Pre-colonial Aboriginal Australia Many sources claim that, historically, Aboriginal Australians did not engage in homosexual behaviour, or that there are no records of such. In a 1994 essay titled "Peopling the Empty Mirror," the Gays and Lesbians Aboriginal Alliance unsettle this white Western historiography, writing:There is a noticeable paucity of information about Aboriginal lesbianism, and Aboriginal women's sexuality in general, in the earlier literature. This is partly explained by the fact that most of the observers were male, and would therefore have had difficulty in gaining access to such information. But one is also left with the impression of a distinct androcentrism on the part of the observers, who seem to have regarded Aboriginal women and their sexuality as being, at best, of secondary interest.The essay later details the few accounts of sexual relationships between Aboriginal women that do exist in extant historical sources, citing German anthropologist and missionary
Carl Strehlow's
Die Aranda-und Loritja-Stāmme in Zentral-Australien. Strehlow writes:The unnatural vice of the women,
woiatakerama (carried out using a little stick bound with string, called
iminta [=Loritja: iminti], by two women, one of whom performs the role of the man), is practised by the eastern and western
Aranda [and] occurs also among the western
Loritja, the
Yumu and
Waiangara in the west, and among the
Katitja,
Ilpara,
Warramunga etc., who live north of the
McDonnell Ranges. The Loritja call this vice:
nambia pungani.
contains a section on Aztec homosexuality. Book ten of the Codex'' covers both male and female sexuality. It describes Aztec lesbians as masculine in appearance and behavior and never wishing to be married. The context of the
Classical Nahuatl term
xōchihuah ("owner of flowers") seems to denote a "homosexual of either sex." Another word,
patlācheh, seems to refer specifically to a lesbian in the Florentine Codex.
Juan de Torquemada's book
Monarquía indiana, published in 1615, defines this word and briefly mentions the persecution of Aztec lesbians: "The woman, who with another woman had carnal pleasures, for which they were called
Patlache, which means: female incubus, they both died for it."
Alonso de Molina uses a verb grammatically related to
patlācheh to refer to having lesbian sex. There is no evidence that homosexuality was actively suppressed until after the
Spanish Conquest.
China In early Chinese history, sexual activity between women was accepted and sometimes actively encouraged. Female same-sex relationships were described with a special term (), literally "paired eating," possibly referring to
cunnilingus. In the second or third century AD
Ying Shao defined it as "when palace women attach themselves as husband and wife." Such relationships sometimes formed between government slaves or members of the emperor's harem. For example, under
Emperor Cheng's rule (33–7BC) the slave Dào Fáng () had a homosexual relationship with Cáo Gōng (), the daughter of a slave. The sex handbook Dongxuanzi (, possibly dating to the fifth century AD) also contains examples of female same-sex contact. In the position called The Paired Dance of the Female Blue Phoenixes, two women practice
scissoring.
Egypt .The
Dream Book of the
Carlsberg papyrus XIII claims that "If a woman dreams that a woman has intercourse with her, she will come to a bad end". Depictions of women during the
New Kingdom suggest they enjoyed, in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere, the company of other women who were scantily clad or naked. Some cosmetics-related items, which may have been owned and used by women, feature nude and suggestive depictions of women. In the fifth century CE, women at the
White Monastery in
Upper Egypt sometimes pursued same-sex relationships. A letter from
Shenoute chastises two women, () and (), for running after each other "in friendship and physical desire." This phrase referred to homosexual advances. It is unknown if the
corporal punishment Shenoute prescribed for the women was administered.
Greece Sappho The lives of ancient Greek women are in general little-documented. Sappho is the most cited example of an ancient Greek woman who may have actually engaged in sexual relationships with women. The earliest evidence of Sappho's reputation for homosexual desire comes from the
Hellenistic period, with a fragment of a biography found in the
Oxyrhynchus Papyri criticizing Sappho for being "gynaikerastria." In her
Ode to Aphrodite, the poet asks
Aphrodite for aid in wooing another woman. One fragment,
Sappho 94, contains a clear mention of lesbian sexual acts: , 1891.
Sappho of
Lesbos gave the term
lesbian the connotation of erotic desire between women.
Sappho Fragment 94 I'm not pretending; I wish I were dead." She was leaving me in tears, and over and over she said to me: "Sappho, it hurts; what's happened to us is just so grim; it isn't my choice, I swear it, to leave like this.." These were the words that I answered her: "Go and be happy; remember me, for you know how we have paid court to you: and if not, then I want to remind you ... and the good things we have enjoyed: for at my side, many the crowns of violets and roses ... you have put on yourself, and many the garlands woven from flowers you have cast round your delicate neck, and with quantities of ... flowery perfume ... fit for a queen even, you anointed yourself all over, and on soft beds ... delicate ... you have satisfied desire ... Sappho's sexuality has been debated by historians. Some, such as
Denys Page, argue that Sappho was attracted to women. Others, such as Eva Stigers, argue that the descriptions of love between women in Sappho's writings are not necessarily evidence of her own sexuality. Still further historians claim that Sappho's circle were involved in female homosexuality as a kind of initiation ritual. At least two other woman poets wrote in the style of Sappho,
Erinna of Teos or Telos () and
Nossis of Locri ().
Other Greek works Among the Athenians, the discussion and depiction of female homosexual activity seems to have been taboo.
Kenneth Dover suggests that, due to the role played by the phallus in ancient Greek men's conceptions of sexuality, female homosexual love was not explicitly defined as a sexuality by the authors of surviving sources. Some male-written works reference lesbianism. One example, from the 300s BC, is the tale of the four-legged humans told by
Aristophanes in
Plato's
Symposium. Another example, from the 100s CE, is the
Dialogues of the Courtesans, where a female character talks about being seduced by two lesbian characters. Later references to female homosexuality in Greek literature include an epigram by
Asclepiades, which describes two women who reject Aphrodite's "rules" but instead do "other things which are not seemly." Dover comments on the "striking" hostility shown in the epigram to female homosexuality, contrasting it with Asclepiades' willingness to discuss his own homosexual desire in other works, suggesting that this apparent male anxiety about female homosexuality in ancient Greece is the reason for the paucity of sources discussing it. The poet
Alcman (
fl. 7th century BC) wrote hymns known as
partheneia, which discuss attraction between young women. Though these hymns are ambiguous, historians have posited that they are erotic or sexual. Some find evidence in
Plutarch that
Spartan women engaged in homosexual activities, although Plutarch wrote many centuries after classical Greece. In Plutarch's biography of
Lycurgus of Sparta, part of his
Parallel Lives, the author claims that older
Spartan women formed relationships with girls that were similar to the
erastes/eromenos relationships that existed between some older and younger male Greeks. Historian
Sarah B. Pomeroy believes that Plutarch's depiction of homosexual relationships between Spartan women is plausible. Pomeroy argues that homosexual relationships between girls would have "flourished" in the girls' choirs that performed the
partheneia of Alcman. In Greek mythology, the story of
Callisto has been interpreted as implying that
Artemis and Callisto were lovers. The myth of the
Amazons has also been interpreted as referring to female homosexual activities. In visual culture, some ancient Greek
red vase images portray women in affectionate or erotic scenes.
India The
Arthashastra, an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft likely edited and compiled between the second and third centuries CE, describes the fines individuals must pay for engaging in
ayoni, non-vaginal sex. This category includes both heterosexual and homosexual sex, and the fine for two women is lower than the fine for heterosexual sex. Overall, lesbian sex is "unsanctioned" in the
Arthashastra, but is also "treated as a minor offense." The
Manusmriti, a first century legal text, places a very small fine upon sex between nonvirgin women; however, one who "manually
deflowers a virgin" is sentenced to the loss of two fingers. If two virgins are caught, the 'doer' "has to pay double the girl's
dowry and is given ten whiplashes." The
Manusmriti fails to provide a punishment for
mutual oral or non-penetrative sex. Sanskrit medical texts mention "sexual act[s] in which both the parties are female." The
Sushruta Samhita and
Charaka Samhita both classify lesbianism as a disease resulting from an atypical conception. The latter describes it as incurable, and states that a lesbian is "a woman who has an aversion for man and who has no breasts." The term used for a lesbian in these texts is . The
Kama Sutra mentions phallus-shaped bulbs, roots, and fruits used as
dildos in lesbian sex, and also records
cunnilingus between women.
Mesopotamia Women's sexuality in
ancient Mesopotamia is not well documented. Stephanie Lynn Budin, writing on love magic, argues that "there remains no evidence for lesbianism in this regard (or any other from Mesopotamia)." However, there are at least two pieces of textual evidence for Mesopotamian lesbianism. One is a divinatory text which mentions female same-sex activity, while another, more explicit text remains unpublished. In addition, an
Old Assyrian text writes of two women, Ewanika and Adi-matum, who had a betrothal contract for their "daughter." It is possible that the father died, leaving the two women as widows.
Roman Empire Records of magic spells from
Roman Egypt (2nd to 4th centuries CE) include love spells commissioned by women to make other women fall in love with them. These spells are unusual because they were likely commissioned by women from lower social classes rather than the elite, and because they contain the names of ancient women with homoerotic desires. For example, Herais cast a love spell on Sarapias, The Roman fabulist
Phaedrus attempted to explain lesbianism through a myth: the Titan
Prometheus, coming home drunk from a party, had mistakenly exchanged the genitals of some women and some men. Phaedrus remarks: "Lust now enjoys perverted pleasure." Roman writer
Seneca the Elder used the hypothetical of a husband who killed his wife and her female lover as an example of a legal case where the facts were too obscene to discuss openly. The lesbian love story between
Iphis and Ianthe, in Book IX of
Ovid's the
Metamorphoses, is especially vivid. They were of equal age, they both were lovely,Had learned the ABC from the same teachers,And so love came to both of them togetherIn simple innocence, and filled their heartsWith equal longing. However, as the marriage draws ever closer, Iphis recoils, calling her love "monstrous and unheard of." The goddess
Isis hears the girl's moans and turns her into a boy.
Iamblichus, a Greek novelist from the first century AD, is best known for his
Babylonaica, or
Babylonian Tales. The
Babylonaica contains a side story about "Berenice, who was daughter of the king of Egypt, and about her wild and lawless passions: and how she had relations with Mesopotamia." According to an ancient summary of the episode, Berenice and Mesopotamia (a woman) are wed. Although the
Babylonaica mainly deals with a heterosexual couple, Sinonis and Rhodanes, Berenice and Mesopotamia exist as foils for the pair. Classicist
Helen Morales cautions that this tale ought not to be treated as "certain evidence...that
lesbian marriages were performed in the
Roman imperial period," but the mere fact that it exists and survives is remarkable.
Lucian's
Dialogues of the Courtesans contain an episode in which a woman named Megilla renames herself Megillus and wears a wig to cover her shaved head. She marries Demonassa of Corinth, although Megillus is from Lesbos. Her friend Leaena comments that "They say there are women like that in Lesbos, with faces like men, and unwilling to consort with men, but only with women, as though they themselves were men." Megillus seduces Leaena, who feels that the experience is too disgusting to describe in detail. In
Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women,
Leila J. Rupp writes, "Two things are significant in this depiction: the connection of an aggressive woman from Lesbos with masculinity and the portrayal of the seduced as a prostitute." In another dialogue ascribed to Lucian, two men debate over which is better, male love or heterosexuality. One man protested that if male affairs were legitimized, then lesbianism would soon be condoned as well, an unthinkable notion. In the ruins of Pompeii, a Roman town destroyed in 79 CE, archaeologists discovered a love poem graffitied onto a wall. During
early Christianity in the Roman Empire, one work of note was the
Apocalypse of Peter. It seems to have been most prominent in the 2nd–3rd centuries when Christians were still a tiny minority, and was not ultimately included in the
canon of the New Testament. It is one of the earliest depictions of
hell, and suggests lesbians are one category of sinners to be tormented by punishments after the
Second Coming of Jesus, although the passage phrases it as secondary to a condemnation of male homoeroticism, and was possibly added by a later editor or scribe: == Africa ==