Where did the work lesbian originate?

Answer 1

"Lesbian" -- with an upper-case "L" -- can be used as a noun meaning "a native or inhabitant of Lesbos" or "the ancient Greek dialect of Lesbos"; it also can be used as an adjective meaning "of or relating to Lesbos" (from the Latin word "Lesbius" and the Greek word "Lesbios").

Originally named for its Patron God, and perhaps its first King too, the aforementioned Lesbos (Λέσβος) is a green and mountainous Greek island located just off the coast of Turkey in the Aegean Sea. In Modern Greece it is also known as Lesvos, and its inhabitants are called Lesvioi.

But in Ancient Greece, the matriarchal history of Lesbos stretches back some 1000 years B.C. to the Bronze Age, including worship of the great Mother-Goddess and probable habitation by that legendary tribe of woman warriors known as the Amazons. Around the turn of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., Lesbos was the birthplace and home of lyric poet Sappho -- whose poems famously celebrate loving relationships between women -- as well as the site of her legendary school for young girls of noble birth.

Although Sappho's writings are open to intepretation as expressions of emotional and/or platonic as well as physical love, the island's inevitable association with its communities of women eventually gave rise to the modern etymology of "lesbian" -- with a lower-case "l" -- as a noun meaning "a woman whose sexual orientation is to women" or an adjective meaning "of, relating to, or being a lesbian."

According to award-winning novelist, playwright and literary historian Emma Donoghue, the term "lesbian" was in use in the English language from at least the 17th century, including a reference to "lesbian loves" in a 1732 book by William Toast.

The primly repressive Victorian interpretation of so-called "Sapphic passion" censored this romantic construct into a pseudo-scientific medical diagnosis of what Freud eventually defined as sexual inversion; "lesbian" appeared in print in this context for the first time in 1883, in an article about crossdresser Lucy Ann Lobdell in the Alienist and Neurologist medical journal.

With the rise of feminism in the post-Freudian 20th century, "lesbian" was reclaimed from its pejorative connotations of mental illness and aberrant sexuality, becoming both a positive marker of socio-sexual identity and a means of distinguishing the female gender so as to maintain equal visibility and status within the often sexist gay community. Nowadays, it may be fairly argued that one is not a lesbian (as a noun) but lesbian (as an adjective). This would depend on self identification, which is different for most lesbians/lesbian women.

Answer 2

The be conscious lesbian comes from the Greek Island of Lesbos, (as others have reported) the place the poet Sappho lived in six hundred B.C. Sappho grew to become into an psychological and poet who wrote many love poems to different women persons. even if a great number of her poetry has been destroyed by using religious fundamentalists, (enormous marvel) the few poems of Sappho that stay talk needless to say to her love and infatuation with women persons. it truly is doubtful while the be conscious "lesbian" grew to become into first used to describe women persons who love different women persons, however the 1st utilization might properly be traced back to the 1800s. It got here into basic use interior the lesbian feminist era of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies.

Answer 3

Greek mythology refers to an island called Lesbos and it was primarily an island occupied and governed by women. Lesbians were (female) occupants of this island. A Greek poet, Sappho, who was also a woman, wrote stories (poems) about this island and its inhabitants.

Answer 4

Did you mean word? Because I don't know what a work lesbian is

Answer 5

The work lesbian? Um I don't get the question.

Answer 6

An Island called Lesbos. Their is a female poet Sappho that they coined the term from. She wrote poems about women on the island. Check out this site: http://www.sappho.com/poetry/sappho.html

Answer 7

Is the "work lesbian" any different than the "play lesbian"?

Answer 8

THE WORD LESBIAN ORIGINATES FROM THE GREEK ISLAND OF LESBOS. AN ISLAND THAT AT ONE TIME WAS INHABITATED BY MAINLY WOMEN.

Answer 9

uh, maybe at a truck stop or on a hog farm. Maybe you should ask Dick's daughter. Most lesbos I know of work on farms or as truckers.

Answer 10

Would that be a lesbian prostitute????