Thinking About "Lesbian History"

Abstract

forum: Lesbian Generations ThinkingAbout "Lesbian History" LeilaJ. Rupp At the 2011 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, which took as its theme "Generations," seven scholars from different gener ational, chronological, geographical, and disciplinary positions came together for a roundtable to consider "Lesbian Generations." In prep aration, we collectively posed a series of questions: What makes someone part of "lesbian history"? Is the answer different for different times, places, and groups in a society? How has female same-sex sexuality changed over time in different places? What "lesbian generations" can we identify? How do we deal with the problems of global translation of Western categories of sexuality? Can the term "lesbian" be used as an umbrella term for female same-sex sexualities across time and space? How do we make sense of female same-sex sexualities in a global ized world? FeministStudies39, no. 2. © 2013 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 357 358 Forum: Lesbian Generations How has the writing of "lesbian history" changed over time? What generations of "lesbian historians" can we identify? How do we address the contentious borders between lesbian and trans gender identities, between passing women and transmen, between gender identity and sexual identity? What might be new, productive frameworks for thinking about sex uality and, in particular, lesbian historiography? How does lesbian history differ from gay or queer history? Should it? Our essays in this issue reproduce and elaborate on the comments we offered at the session. I would like to begin by providing my take on what makes someone part of lesbian history and when the term "les bian" should be used. I have laid out my position on these questions in my book, Sapphistnes} I chose as my title and concept a made-up word that describes not women but representations and stories about women who desired, loved, and made love to women; the word was a way to avoid labeling as lesbians women who could not or would not have embraced that term. I meant it as a capacious term that no woman or group of women have claimed as an identity, although it still refers to Sappho and her homeland on the island of Lesbos. Sappho does have historical and cultural resonance beyond either her origins in the ancient Mediterranean world or the modern Western concept of the lesbian. The only term with more transhistorical and transcultural reach, I argued, is "tribade," because many languages and cultures conceptualize women who desired and had sex with women as engaging in the rubbing of bodies that in English is known as tribadism. (As an aside, I would like to say that the correct pronun ciation of the word "tribadism" has never been clear to me. I have always said try-badism, with a long "i," and only recently found in the Oxford EnglishDictionarythat it should be a short "i." I am resisting this, since I reject the association with "trivial." I am reminded of the fact that there seems to be no agreement on how to pronounce "clitoris." Some put the accent on the firstsyllable, clit,others on the second, tor. Why is it that we never wonder ifit is pen-is rather than peen-isT) But back to the point. The only title that would have been more inclusive for my global history since the beginning of time would Forum: Lesbian Generations 359 have been "tribadie" or "rubbing through time," but I went with "sapphistries" as more elegant. For me, because "lesbian" is an identity that is only sometimes available or sometimes available and not chosen, we should not use it to describe the whole range of women who erotically loved other women. Which brings me to the question of who belongs in the story of what I am calling sapphistries. For me, same-sex desire, erotic love, and/or participation in same-sex sexual acts are necessary for a woman to be included, although of course we do not always know about women's desires, the nature of their love, or what they did with their bodies. But I do reject the notion that female bonding or resistance to patriarchy or gender crossing for the purposes of social or geographic mobility is sufficient...