented tour through the “scandalous” aspects of the Covent Garden district in the 18th century, particularly focusing on sex and alcohol. The book has three pages of bibliography, mostly 18th century primary sources, and an extensive index. It isn’t footnoted in a scholarly way, but sources for particular chapters are given more generally.

LHMP #249 Loughlin 2014 Same-Sex Desire in Early Modern England: 1550-1735

When one of my summaries is basically a list of contents, either it means that the publication is really thin on relevant content, or it means that it’s so rich that you simply need to buy the book and put it in a cherished place on your shelf. This one is the latter. At least half the contents apply to women’s experiences (although it’s still true that the male-authored female-relevant content far outnumbers the female-authored male-relevant content) and the collection includes many of the oft-cited texts from the covered period. Far from all, but an excellent place to start.

LHMP #217 Hubbard 2003 Homosexuality in Greece and Rome

This is an invaluable book that collects all manner of classical Greek and Roman texts relevant to homosexuality in a single volume. I doubt that it’s exhaustive, especially with regard to male homosexuality, but Hubbard seems to have made special efforts to include female-oriented material. The material is organized chronologically and by literary genre, with an introductory discussion in each section to provide historic context.

LHMP #149c Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 3

This chapter looks at evidence regarding lesbian activity that can be found in specific court cases, as well as perceptions of the role of lesbian relations in criminal activities and contexts. The point here is not that lesbians were inherently criminal in early modern Spain (though some official opinions were that one type of deviant behavior was expected to lead to other types), but that the nature of legal records can provide a wealth of detail that is not available for other contexts.

LHMP #112i Castle 2003 The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall Part 9: 19th Century (fourth quarter)

The main themes by male authors in this set of texts include original poems in the classical Greek style with a relatively neutral portrayal of lesbians, and the continuing depiction of decadent lesbian eroticism, with an additional subgroup involving the frustration of author-insertion characters who desire lesbians. We also get an example of the “queer tragic triangle” in which a man and woman compete for the affections of a woman (with the man, of course, winning).

Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #96 Liventhal 1985 “What Goes on among the Women: The Settings of Some Attic Vase Paintings of the Fifth Century B.C.”

Here is the key scene from the piece that is being analyzed.

Greek vase painting of dancers

Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #78 Haley 2002 “Lucian’s ‘Leaena and Clonarium’: Voyeurism or a Challenge to Assumptions?”

Haley looks at Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesans, including his portrayal of women who sexually desired other women, from the context of queer theory and a consideration of male gaze versus representation. Given the more classically-oriented audience for this collection, she helpfully starts with an explanation of queer theory and the examination of sexual identity as a social and political construct. [I think this may be the first time I've encountered the use of "Pomosexual" in a non-ironic way.]

Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #55a - Brooten 1997 Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (ch 1-2)

Chapter 1

Pages

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