Kirsty Loehr - A Short History of Queer Women

It is said that the poet Sappho invented the lesbian sometime between c .620 and 570 BCE . Men had been screwing each other for a while by then. We know this is true because it had been written about (by men), sung about (by men) and encouraged (by women repulsed by men).

Since then, historians have pretended that Sappho was just fond of her students in a totally non-sexual way. Sure, she may have written over ten thousand lines of dazzling verse about same-sex attraction, but that doesnt prove anything, does it?

So the lesbian disappeared and didnt re-emerge until Ellen DeGeneres said, Yep, Im gay on the cover of TIME magazine in 1997. Ellen explained that there were more of her kind and that they looked just like everybody else but because she was a comedian, the Western world thought she was joking. As it became clear this wasnt a joke, they killed her career.

That is the history of lesbianism. The end.

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Of course it isnt! These are just a couple of examples in a vast fish stew. And are we really supposed to believe that women werent fooling around with one another before Sappho got her fingers wet?

Female same-sex desire has been written out of history since, well, forever. If queer women did exist, it was because:

A) Men found them attractive, which benefited the patriarchy in some way.

B)

My theory goes as follows. Before Sappho, before literacy, life was quite simple. Back then, a long time ago, a really long time ago, between forty thousand and fourteen thousand years ago, everybody was shagging everybody, all holes were goals, and days were spent drawing pictures in caves. The concept of fidelity, identity, sexuality and gender were non-existent, and, best of all, nobody gave a toss.

Sometime later, lets say around 9000 BCE , things changed. Days were spent constructing homes, farming and forging stable relationships. There were men, there were women, there were penises and there were vaginas. But still, nobody minded who went with who and what went with what. They were quite happy to just get on with it. Men and women were equal, it was a solid 26C from June through to September, and nobody had to unstack the dishwasher.

One day, around 3200 BCE , someone, probably a woman, invented a writing system that evolved into several different languages all over the world. Not long after that, a man used this literary development to write a letter to a male friend. In that letter, he joked that women were bad writers, especially when compared to men. It probably went something like this

Knock Knock.

Whos there?

A female writer.

Yeah right!

[Both men laugh uncontrollably]

It was the first joke ever told at womens expense and everybody thought it was hilarious. The joke was retold so many times that people began mistaking fiction for fact.

Realising the power of the written word, this man started making more jokes about women being stupid and physically incapable of doing important things , like hunting for food, building houses, providing for their family, opening jam jars, playing football, drinking pints of lager, and driving. Some of this might have happened a bit later, but you get it.

A couple of years later, the same man happened to walk in on one of his lady lovers having sex with another woman. Because everybody was sleeping together, he didnt care. But as he was about to leave, something caught his eye. He had never before seen a woman make those facial expressions or heard those noises.

The man quickly penned another letter to his man friend telling him that women sleeping with one another was dangerous and that they should be stopped. He added that maybe men should stop sleeping with each other too, but that they could work that bit out later. The letter probably looked something like this:

Ides of May, 3150 BCE

Dear Rylan,

How are you doing? Just a thought, do you think that women should stop having sex with each other? It doesnt include us, and Im worried they might like it better. Maybe we should stop having sex too. But only if you want to.

Say hi to your mum!

Kev x

The letter went viral and attitudes towards women doing it with one another instantly changed because it threatened a newly formed social system: THE PATRIARCHY.

For instance, in Ancient China, women were only allowed to take part in tui-shih (eating each other) or mojingzi (rubbing mirrors) if they showed the same affection to their husbands who now owned them. That escalated quickly.

But there was Jinglanhui (the Golden Orchid Society, 16441949 CE ), a place where women could go to avoid marrying men. Because the women were mostly (and obviously) all lesbians, the relationships were sexual, and when one of them wanted to marry another one they would ask by offering them a nut, followed by, Hi, can I cashew a question? OK, it was a peanut but I take what I can!

The wedding would be followed by a massive female-only party. The newly married couple could even adopt a daughter if they liked. For a while, everybody thought it was rather nice, but then the patriarchy caught wind of this dreamlike utopia and swiftly banned it.

In Baghdad, the Abbsid caliph al-Hd (764786 CE ) had heard rumours that two women in his harem were getting it on without him. Furious, he sent two spies to catch them in the act, which they did. To make a point, al-Hd had them beheaded. To make an even bigger point, he decorated their heads and presented them to the court as a warning.

Finally, in central Africa during the first half of the eighteenth century, the Zande men were worried. Apparently, their wives were so desperate for sex that they had started screwing each other when their husbands were off doing important things . One man said, Wives would cut a sweet potato or manioc root in the shape of the male organ, or use a banana for the purpose. Two of them would shut themselves in a hut and one would lie on the bed and play the female role while the other, with the artificial organ tied round her stomach, played the male role. They then reversed roles.