The Greek poet Sappho’s works are infused with sensuality and passion. Addressing young women preparing themselves for marriage, Sappho (c. 610–c. 580 BC) often invoked the goddess of love, Aphrodite, to seduce a girl she desired. It’s from Sappho’s home, the island of Lesbos, that the term lesbianism takes its name. Today, the word is used to describe homosexual attraction between two women, or the emotional and sexual attraction of one woman to another. There are an estimated 6 million to 13 million lesbians currently living in the United States.

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Experts believe that sexual orientation begins to form between middle childhood and early adulthood. For each individual, the experience is different: Some engage in homosexual behavior before they come to terms with their identity, while others recognize they are lesbians before any sexual experience.

Throughout history, lesbians have been sometimes accepted, sometimes penalized, and occasionally even banned. In the late 1800s, the term Boston marriages surfaced. It described a romantic union between two women that was not necessarily sexual. The most noted of these involved the writer Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909), who wrote about her own relationship in the novel Deephaven. Today, lesbianism has become even more mainstream with the influence of celebrities such as Melissa Etheridge (1961–) and Ellen DeGeneres (1958–), and television shows such as The L Word.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

  1. In April 2008, three residents of the Greek isle of Lesbos sued a gay rights organization, the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, for using the word lesbian in its name.
  2. One study in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that lesbians were three times as likely as other women to have a sister who was also a lesbian, suggesting that there may be a genetic factor in lesbianism.