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LHMP #334p Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3h: The Roman Period - Fictional Women

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3h: The Roman Period - Fictional Women

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

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Petronius’ Satyricon

The Satyricon of Petronius includes a fleeting episode in which two women kiss and embrace each other during the “feast of Trimalchio”. Once again, a full understanding of the context of this literary passage is necessary to determine how this scene reflects Roman realities. Trimalchio’s feast is only one episode in the larger work that is the Satyricon and both it and the work as a whole require a lot of background which cannot be summarized here. But in brief, the fictional Trimalchio is a very rich freedman who is showing off his wealth and status by giving an over-the-top banquet. Boehringer notes two important themes. Everything in the Satyricon is a sort of reversal or inversion of ideals. And in particular, the banquet can be viewed as a distorted reflection of Plato’s Symposium, conveying the message that the characters are reaching cluelessly for the values and experiences of that earlier era, but failing to achieve them at every point. Within this context, the episode of the embrace between the women can be seen as motivated by / referring back to the myth of love between two-bodied creatures, but as having no other significant motivation for its specific inclusion.

The two women, Fortunata and Scintilla, are the wives of the two wealthy men present at the banquet, the host Trimalchio and his rival Habinnas. The two women initially serve as proxies for their husbands’ one-up-manship, where they show off the expensive jewelry their husbands have given them, and the husbands make a point of commenting on the cost and value of the objects. The women serve as placeholders for the necessary parts of a high-status life, but without a qualitative function. They are not described as beautiful, they have not provided sons, and their conversation makes clear that their husbands do not feel romantic love for them or treat them with the respect due to a wife.

After the display of jewelry, the two women fall to talking together, laughing and exchanging drunken kisses. They have expressed pleasure and eagerness at seeing each other and are in the middle of embracing each other when Habinnas, the husband of Scintilla, assaults Fortunata by seizing her feet and tipping her backwards over the couch so her garment hikes up above her knees. Fortunata protests, settles herself with her tunic in place again, and “takes refuge in Scintilla’s arms” hiding her embarrassment under a cloth.

Boehringer interprets this incident as a proxy for the two men’s rivalry, with Habinnas treating the women’s actions as if it were a form of adultery, for which a husband has the right to take action. But here he is at fault for a husband only has the right to take action within his own home, not by assaulting the “offender” in their home. The specific form of the assault is a type of symbolic rape (Boehringer goes into the details of the actions and language that support this). But in assaulting Fortunata, he is actually challenging Trimalchio.

The acts of affection between the two women have no social significance or meaning on their own—the characters themselves exist only as display of their husbands’ wealth. And the interruption of their affection gives social meaning to the act only by reframing it as a power struggle between the men.

[Note: Boehringer’s point is primarily that this episode cannot be taken as evidence regarding actual social attitudes toward women—including married women—engaging in sex-adjacent activities, whether at a public banquet or in any other context. However it should still be noted that the author has created a scenario in which two women, wives of indifferent husbands, indulge in erotic activity together, to all appearances as a way of satisfying their unfulfilled desires. Whatever symbolic meaning Petronius intended to give the women’s encounter, this was a scenario that he could envision and that he expected to make sense to his readers.]

Martial’s Bassa

As previously discussed, Martial’s epigrams should be understood as witty and satirical commentary on “character types” that illustrate some facet of Roman in/out-group psychology, and not as documentation of specific actual people. The epigram on Bassa follows the typical “set-up, punchline” format.

In the initial part, Bassa is described as a paragon of virtue—a second Lucretia! (Lucretia was a historic figure considered the epitome of female virtue and modesty.) Bassa hasn’t had a succession of husbands, there are no rumors of her having any (male) lover. In alignment with the expectations for a modest woman, she socializes only with women.

The second part reinterprets the same set of facts, beginning with an accusation of scandal. Bassa’s all-female company is no longer innocent as she is their fucker (fututor). But in despite of the use of this word that normally is defined as vaginal penetration, Bassa’s activities are elaborated on as “uniting twin cunts” with man-like lust. The epigram ends with a “Theban riddle” (making reference to the riddles of the Sphinx): adultery with no man involved.

As with many of Martial’s epigrams, the imagery is deliberately crude and shocking. But, also as usual, the point isn’t to present a neutral description of Roman experiences and attitudes, but to present an absurdity or conundrum for humorous purposes. Clearly he doesn’t mean to suggest that all women who engage in superficially modest and virtuous behavior should be suspected of secret vices. Another take-away is that the term fututor, when applied to women, can’t be assumed to indicate penetrative sex. (It implies sex, but perhaps may simply be the most “neutral” term available, unless a less normative act is specifically implied.) Another point is that—as we saw in the hypothetical legal case previously discussed—the application of the term “adultery” to sex between women was not a legal fact. Applying it here via language (adulterium), and in the Satyricon by means of the framework of action-and-reaction, shows that the authors saw a parallel but not that it had the same official status.

[Note: So in terms of envisioning Roman realities, what can this text suggest? Firstly, that Romans could imagine that women could have same-sex encounters within the context of an otherwise respectable life. Secondly, that male authors would consider such encounters to be improper and outside the norm. Thirdly, that sex between women could be imagined to intrude on male proprietary rights (adultery) at a symbolic level, even if not at a legal level. Fourthly, we have a specific sexual technique implied that adds to the repertoire that can be extracted from other texts.]

Juvenal’s Satires

Juvenal’s satires are very far from an objective record of the society he lived in. Basically (and this is my phrasing, certainly not Boehringer’s) he was yelling at clouds and shit-posting and get-off-my-lawning and kids-these-days-ing to the utmost of his talents. Juvenal’s satires rage at all the vices and degeneracy he feels are destroying Traditional Roman Values™, including debauchery, greed, corruption, and the growing presence of foreigners. [Note: I’m quite certain that if Juvenal had been alive today in the US, he would have been a Fox News commentator.] Unlike Martial, Juvenal often does have specific people in mind as the targets of his pen, though he dodges lawsuits by using partial names. Nor do Juvenal’s satires present a consistent and coherent picture. The claims he makes in one may be completely contradicted by his assertions in another. All of this must be kept in mind when evaluating the truth value of specific claims and statements.

The second satire (after one which lays out his basic arguments) is aimed at pathici (men who take a passive role in sex with other men or have other “unmanly” habits and practices), including a passage written in the voice of a female character, Laronia. Boehringer discusses two laws relating to female and male sexual behavior that are referenced in the passage, particularly concerning stuprum, a concept relating to shameful or degrading sexual behaviors. The passage in the Laronia text referring to sex between women is framed in the negative in order to criticize men more strongly, Roman women, she claims do not lick each other (using fairly tame language to indicate oral sex), while men allow themselves to be penetrated by other men. [Note: the verb in this passage is lambere “lick” rather than the more crude lingere, which comes down to us in the compound cunnilingus. While both have similar denotations, it is the context of usage that tells us that one is more polite than the other.] Women do not claim male social prerogatives by arguing law or wrestling in the gymnasium, but men take up feminine activities such as spinning wool. [Note: it’s unclear here whether the accusation is that men are literally engaging in fiber production or whether “spinning wool” stands in metonymically for female-coded activities in general.]

Setting aside, for the moment, the judgement implied about sex between women, Boehringer points out several understandings that can be extracted from this passage. Criticism of pathici is predicated on an assumption of differentiated roles within m/m sex, and that certain roles are more shameful than others. Indeed, the man who alternates between active and passive roles appears to be more condemned than the man who prefers a passive role. But the description of f/f activity makes no distinction of roles or status. “Media does not lick Cluvia, nor Flora, Catulla.” But there is not the linguistic apparatus for distinguishing licker and lickee as separate roles to be evaluated individually, as we regularly see for sexual activity involving men. The women are not distinguished by age or status, but treated as a single undifferentiated category. From the context of the discussion, the hypothetical women can be presumed to be “respectable” married women rather than prostitutes or courtesans, as the legal context of this discussion involves forms of adultery, which would not apply to prostitutes.

Boehringer’s interpretation is that this passage is not intended specifically to provide an opinion on sex between women in the abstract, but rather to use an accepted view that f/f oral sex is strongly negatively evaluated in order to imply that the behavior of men in the same discussion is even worse than that.

The fictional Laronia’s defense of Roman women is shown to be a rhetorical tactic rather than a claim about actual practice by the appearance in Juvenal’s 6th satire of a long litany of accusations of women’s sexual debauchery. The framing story of this satire is that of a man trying to convince his friend never to marry, by listing all the ways in which women are unworthy of his love. This catalog specifically targets the hypocrisy of wives of citizens, not the behavior of more marginal women, and covers a very wide range of behaviors, not only sexual ones.

But among this catalog is one dramatized scenario in which two women, returning together from a drunken party, literally piss on the altar of Chastity. Following this, they take turns to straddle/ride (equitant) each other, “writhing together beneath the gaze of the Moon.” In context, this is clearly intended to indicate sexual behavior. Even more so than the licking passage, the language indicates the absence of role differentiation and a mutual activity. The two women are of equal status, likely of equal age being described as “milk sisters” (i.e., nursed by the same wet-nurse), and to the extent that the sexual activity is asymmetric, each takes turns at each activity. There is no implication of masculine role-playing or of penetrative activity. (While Juvenal also condemns women who engage in male-coded activities such as athletics, this is done in separate scenarios not related to f/f sex.) Much of Boehringer’s further commentary speaks to the multiple ways in which this scenario violates the expected behavior of modest citizen wives.

Summary

Overall, these fictional depictions by Petronius, Martial, and Juvenal present a relatively consistent picture. These are free women of various social ranks, the wives of citizens and freedmen. They are not described as tribades or fricatrixes (although sexual activities implied by those labels are described). There is no parallelism between the way f/f sex and m/m sex is treated. The judgement of m/m sex hinges on an assumption of asymmetry and differentiated roles, while f/f sex does not involve different judgements based on distinctive roles within the sex act. Rather, the negative judgment of f/f sex hinges on the fact that no man is involved. The category of tribas is not a parallel for the category of cinaedus, in the sense of envisioning an overarching category of “people who engage in same-sex sexual activity.” The contrasting categories applied to men who have sex with men are irrelevant to women who have sex with women because they are entirely outside the system of masculine virtue that allows some roles and disallows others. This pattern continues in the next section which looks at “scientific” discourse around sexuality.

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Everything You Wanted to Know about (Roman) Sex

Wednesday, December 22, 2021 - 06:50

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

It remains frustrating that essentially all of the surviving source material on female homosexuality in classical Greek and Roman contexts comes not simply through male voices, but through elite male voices who tended to view women as a whole as standing outside the concept of "virtuous, acceptable, praiseworthy behavior." It becomes impossible to filter out the authors' attitudes towards women, and towards relations between the sexes, from any possible evidence about how the women (hypothetically) involved in such relationships might have felt. How did Roman women in general feel about the male-centered rules and structures by which their lives were evaluated? How did any marginalized group in Roman society feel about their own lives? A friend of mine has been summarizing read-throughs of academic texts on the experiences of enslaved people in Roman society and many of the same questions arise, often with fractionally more direct evidence (but only fractionally). Since the end product of the LHMP is to provide information that can help us create fictional scenarios that are compatible with (even if not supported by) the existing data, if seems reasonable to bring in such tangential considerations. Some day I will try to write a "guide to writing f/f fiction in classical contexts" like I've been working on for some other eras. It may be very scanty. But I'm starting to feel a bit more up to the task.

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LHMP #334o Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3g: The Roman Period - Tribades - Philaenis

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3g: The Roman Period - Tribades - Philaenis

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

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One particular woman’s name crops up in relation to several references to tribades, creating a confusing implication that a specific tribade named Philaenis was part of Roman history. In this section, Boehringer dissects out the origins, traditions, and contexts that connect the name Philaenis to sex between women (as well as other sexual contexts). This is a long, complicated discussion and I will skim over some parts.

Classical literature makes reference to a number of treatises on love and sex, although very few survive. (Ovid’s The Art of Love operates within this genre, and a number of literary works have characters comment on, or quote excerpts from, sex manuals.) Even the nature of the referenced works is not entirely clear. They may have been serious compilations of sexual advice, or parodies of technical manuals on other topics, or satirical works. Some later catalogs of books (often our only source for material that is now lost) discuss books that describe various sexual positions. A number of authors for this type of literature are named or referenced in multiple unrelated sources, indicating the likelihood of a genuine original. Of these, the name Philaenis is the most common, and came eventually to stand in for the entire genre of sex manual.

It was not uncommon for sex manuals to be attributed to female authorship, although in some cases this may be a pseudonym used by a male author, with a nod to the belief that women were more interested in sex (or at least, less restrained). Boehringer sets aside the question of whether there was a real author named Philaenis (and whether that author was in fact female) and focuses on the “authorial persona” that went by that name.

Many references to Philaenis’ work suggest that it was a catalog of sexual positions, but the discovery of three papyrus fragments that reference Philaenis as author show a somewhat broader coverage—more of an “art of love” discussing many aspects of behavior on topics such as seduction and kissing.

In addition to this limited direct material, the appearance of the name Philaenis in connection with sexual manuals suggest that the authorial persona was known from the late 4th or early 3rd century BCE. Two epigrams of the 3rd century BCE state, in the voice of Philaenis, that she was not a debauched woman or prostitute, though she had been slandered as such. These are literary exercises, written about her legacy and reputation, not about the woman herself (and certainly not by her). By the 1st century CE, a humorous reference in an inscription written for a statue of Priapus (a clearly sexual context) references a woman demanding “all the positions described by Philaenis” from her (male) lover. In the 2nd century CE, Lucian uses “the tablets of Philaenis” as an example of filthy language. Eventually the author’s name became metonymic for the work itself and “a Philaenis” simply meant a sex manual.

Although various sources argue over or refute that Philaenis was a courtesan or prostitute—perhaps a natural conclusion given the subject of the text—there is no evidence that supports either conclusion. Boehringer argues against some scholarly opinion that the name came to stand in for a generic courtesan or prostitute. (Part of the difficulty comes from the limited contexts in Latin literature in which ordinary women are mentioned by name at all, and the very limited number of “respectable” women so named.) Thus the interpretation of references to the literary Philaenis has been confounded by scholarly assumptions that any woman with that name could automatically be interpreted as a prostitute. But conversely, it is reasonable to interpret any mention of the name as raising sexual associations in the minds of the classical readers/hearers, even when there is no overt indication of sex work.

This association with sex, but not specifically with prostitution, is evident in the three contexts of most relevance to the present work, in which a character named Philaenis appears as a tribade: two epigrams by Martial and a passage in Lucian’s Erotes. Here again we run into confusion created by more recent scholars who projected a post-Classical connection between prostitution and female homosexuality onto the Classical material. But a study of the specific contexts in which tribas appears, make it clear that the Romans did not conflate the two. In looking at those contexts, it’s key to understand that to the Romans “Philaenis” did not mean “a prostitute or courtesan” but rather “a woman who has a deep theoretical knowledge about sexual matters and writes on this topic.”

A total of nine epigrams by Martial involve a character with the name Philaenis. Two specifically associate the subject with sex between women (though not necessarily exclusively) while the other seven do not. It should not be assumed that all the epigrams are intended to be understood as referring to the same specific woman (or even to an actual woman at all). Martial’s epigrams, in general, address concrete everyday subjects in a vivid and exaggerated way, and only rarely can be associated with actual historic people. The humor is often crude and there is an over-arching theme of mocking or demonizing behaviors that the poet disapproved of. In general, Martial is targeting character types, not specific individuals.

Boehringer provides an extended analysis of the themes and topics that Romans considered obscene or repulsive (and which therefore were the sorts of themes Martial addressed). This is too complex a topic to get into in this summary, but key features are disapproval of immoderate and excessive behavior, and an attitude that oral sex pollutes the mouth and is therefore degrading to the one who performs it.

Thus we set up the interpretation of a fairly lengthy epigram describing the behavior of “the tribade Philaenis” who engages in a series of activities to an immoderate degree that she believes to show her “manliness”. But as the punchline twist, “when she’s horny, she doesn’t give blowjobs—that would be unmanly—but greedily eats out girls cunts.” The force of the satire is to show how Philaenis is so misled as to how to “perform masculinity” that she does the least manly thing of all: perform oral sex on women. The full explanation of the symbolism and reasoning behind this text is very detailed and necessary to understand the epigram, as the point of the text is not to accuse a specific actual woman of being a tribade and to associate the performance of masculinity with that status, but rather to mock the idea of excess (both sexual and non-sexual) as being a virtue, using a “clueless woman” as the butt of the joke. This is important, as a superficial reading would suggest that all the activities Philaenis engages in (including fucking boys, fondling girls, exercising in the gymnasium, and excessive dining and drinking) are part of a Roman stereotype of female homosexuality. Boehringer argues (similarly to other recent studies) that Philaenis’s sexual activities are not part of a coherent “type” and do not represent a sort of “proto-butch” stereotype. But rather that they are only one element in a catalog of activities related only by standing outside the ideal of behavior.

The second of Martial’s epigrams is much shorter: “Philaenis, tribade of tribades, you are right to name the one you fuck (futuis) your mistress (amicam).” The punchline here—if briefer—is similar in presenting an apparent absurdity: a woman “fucking” someone (using a word that is defined as performing insertive sex in a vagina), and the wordplay of amica meaning both literally “female friend” and specifically “mistress, female lover”, when Roman society made little allowance for the category “female lover of a woman” to exist.

There is also a discussion of the other contexts in which Martial uses the name Philaenis, which he generally applies to an “anti-erotic” woman, one whom no man would care to fuck. Within this context, the tribade Philaenis is simply one more type of unfuckable woman.

The reference to Philaenis in Lucian’s Erotes comes within a rhetorical exercise in which four characters debate whether a (male) preference for boys or for women as sexual partners is preferable. In addition to the gender issue, the debate also concerns the appropriate place of phyical pleasure with respect to love. This is not a debate about heterosexuality versus homosexuality (as it is sometimes presented) but about the appropriate purpose and experience of love. In particular, the characters universally reject love between two adult men, and the spectre of love between two women is raised as the ultimate sexual bogeyman that can negate any position to which it can be compared. As with Martial, the detailed explanation of the context for interpreting this is essential and too long to summarize here.

A potential f/f scenario is not part of the central debate—there is no point at which the characters evaluate it in the same way they are evaluating other relationships. Rather, it is presented as a reductio ad absurdum: if relations between (adult? this isn't entirely clear) men are simply a matter of individual taste, then one might as well accept desire between women. The text spins an ever more elaborate vision of this scenario, envisioning women “harnessed to this object built in the shape of licentious parts” performing acts identified by “this word, that we hardly ever hear, and that I even feel shame pronouncing, I mean tribadistic lust”, where women’s bedrooms are “each a Philaenis outraging decency with her androgynous loves.” The speaker is arguing on behalf of the primacy of m/f love and this vision of f/f love being a natural conclusion of supporting m/m love is intended to nail down his position as unassailable. But at the same time, the text as a whole—as a philosophical exercise—is not meant to argue against the validity of men loving boys. Only the specific character does so.

Boehringer then discusses this genre of philosophical argument and how it is normally structured, to provide more context for understanding this episode. Skipping ahead to her conclusions, Philaenis—as a figure of female sexual knowledge—becomes a spectre of all types of sexual activity outside the acceptable, of which the tribade is simply an extreme case. Lucian’s Philaenis is not specifically and exclusively a tribade, but she opens the door to “tribadistic” possibilities.

But though the Classical Roman references to Philaenis cannot be construed to interpret the author-persona as a tribade (just as they can’t be taken to construe her as a prostitute), two later commentaries from the 10th century did make this leap, specifically identifying the author-persona Philaenis as “a hetairistria and tribade” who “described the different types of sexual relations between women.” And these later interpretations are part of what has led modern scholars to make the same connection, even though the 10th century commentaries are shaped significantly by later Byzantine opinions about same-sex relations.

In sum: Philaenis the putative author of a manual on love and sex (whoever the real-life author may have been) was gradually turned into a stock character representing a sexually knowledgeable woman, and then in turn into a tribade in some examples. But the texts referencing this stock character must be interpreted in the context of the evolution and not as indicating a fixed, enduring meaning. She became, in some ways, an “anti-Sappho.” Sappho was connected to love, Philaenis to sex. Not until the 3rd century CE does any surviving text apply the term tribade to Sappho, even when discussing Sappho’s relations with women. In addition, Philaenis represents the “public tribade”, the woman whose activities are done openly and about which everyone knows. But in contrast to the later use of f/f imagery for male titillation, Philaenis and her fellow tribades are never represented as attractive for the male gaze. They stand outside the realm of the erotic (from a male point of view).

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Born that Way?

Monday, December 20, 2021 - 05:46

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

Just a quick intro this time, as it's the morning after Worldcon and I'm in that "mentallyexhausted in a good way" state. The convention had a LOT of challenges, both leading up to this week and in the execution, and while it was far from perfect it was also quite good. I did a lateral-flow Covid test last night and came up negative, so I'll continue keeping my fingers crossed that the strict safety requirements the convention had in place have been successful. I have an actual "vacation vacation" for the next week and a half, part of which will be used to finish the read-through of Boehringer. Which I hope you are enjoying as much as I do!

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LHMP #334n Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3f: The Roman Period - Tribades - Astrology

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3f: The Roman Period - Tribades - Astrology

Following Seneca’s quote of the use of “tribade,” in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, uses of the term in Latin are closely connected with astrological literature, and appear in very similar formulas (some clearly deriving from each other or from a common original), such that we can derive additional context from similar formulas that use other language, as well as context from Greek astrological literature that uses the Greek form of the word. Boehringer provides a chronology of the exact sources, with their dates and the word forms used in them. In addition to Greek and Latin forms of “tribas,” parallel astrological references introduce the term “fric(a)trix,” which derives from a similar meaning (to rub).

The astrological texts have the general purpose of explaining a wide variety of types of behavior in terms of the person’s astrological influences. In all cases, the behaviors in question deviate from the norm. The general formula for tribades/fricatrices is that some star or planet is located under a “masculine sign” and therefore causes women to be sexually attracted to women, sometimes using the word tribade. The more specific explanation of why and how this influence acts is various, and additional understanding can be found in how the same or parallel configurations affect men. For example, in certain examples the configuration causes women to be tribades and men to be excessively attracted to women (i.e., it influences both sexes to have increased attraction to women). In other conjunctions women become tribades but men are impotent or eunuchs (i.e., it causes each sex to become more like the other sex). In yet another version, a “masculine” conjunction causes women to be tribades while the parallel “feminine” conjunction causes men to be effeminate or sterile. Women who are influenced to be tribades may also behave in a “virile” fashion in other aspects of their lives.

The same type of explanation may appear without using a specific term for the women, describing them as desiring sex with women. And rather than the word tribade, the text attributed to Hermes Trismegistus describes a conjunction giving rise to the fricatrix who “is loved by women who are fricatrices” in which both partners are given the label, with the implication that there is no distinction of active and passive.

Within this period, the other instance of Frictrix, in Tertullian, is ambiguous in meaning. Tertullian is listing types of people associated with extreme “oral pollution” (which didn’t necessarily derive from sexual activity). While some have interpreted Tertullian’s use as generally meaning “prostitute”, the context suggests that this reading would be redundant, since the women in question have already been described as prostitutes, to which is added, “and who are, themselves, fricatrices too.” This leaves open the possibility that, as in the other example of fricatrix from astrological sources, Tertullian’s text is refering to women who have sex with women. [Note: Possibly with the implication that oral sex is involved.]

Boehringer discusses the social context of astrological literature in general and emphasizes that it concerns itself with characteristics outside the norm (since the norm doesn’t need to be explained) The texts discussed here uniformly describe women’s same-sex unions as outside the norm and immoral. But they do not construct a category of “homosexual orientation” that encompasses both sexes, nor do they consistently construct an understanding of tribades as male-acting. Although a “masculine” astrological influence is common among them, the effects on women are sometimes to make them more “virile” and sometimes to create desire between two “feminine” women.

The references in astrological literature as not describing actual, specific individuals, but rather personality “types”. Boehringer concludes from this that during the 1st and 2nd centuries the “tribade” was a literary construction that can be disregarded. [Note: I may be misunderstanding the text. It seems to me that a literary trope of this type would make no sense unless there were actual real-life behavior that people wanted an explanation for. But it remains that this evidence operates on a theoretical plane, not a concrete one.]

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 218 – Abstract by Kat Sinor

Saturday, December 18, 2021 - 07:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 218 – Abstract by Kat Sinor - transcript

(Originally aired 2021/12/18 - listen here)

Since I started the fiction series in this podcast four years ago, one of the most exciting parts of the process is when I read through the submissions and have a story reach out and grab me. It’s especially exciting when the setting is completely unexpected. I know I’m always saying that I want to see stories set outside of the overly popular 19th century, but I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d receive one set 15 thousand years before the Common Era—or that it would blow me away with the lyrical, sensual language I found in Kat Sinor’s story “Abstract”. Kat evokes what archaeologists call the Magdalenian culture of Europe, the people who created the stunning art in the caves of Altamira and Lascaux. And it is that art that forms the focus of today’s story—the art and the artists who created it.

We can only speculate about the sexual attitudes of human beings that far in the past. This story doesn’t dwell on how same-sex desire may have been understood in that era, but simply assumes it as a possibility and tells a story of individuals and of the power and mystery of artistic creation.

Kat Sinor has been writing stories that center hope and queer voices for nearly a decade, exploring those very themes that allowed her to survive. She has published short stories for a variety of projects and is an alumna of Tin House’s 2021 Writing Workshop for her debut novel. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she spends her time working in museums and dreaming up stories to share.

The first time I read “Abstract” in the submissions pile, I was utterly lost in the beauty of Kat’s prose. And when the contract was signed, I knew exactly who I wanted to have narrate it. Jasmine Arch did the narration for a pair of stories we presented back in 2019. She has a lush, haunting voice that I think works perfectly for the otherworldly quality of this story. In addition to her narration work, she is a writer, poet, and artist. Jasmine lives in Belgium and her creative work can be found at jasminearch.com.

This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.

Abstract

By Kat Sinor

We do not let her enter the cave hungry, although it is the hungry season. She is chosen, she is divine, and the whole of us sing a song of praise as she nears the mouth of it. She strips down, her furs falling to her feet, and she is left bare for us, although it is the cold season too. Her hair is a tangled twirl down her back, and I take a step forward, as if I can see the intricate tendrils better from a breath closer. In one hand, she holds a brush—holds it in the same way that we hold the points of our spears after they’ve been carved. Precious things. Precious, wonderful things that were not meant to last. In the other hand, she holds a flat piece of bark. Color is smeared on the brown. There are reds and blues and more blacks than I knew existed.

Choose one, is the only thing asked of her. Choose one to accompany you.

She is scarred, mud-speckled, raw and tortuous. In the instant before she speaks, I become a thing that wants—that wants to hear her say my name, that wants to feel the weight of those black eyes on me, that wants to carry her furs behind her. In the instant before she speaks, I am in agony. It will not be me, but I hope. It will not be me, but I look at the images painted on the outside of the cave, ready to greet her. There is a herd of horses, one imprinted over the other. There is a man-shaped thing, a soul, near a bison. There is scene after scene of hunts. I look at them, and I ask them this one thing, the only thing.

I ask them to make my want solid.

She chooses me in a breath of fate, and I believe again in the things my mothers and fathers taught me. Hidden, unspeakable things. I pick up her clothing, grasp a torch, and cast my eyes on the heels of her feet as she enters.

She has been here thrice before, our divine painter, and so she does not enter as I do, with awkward steps and squinting eyes. Instead, she dances into the darkness, dances until she arrives at where she wants to be. The torch shadows lick up the sides of the walls, hungry for her. (I do not like this image of her, twisted and otherworldly. I do not like understanding the hunger of the shadows.) She presses her hand into the color mixture and touches it to the wall in greeting. When she removes her hand, an imprint is left.

She smiles.

I do not.

I have always been afraid of the dark.

We stand just past the entranceway, just where the light from the sky fades.

“I have seen you paint the outside before,” she says, almost laughing, teasing in a way that shocks me. With the simple ease she carries, we may instead be kneeling by a bush, side by side, two women attempting to find the first berries of the season. There is excitement to her, as if she does not understand the situation, even as she understands it better than I do. We act as two women who are becoming more. “You do not create beast or man or any known thing. Why?”

“I do not like to,” I answer. My finger twists into the loose knot of my hair, tugging at the split, slick end. We would not let her be hungry, but I am not important here. My stomach aches, and I tug my hair tighter, hoping to focus.

“You place dots in patterns I do not see elsewhere,” the artist states. There is something in her eyes, something black and something belonging to me. “Are they stars? Are they children?”

“I haven’t done that in seasons.”

“Yes, and I have not seen you since then.” She clicks her tongue. It echoes. Her joy has run itself through, and she is sharp again. I think: sharp like her shoulder blades, pressing together as she lifts a child to her chest. I think: sharp like the corner of her hip as it curls against me, not in sleep, never quite in sleep when she is that close. The artist tilts her head to the side, holding out her mud-caked hand. Once, I ran because of that sharpness. “Why did you come back this season? Is the cold too lonely?”

I try to listen for the singing that guided us inside, but it does not exist in the cave. Silence. An echoed silence, a holy silence. The cave rids us of the outside completely; truly, there is nothing else in all the world. The torch makes her handprint move. There are truths here that rip my voice from my throat.

“Yes,” I whisper. “I could not survive alone.”

I take her hand.

She is satisfied with my answer, but I realize that we are just beginning our descent into the cave. She pulls me deeper, and the entrance vanishes. Caves are truthful things, the others warned me. Caves are devourers of art, eating the scenes of our world with a greed inspired by it. They told me that these caves had been visited by generations, and in my bag, tucked beneath the supplies and the herbs that our artist needs, there is an offering to the cave. If it is not good enough, they laughed, then I would be the offering instead. I did not believe them until now.

The walls of the cave are not even, and the ceiling reaches for us in waves. It scratches at my palms as I brush it, desperate for some guidance in the dark. The artist laughs at my clumsy feet, and it is not a cruel laugh, not something that causes me embarrassment—it is an echoing sound, a sound that both grips me and calms me. A sound that kills loneliness and robs fear. She is feral when she laughs, and it turns me feral too. When I grab at the wall next, when the cave sees fit to pick away at my skin, I do not grimace. I smear my blood with pride.

“Come nearer,” she finally says. She steps forward herself and reaches her hand into my bag, exchanging her pallet for a tube of hollowed, hallowed bone. She gestures to the rock face before us—the tallest part of the cave so far, it stretches up and up, of a different sort than what we have seen. On the surface, there are endless handprints, some on top of each other, some red and some black. They glow, they whisper. The cave is no longer silent, it is alive. The artist continues, “These are the first. A reminder, I am sure you heard. You leave part of yourself here when you place your hand on the smooth face of our past.”

“Who are they?”

"Mothers, fathers, children, artists, those chosen and those not. The guardians of the cave.”

“I am not fit to be a guardian.” My teeth have rotted, my leg has not healed as it was. I am aged and stripped of splendor. No children, no mates. I returned because of the cold. Because I could not stay away. Because of her. “I am not even a mother.”

She presses a kiss, gentle and true, to my cheek. I love her for it. I love her in the way of our wild youths. She cups my neck. “If you are not, you will die, and your spirit will be the guardian then.”

I move my hand onto empty stone, next to one handprint that has two crooked fingers and another that is small, too small, so small it makes my eyes fill with tears and my breath come shaky. The artist holds the hollowed, hallowed bone to her lips and blows, spraying a shock of red across the back of my hand. When I pull my flesh away, an imprint is left behind, and I join them, I become them. I am left on the wall of my ancestors. I stand with their spirits.

“What will you paint?” I ask my artist.

She takes me deeper into the cave.

(My secret, the one lodged so neatly between rib and heart, beats faster.)

The artist takes me past the flickering memories that were left behind on the walls, the light of our fire turning all the art into dancing, driving, deadly memories. The black and red birds are not trapped in flight, but instead, they soar along the top of the walls, they disappear to shadow, they reappear in terror. I can hear them, I think. The sound of our breaths might be the coos of the birds as they feed their young. The figures dance, hunt, love one another on the walls as we walk; they watch us with no curiosity. The shapes of animals stalk us, and I realize we are meeting one another—they step off their walls, and we step into them.

I know we have reached her canvas when she stops suddenly, her breath catching in her lungs.

“It is so empty,” she says. I ignore that her cheeks are wet and her hands now shake. I have not thought that she might be frightened too; I have not thought of what it means to come into this cave and face these terrors year after year, to bring them to life to torment our descendants and to save ourselves. She gives breath to her own nightmares, and, still, she comes back. She cries at the emptiness, and I step forward to stand beside her, both understanding and not.

“What will you paint?” I ask again.

She takes the bag from me and brings out her supplies, mixing new browns and blues and reds. She balances a brush in her hand and dips it into the colors, the only colors that exist in the cave. The world here is muted, and she becomes the only point to hold onto.

“I want to paint the things that you do. The things that are not beast or man or any known thing. The things that exist only to you.” This one a plea. Her back stays to me, and she stares at the wall in front of her. This one a demand, “Tell me about them.”

“I don’t know,” I answer.

She is not satisfied, I know she is not satisfied. In the flickering light of the flames, she has become as fluid as the paintings. Her hair falls in thick layers around her, black and heavy and twined with fabric and flowers—the only other living things brought with us. Her scars are in motion, her past injuries intent to live on in the present, and her eyes, her black and lively eyes, see more than I am willing to give. She turns, and they focus on me, on what I am not saying. On my secret heart.

She dips her fingertip into the blue paint and reaches forward, drawing a strange swirl on my arm. Where she drags her touch, bumps appear, marring the swirls she leaves behind.

“The sky,” she says. “What would you have me do for the sky?”

“Any color than what it is,” I answer, closing my eyes. She continues her patterns, swirls blending into swirls. She is the one meant to be nude, but I feel on display for her. “The shape of it being what you feel. When you have visions of the sky, what do you see? I see a womb. And in the place where the sky sets and changes to nightmare, I see a birth.”

The finger halts. I keep my eyes closed, suddenly afraid.

My artist returns her touch to me, fingertip setting on my lips. I can taste the animal fat, the charcoal. I can taste the dirt. She drags the color across my lips, and I part them for her. In secret. In something else. She spreads the color to my cheeks, tracing a design as if it was in familiar practice.

“You don’t create what you see,” she says suddenly. “You create something else, don’t you?”

My hand moves to match her, catching her against my cheek and keeping her there. I turn my face toward her palm, my painted lips against her painted skin.

“Yes,” I answer. “Yes.”

I take her hand, lead her to the wall again. My hand over hers, I guide it to the blank space. Press her hand to the surface, feel the coldness radiate through us both. I drag her hand across it, feeling it, feeling us. And so we paint together, the two of us, creating shapes that have never existed before, creating new ideas between the images of hunting beasts and dying prey, dying people. Us, the goddesses of them all; us, the creators, the artists.

When she catches the flow of the movement, I remove my hand and begin painting her skin instead. Swirling spirits between her shoulder blades, strange shadows on the sharp bone of her hip. I paint her bare, for me. No one else will ever see us like this, no one else will know the truth of who we are in this cave. Both of us painted, and when I press my lips to the top of her spine, to the place where speckles dot her skin, I know that we are painting more than thoughts, more than ideas.

The two of us together paint all things unspoken in this cave.

Show Notes

This quarter’s fiction episode presents “Abstract” by Kat Sinor, narrated by Jasmine Arch.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Twitter: @heatherosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Links to Kat Sinor Online

Twitter: @katsinor

Links to Jasmine Arch Online

Website: jasminearch.com
Twitter: @Jaye_Arch

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Tribades in Roman Law

Sunday, December 12, 2021 - 10:29

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

Ordinarily this blog would go up on Monday (yeah, like I've been sticking to that - hah!), but since tomorrow will be filled with travel (cars! planes! buses! trains!) I'd rather get it up now. Also, since I'm all packed and the house is cleaned up and ready for the sitter, and I have time to kill...why not? I have seven more subsections of the book to cover, some of them only a few pages, so my goal is to finish up by the end of the year while I'm on vacation. I continue to emphasize that if you want a great example of how to approach the interpretations of historic sources, Boehringer is gold standard, in my opinion.

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LHMP #334m Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3e: The Roman Period - Tribades - Seneca

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3e: The Roman Period - Tribades - Seneca

The mention of tribades in Seneca the Elder’s Controversiae, something of a textbook for arguing legal cases, appears to be straightforward. A man comes upon his wife and another woman engaged in sex and kills them both. The women are identified as “tribades,” and there is a passing mention of the man examining the second person, whom he had perceived as being a man, “to see whether he was born that way or whether it had been stitched on.” Superficially, this would appear to be evidence that sex between women was classified as adultery and that there was a perception that a woman might use and “attached” implement to engage in it.

But as with many of the other fleeting references that Boehringer examines, there’s a lot more nuance to this example and the understanding of f/f sexuality is represents is more nuanced.

The Controversiae are not simple presentations of actual cases in law, but hypothetical cases that are intended to stretch the boundaries of argumentation, supported by secondary examples that examine specific questions and considerations of the case. Each case in the work is structured similarly: a statement of the (fictional) case to be considered, presentations of existing legal texts that the accusation and defense will draw on to make their arguments, then examples of speeches relevant to the case by other orators (interrupted by Seneca’s commentary). The material is grouped under several categories: the sententiae (the opinions on the topic), the divisio (an organized presentation of the arguments), and the colores (various legal motifs not directly related to the law in question but that are presented to explain or excuse the act).

The reference to tribades occurs in one of these colores and so is not the central legal case being argued, but rather brought in to examine one of the central issues from a different angle. In this case, the question is how to make arguments on a sex-related crime without resorting to crude and obscene language. The tribade example is given of an argument that does not avoid obscenity – that is, the point of talking about tribades is to emphasize that talking about tribades is to engage in obscenity. The episode itself is not Seneca’s but is quoted from the early 1st c CE consul Scaurus, who is referencing a speech he heard by two Greek orators, Hybreas and Grandaus. The episode is quoted in Greek, embedded within Seneca’s Latin text and the manuscript is somewhat mutilated and has been transmitted via several different variants in later copies, so there’s a great deal of distance between any interpretation of the episode in question and everyday reality, even aside from the fictional nature of the text’s genre.

But given all that, one central question is, “What is the purpose that this example is serving within the legal argument? What can that tell us about how to interpret it in sociological and legal terms?” Boehringer notes the difficulty and uncertainty in answering these questions and gives her best understanding.

Firstly, the example indicates that Roman land was not ambiguous on the topic of women’s same-sex relations, because it the law itself were ambiguous, then that would have been included as a topic of debate within the text. The orators make no reference to a specific law covering sex between women (which is a highly meaningful omission) and there are no other legal or literary texts referring to this scenario.

Secondly, the other details presented as exculpatory for the man who killed the two women indicate that the concern was whether he had a legitimate basis for his acts. The scenario mentions that it was dark, that he thought his wife’s lover was a man (whether natural or “stitched on”). If sex between women, in and of itself, constituted adultery and was a legitimate reason for a husband to take revenge, then none of these circumstances would be relevant. Therefore one clear conclusion that can be drawn from the case is that sex between women was not illegal and was not considered adultery, for which a husband was entitled to take revenge.

A third consideration raised by Grandaus is whether the context of the event removed the wife’s lover from the category of “woman” and thus could justify the category of adultery. Boehringer points out that the fact that this is a topic of debate does not support the interpretation that f/f sex was understood as an asymmetrical relationship with one partner performing a masculine role. Both women are identified with the label tribade and the suggestion of one partner being read as masculine is raised as a possibly mitigating factor, not as an assumed fact. Given the layers of hypothetical argumentation, we need not even assume that in the original altercation that the husband actually did perceive his wife’s partner as male—the point is that if he did, this would be a circumstance that could justify his actions. (Assuming that there was an actual original altercation and the whole thing isn’t invention in the first place.)

A fourth conclusion—one specifically stated by Seneca—is that the topic of sex between women was considered “obscene” in a way that topics such as prostitution and heterosexual adultery were not.

[Note: The Roman definition of “obscenity” is a complex topic in itself—in the last couple days I’ve been following along with a friend tweeting a summary of a study of this specific topic, and Roman “obscenity” was very tied up with the presumption of an elite male point of view. So one should interpret Seneca’s statement as having an implicit context of “elite Roman men considered the topic of sex between women to be obscene”. We have no indication of what Roman women of any class thought about the topic.]

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Worldcon

Tuesday, December 7, 2021 - 08:24

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Hey, so I'm going to be at Worldcon in Washington DC next week and I'll be on some programming. (See the event link.) If you happen to be there, look me up to say hi. The convention is being quite careful about Covid precautions. (Everyone must document vaccination, no exceptions. Required masking in all convention spaces.) I know we were all hoping that greater vaccine distribution and fergoodnessakes common sense precautions would have made the pandemic much less of an issue by now. But you make your best predictions and then you evaluate your risks. I'm comfortable (but careful) about traveling. And I intend to enjoy myself, and not think too much about those more carefree times when "con crud" was considered an unavoidable inconvenience as opposed to a model for disease transmission that perhaps we should have been addressing all along.

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The Roman Invention of New Gender Categories

Monday, December 6, 2021 - 07:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

One of the things that is implicit in Boehringer's analysis, but not (yet) stated overtly (perhaps because she assumes her readers are aware of it?), is that there is a major shift in the development of "gender categories" between the earlier Greek evidence and the Roman evidence. Under Greek pederasty, the erastes and eromenos took on categorically different roles in the relationship, but they were not viewed as inhabiting distinct life-long identity categories. The eromenos is expected to participate in the relationship as part of the mentoring necessary to become an adult male citizen, not because he has a specific desire to be a "passive" partner in sex. He is, in turn, expected to become an erastes himself. And despite some hints of a pederastic element in f/f relations, the primary model is a different one: two equal partners in the relationship.

But the Roman sexual system established the possibility of a free adult man who, due to some inherent nature, had a lifelong attraction to taking a "passive" role in sex. Within Roman philosophy, this made him a less virtuous man, but it was an identifiable and defined category that was distinct from those males who might be forced into being the "passive" partner of another man due to their dependent social status. Similarly, the Roman sexual system had a role for an assigned-female person whose sexual desires and activities were categorized as masculine, whether or not that person had female partners. This was not an aspect of the Greek depiction of women in same-sex relations (to the extent that we have evidence). Greek myth did have a "stock type" of women who participated in male-coded activities, such as the followers of Artemis, but that element was not conceptually tied to certain sexual preferences.

The book will, no doubt, get into this development in more detail as the chapter goes on. But it's useful to keep in mind that this distinction in a Roman context is sometimes anachronistically projected onto Greek culture, as when Sappho is later portrayed as "masculine."

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LHMP #334l Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3d: The Roman Period - Sexual Satire: Tribades - Phaedrus

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3d: The Roman Period - Sexual Satire: Tribades - Phaedrus

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

# # #

While earlier references to f/f relations focused on emotions, with the start of the Common Era, Roman literature introduces different attitudes. The category of “tribade,” although derived from the Greek word “tribas” (from “tribein”, to rub), has its earliest surviving mentions in Latin texts. It was clearly in use previously as it appears in multiple texts at a similar era.

The fables of Phaedrus were inspired by those of Aesop, being short stories with a moral ending. One of them provides a comic “explanation” for the existence of certain sexual types: molles mares and tribades. The story tells that when Prometheus was in the process of creating human beings out of clay, one day he got drunk with Bacchus after a session of creating genitals, and accidentally put female genitals on male bodies and vice versa, resulting in “perverted pleasures” (pravo gaudo). This follows a separate fable of Prometheus in which he is said to have made male genitals out of the same material as women’s tongues, explaining their “similar obscenity”.

Although the contextual meaning of “tribades” cannot be derived from pre-existing examples, “molles” is known from other contexts. The literal meaning “softness” was applied to men whose sexual or gendered behavior differed from the norm in specific ways. Along with “impudicus” and “pathicus” it indicated traits that were considered feminine, with the extreme being the “cinaedus”. These terms covered a range of behavior involving dress, grooming, and speech, but also taking a passive role in sex including, but not limited to, enjoying being penetrated. So the “molles mares” are presumably the set of Prometheus’s creations that have the superficial appearance of men but are essentially feminine. Thus we have a connection between sexual desire and a category of men defined by something other than biological sex.

The text is not specific whether the superficial sexual category (i.e., the one people are assigned by society) is the one corresponding to the genitals or to the body they have been attached to. If one takes the ordering of the description in the text as parallel, then tribades are those who have female genitals on male bodies, and molles have male genitals on female bodies. Some historians have interpreted the reverse, that it is the genitals that drive sexual desire, therefore the molles have (female) genitals that want to be penetrated, while the tribades have (male) genitals that want to penetrate. This would connect the latter with the image of the tribade with an enlarged clitoris. The second interpretation would suggest that there should be other references to molles as having feminine genitals (given the numerous textual references to them) but this doesn’t appear to be the case. (Boeheringer discusses this question at length.)

So if we return to reading the genital substitutions in parallel order, with the genitals marking the socially assigned sex and the “body” representing the “orientation”, then the new category of tribas must represent a physiological female whose desires and social actions are coded as male.

For both the mollis and the tribade, the “perversion” involved is not homosexuality as modernly defined, but taking pleasure in something inappropriate to one's sex. [Note: as Williams and others have noted, the mollis and his lover do not belong to the same sexual category – the same “gender identity” if you will - because his partner is an active/penetrative man, or even in some cases a “active” woman. I other references to tribades, we see that the category is not exclusive to women to take a "male" sexual role with other women, but can also include women to take an active/penetrative role with a male partner. When historians talk about classical Roman society not having concepts that correspond to homosexuality and heterosexuality, this is what they mean: not that Roman society didn't recognize the phenomenon of persons of a particular biological sex engaging in sex with other persons of the same biological sex, but rather that their conception of those relations was not organized around seeing both partners as belonging to the same definable category.]

The molles and tribades are not placed in a single conceptual category on the basis of some shared attribute, such as "having the behavioral nature of the other sex". There is also no indication in this text of the later motif of tribades as having a phallic clitoris. And despite the joke in a previous fable about penises and women’s tongues being made of the same material, there is no clear indication that he is implying cunnilingus between women. In all Phaedrus’s discussions of sexual immodesty or depravity, the focus is on the acts of an individual with respect to their assigned social/gender role, with no consideration of the nature of their partner. However the fable does suggest an “essentialist” view of sexual preferences – that certain people behave sexually and socially in certain ways due to their inherent nature. But the categories defined by this nature do not correspond to modern categories of sexual orientation. They do correspond to categories but to different categories than modern ones.

There are vague similarities here to the myth of the "two-bodied persons" in the Symposium, but both the nature of the resulting categories and the attitude of the narrator to these categories is different. Phaedrus is making fun of origin myths, at the same time that he’s mocking effeminate men and masculine women as being the result of a drunken mistake. But without the context of further references to tribades in Phaedrus's time (as we have for molles) we can’t tell whether the depiction here is a reflection of popular attitudes, or a comic exaggeration, or a complete invention.

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 217 - On the Shelf for December 2021

Sunday, December 5, 2021 - 20:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 217 - On the Shelf for December 2021 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2021/12/05 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for December 2021.

The end of another calendar year, which means the podcast is about to do two of my favorite things (other than learning new historical things, of course): the annual summary of trends in sapphic historicals, and the open submissions for next year’s fiction series! 2022 has five months with five Saturdays, so following my usual schedule, that means five stories. One of them is already bought, to air in January, so we’ll be buying four additional works.

I know the listenership of this podcast isn’t particularly large, in relative terms. We’ve just barely grown back to the point where we hit 200 downloads per episode again. So it’s important to reach outside just the listener community to find great stories to add to our line-up. Even if you aren’t an author yourself, or if short fiction isn’t your thing, you can help by spreading the call for submissions out to your community. (And, of course, I plug it everywhere I’m active, and post the call in a number of market listing sites.) Every year, the increase in number and quality of submissions has made it harder and harder to make my decisions, and that’s exactly how I like it.

The last story of 2021 is an example of the delightful surprises I can find in my in-box. In two weeks we’ll be airing Kat Sinor’s story “Abstract”, narrated by Jasmine Arch—perhaps the most unusual setting I’m ever likely to fall in love with. Though I say that in full knowledge that someone else will come along to surprise me just as much. When I say that, in addition to a solid historic setting, I’m looking for beautiful language, Kat’s story is the sort of thing I mean. Due to scheduling, the fiction episode will be taking the place of the usual essay show this month.

I have some fun ideas for shows in the coming year. While I love doing the history essays, I’ve been moving toward doing content more about the process of writing. I had an inspiration to do a series of episodes looking at our favorite historical romance tropes and thinking about how those tropes change when there are two women involved, as contrasted with a male-female couple or an all-male couple. What I would love would be to do each show as a conversation with a guest who picks the trope we’re focusing on and brings their own ideas to bear. Everyone has a favorite trope or two, right? So if you’ve ever wanted to participate in the podcast in a more direct way, I’d love to hear from you. What sorts of tropes are we talking about? I combed through a number of articles and websites that listed historical romance tropes and sorted them out into general categories. So we have tropes about how the couple gets together, such as fake dating or forced proximity. We have tropes about the past relationship of the couple, such as enemies to lovers or second-chance. We have tropes revolving around marriage—and there’s a category that will be fun to look at from a same-sex angle. Things like marriage of convenience, fake marriage, and the compromising situation. There are tropes focusing on the character’s profession or life circumstance, and ones based on misperception of identity. The category of gender disguise or secret identity will be particularly fascinating to consider. And then there are tropes rooted in social rules about who is an appropriate partner. Things like past scandal, peculiar inheritance requirements, or familial disapproval. Of course, I’ve only given a few examples in each category—there are a lot of possibilities here! I’ll be going out looking for volunteers to join me in these discussions, so I hope everyone else thinks it would be as fun as I do.

Publications on the Blog

The blog is still working its way through Boehringer’s Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. I’ve slowed down a bit and didn’t manage to finish it up in November like I thought I might. But since I have a three week vacation coming up this month, I’m pretty sure I’ll be ready for some new material in January. What sort of topics would you like to read about on the blog? I have pending publications covering a lot of different topics, and I’m always susceptible to suggestions.

Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction

The number of new releases is down a bit this month. I only have six new or recent releases to talk about, three from November and three from December.

Noel Stevens has a self-published supernatural pirate story, Into the Horizon. Early in the 18th century, the notorious Anne Bonney disappears from her jail cell in Port Royal and finds herself thrown together with another female pirate captain—the legendary Davy Jones. But Jones is more than an ordinary pirate, and their partnership become much more than a simple quest for revenge.

Another story throwing a supernatural twist into a familiar tale is Ceinwen Langley’s take on Beauty and the Beast in The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist, from Feed The Writer Press. I like the book’s cover copy, so I’ll go back to the practice of simply quoting it.

Aspiring young naturalist Celeste Rossan is determined to live a life of adventure and scientific discovery. But when her father loses everything, Celeste's hopes of ever leaving her home town are dashed... until she sees a narrow opportunity to escape to Paris and attend the 1867 Exposition Universelle. Celeste seizes her chance, but the elements overwhelm her before she can make it five miles. In desperation, she seeks refuge in an abandoned chateau only to find herself trapped inside the den of an unknown species: a predator with an intelligence that rivals any human. It's the discovery of a lifetime. Or, it will be, if Celeste can earn the beast's trust without losing her nerve - or her heart - to her in the process.

Last year I was charmed by Meg Mardell’s holiday-themed novella and she has another one out this year: A Highland Hogmanay from NineStar Press. The summary is a bit convoluted, so let’s stick with the cover copy once more.

The daughter of an Indian raja and renegade Englishwoman, Sharda Holkar, was gifted with a magnificent dowry but little say in her future. Until now. She must endure one more depressing holiday season with her controlling cousins, then she will be free to begin her emancipated life. But her discovery of a plot to marry her off to the preening son of the house has Sharda wondering if her new start should begin at once. When Sharda meets the intriguing owner of a Highland castle at a Christmas Eve masquerade, she wastes no time in forming a plan—she will escape across the Scottish border! Finella Forbes cannot imagine why a sophisticated heiress like Sharda would even associate with someone who manages a castle for a living, let alone accompany her all the way back to the Highlands in time for the raucous celebration of Hogmanay. But a wealthy buyer is just what Balintore Castle needs. Fin is determined to prove she is just as good an estate manager as her father, but with the negligent lordly owner refusing to do his duty, she needs help fast. When mistaken assumptions jeopardise their initial attraction, Sharda and Fin will need all the mischief and magic of a Highland holiday to discover the true nature of their feelings.

The December stories start off with a bite-sized short story from Stephanie Burgis’s magical Regency Harwood Spellbook series: “Spellcloaked” from Five Fathoms Press is a coda to the novel Thornbound and will only really make sense if you’ve read the novel first. But if you have, and you were left longing for a happy resolution to the secret sacrifice that drove Lady Honoria Cosgrove out of her position of power and privilege in a perilous conflict with malevolent magical forces, then this story will give you everything you wanted, as it did for me.

Regular listeners to this podcast will know I’m a big cheerleader for writers to take inspiration from the life and social circle of 19th century actress Charlotte Cushman. I would not presume to suggest that I had anything to do with it, but Paula Martinac has done just that in Dear Miss Cushman from Bywater Books. The book’s protagonist, Georgiana Cartwright, idolizes Cushman and dreams of having a career just like hers. With the partnership of friends, including an aspiring playwright who hopes to also win her heart, Georgie begins to climb the ladder of fame. But that climb may be dislodged by a man whose unwanted advances make the acting company an uncomfortable place. I’m looking forward to seeing what Martinac has done with this fascinating setting.

The month’s books finish out with a World War II inter-racial romance in San Francisco: A Fairer Tomorrow by Kathleen Knowles from Bold Strokes Books. The opportunities of the wartime economy offer two women escape from their separate oppressive backgrounds. But will they continue to find a future when the war ends and everyone expects the world to return to the way it was before?

What Am I Reading?

So what have I been reading since last month? You might guess from my previous comment that I gobbled up Stephanie Burgis’s story “Spellcloaked” as soon as it hit my iPad. I failed to finish another Regency-set story: Jane Walsh’s Her Lady to Love. I’m afraid it just didn’t work for me as a Regency story, although it might have worked if it had been set up as a secondary-world fantasy. It simply broke too many aspects of how Regency society worked for me to be able to believe in it.

I did gobble up a different queer Regency series, KJ Charles’ gay male “Society of Gentlemen” series, which I enjoyed in audiobook. I have to confess that I’m supremely indifferent to the level of sexual content in KJ’s books, and not simply because they’re m/m romances, but by God that woman can write compelling characters and believably historical settings for her queer romances. I really wish she’d write more f/f stories, but it’s probably hard to get a cross-over readership.

Of course, the problem with listening to a whole series of KJ Charles books on Audible is that the Audible algorithm is now convinced that I’m mostly interested in male-centered stories. So to try to train up their AI a bit, I looked for some lesbian books I might be interested in that were in the free-with-membership category, and picked Marie Castle’s paranormal/shifter romantic thriller Hell’s Belle. It’s a well-written book that hits all the standard plot beats of the paranormal/shifter genre, but I found it simply isn’t my genre. When a book does everything right that it sets out to do and fails to grab me, the problem is me, not the book. Alas, Audible doesn’t seem to have anything in the way of sapphic historicals, so I’m at a loss as to how to convince it that that’s what I want. How can we convince them to produce more of the content we like if we aren’t given the opportunity to vote with our wallets?

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

This month’s fiction episode: “Abstract” by Kat Sinor
Call for submissions for the 2022 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
Looking for discussion partners for a series of episodes on favorite tropes
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
New and forthcoming fiction
What I’ve been reading:
- ”Spellcloaked” by Stephanie Burgis
- Her Lady to Love by Jane Walsh
- The “Society of Gentlemen” series by KJ Charles (audiobook)
- Hell’s Belle by Marie Castle (audiobook)

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Twitter: @heatherosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

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Imagining the Unimaginable

Tuesday, November 30, 2021 - 20:50

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

The story of Iphis and Ianthe is full of contradictions, manipulations, and ambiguities. I think Boehringer makes a key point (although it may get lost in the details) that what makes female same-sex love "impossible" for Ovid is the essential structural understanding of sex in Roman society: that it must involve a hierarchical relationship and must involve at least one man. If those elements aren't present, the relationship--no matter how obviously romantic-- cannot be fit into the conceptual category of "a romantic/sexual relationship." If this seems quaint and ridiculous, let me point out that it wasn't all that long ago that people sincerely asked lesbian couples "which one of you is the man?"

From a modern point of view, the story of Iphis and Ianthe begs to be understood as a transgender myth. But Boehringer makes an excellent point that nowhere within the story is Iphis presented as understanding her identity as masculine. At every turn, she not only is framed as considering herself to be a maiden, but is treated as such in terms of her upbringing and her anticipated marriage. And when the idea of resolving her dilemma with a change of sex arises--well before the goddess Isis implements that idea--Iphis would be happy if either she or Ianthe were transformed, it doesn't matter which as long as they are able to marry as a result. (This same motif shows up in John Lyly's Gallathea, which has Iphis as one of its inspiratoins.)

The essential metamorphosis here, Boehringer asserts, is not the change of Iphis from woman to man, but the change in the relationshp from woman/woman to man/woman, thus aligning it with the Roman understanding of "nature" and changing the relationship from impossible to possible. And yet...you can't argue that female same-sex love was "unimaginable" for Ovid and his audience, because he requires us to imagine it, even if only to erase it.

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LHMP #334k Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3c: The Roman Period - Iphis

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3c: The Roman Period - Iphis

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

From a modern point of view, the story of Iphis and Ianthe begs to be understood as a transgender myth. But Boehringer makes an excellent point that nowhere within the story is Iphis presented as understanding her identity as masculine. At every turn, she not only is framed as considering herself to be a maiden, but is treated as such in terms of her upbringing and her anticipated marriage. And when the idea of resolving her dilemma with a change of sex arises--well before the goddess Isis implements that idea--Iphis would be happy if either she or Ianthe were transformed, it doesn't matter which as long as they are able to marry as a result. (This same motif shows up in John Lyly's Gallathea, which has Iphis as one of its inspiratoins.)

# # #

Ovid also composed one of the longest texts dealing with love between women from the Roman period—the story of Iphis, also from the Metamorphoses. In brief, a poor man of Crete tells his wife they can’t afford to raise their expected child if it’s a girl. So a girl child would be killed. The child being a girl, at the recommendation of the goddess Isis, the mother conceals its biological sex and raises it as a boy. The name Iphis is given and noted as being a name that might be borne by either gender. Iphis is betrothed to a neighbor’s daughter Ianthe, and the two are deeply in love, but Ianthe believes Iphis to be a boy and Iphis believes her love for Ianthe to be an impossibility. (Recall that one of Ovid’s themes is “impossible loves”.) Iphis’s mother prays to the goddess Isis for help, when the long masquerade is about to be revealed. Isis transforms Iphis into a boy and then the marriage is celebrated.

The source of Ovid’s tale is most likely a now lost collection of myths by the second century BCE Greek writer Nicander, preserved in a circa 200 CE collection by the Roman author Antoninus. [Note: the text has a typo, dating Nicander to the 2nd century CE, not BCE. This confused me until I double-checked Nicander’s Wikipedia entry.]

Nicander’s version called the protagonist Leukippos, and is presented as an explanatory myth for a Cretan coming of age ritual in which boys, having dressed temporarily in female clothing, remove it to mark their passage into manhood. Nicander's version evidently does not include the elements of same-sex love. The trigger for the divine intervention is when Leukippos' growing beauty threatens to betray her biological sex. [Note: So many assumptions there!]

The two versions have different emphases, both in terms of narrative detail and proportion of text. Antoninus focuses more on the cross-dressing while Ovid focuses more on the transformation. Ovid omits the motif of explanation for a ritual. And, most importantly, in the Leukippos story, the “disruptive element” is the character’s maturing, while in the Iphis story, it is the “impossible” love between Iphis and Ianthe. If (as Boehringer presumes) the version we have of the Leukippos story is complete, then the motif of same-sex love and impending marriage is a novel addition by Ovid.

The Leukippos version can be read as a story of the feminized boy leaving the sphere of women to become a man. The figure of Leukippos is entirely passive in the story with all relevant actions being taken by her mother. In contrast, the mother of Iphis acts—not out of her own initiative—but in obedience to the goddess. And Iphis plays a more active and visible part in the story. Her desires and the internal debate about them take up a substantial part of the story. Moreover, while Leukippos can be seen as inherently male, but confined within the female sphere, the essence of Iphis’s story is that she is not male and this is what creates the conflict.

Ianthe is not only a character of Ovid’s addition, but she too is an active participant. She is not a passively pursued beloved but actively returns Iphis’s love and desires the planned marriage.

The role of the gods also differs between the two stories. In the Leukippos story, the presiding goddess who enables the transformation is Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, who preside over the initiation ceremonies of boys and girls respectively. Leukippos’s mother decides on her own to defy her husband’s command about a daughter, and only involves the goddess later. In Ovid’s version, Isis is substituted and it is she who tells the mother to conceal her child’s sex. But a variety of other goddesses are present in complementary roles: easing the birth, blessing the eventual marriage. Leto acts to support and protect the mother, while Isis acts to protect and support Iphis. Isis was seen specifically as a protector of women, and her substitution erases elements that connected the story to a boy’s rite of passage.

The authorial commentary in the story of Leukippos situates it among other myths of sex change. Ovid does not directly relate Iphis’s story to other sex change myths, beyond the general theme of “metamorphosis” in the collection as a whole, and the presence of other sex change myths within that collection. Rather, the overt connections are with other “impossible love” myths, such as Pasiphae and the bull.

Add this point Boehringer posits the interpretation that, despite the superficial reading, the story of Iphis is, fundamentally, not a myth about change of sex.

In interpreting the gender of the Leukippos /Iphis character it is essential to keep in mind the trope of pre-adolescent boys having a beauty that was framed as feminine. Iphis is described as having the kind of beauty suitable for either a boy or a girl, thus her appearance does not betray her biological sex. She “looks like a boy who looks like a girl.” The visual similarities between Iphis and Ianthe is noted. Iphis dresses like a boy, but is not otherwise described in masculine terms. Iphis and Ianthe receive an education together, rather than being separated by gendered expectations. (This co-education is an anachronism for the supposed setting of the story.) There is no mention of Iphis being socialized with the boys or engaging in male-coded activities like sports and hunting. Even the age at which her marriage is arranged is appropriate for a girl but younger than the age at which boys were considered marriageable. Ovid consistently presents Iphis as a maiden (virgo) and describes her as understanding herself as a girl. Iphis falls in love with Ianthe as a girl, and not because masculine socialization has situated her to desire women.

The marriage plan brings in another gender disruption in the identical ages of the couple. Normal Roman practice was for the husband to be a minimum of 4 to 5 years older than his bride.

A comparison is made to another cross-dressing romance story, that of Leukippe and Theonoe. The woman Leukippe dresses as a (male) priest of Apollo per the god’s instruction and comes to Caria where she encounters her sister Theonoe, who doesn’t recognize her and takes her for a man and falls in love with her. In the story, Leukippe recognizes her sister and a possible incest storyline is avoided by her discouragement. This also means there is no self-aware same-sex love involved. In this and several other cross-dressing romantic encounters, but desire is always heterosexual—the people involved only love when they believe the beloved to be of the opposite sex. The existence of these other stories would have set up Ovid’s audience to expect that Ianthe would fall in unrequited love, not that Iphis would love Ianthe. The dominant theme of the second half of Ovid’s story is no longer the cross-dressing motif, but if Iphis wrestling with what it means to be a woman who loves a woman.

Isis, the central goddess of all the story, was an Egyptian deity whose cult had become popular in Rome. She had a number of attributes, but one that Ovid emphasizes is her association with the moon, a symbol of ambivalence and intermediate states.

In contrast to the Leukippos story, Isis intervenes before Iphis is born, urging her mother to conceal her sex if a girl. Isis takes initiative, rather than responding to a human’s plea. And rather than other possible actions, such as ensuring Iphis is born a boy, or changing her father’s heart, what she does is to predict (perhaps ensure) that Iphis will be born a girl, to require that Iphis be concealed and protected, and to promise that she will provide additional aid if requested. On the cusp of the wedding Iphis’s mother brings her to Isis’s altar and begs the goddess for help as promised.

The central feature of the second half of the story is Iphis’s extended monologue about her desire and its failure to fit in her understanding of the world. The speech follows a conventional form, beginning with complaint and blame, presentation of counter examples drawn from the natural world and mythology, an exhortation, a description of the obstacles stated both in negative and positive form, and a conclusion about the impossibility of the situation and an appeal to the goddess for assistance.

Within the speech Ovid gives Iphis beliefs that he knows to be false, e.g., that love between women is completely unknown. Ovid—but perhaps not Iphis—knows the story of Sappho and of Callisto, and tells them in forms that clearly recognize the same-sex relationships involved. [Note: Iphis also laments that love between females is unknown among animals, but Ovid must have been aware of myths involving sex between female animals such as weasels and hyenas—myths presented as fact by classical philosophers.]

Iphis catalogs things that might present an obstacle to love (such as a protective father or jealous husband) that do not apply in her case. The only obstacle is natura, which makes her situation all the more frustrating. She challenges Juno and Hymen, deities of marriage, asking why they are present when there is no husband but only two brides. There is no language for a woman marrying a woman—all terms are gendered for a heterosexual union. But despite the lack of language, there is absolutely no ambiguity about the central problem.

The problem that they beg Isis to solve is not that Iphis is really a boy, but that Iphis needs to be able to marry the woman she loves. As Boehringer puts it, “the sex change is a means, not an end.” And as the story states explicitly, it is not the only possible means. Ianthe could be transformed instead. The identity of the two must become in contrast. After Isis performs the change, Iphis takes on the physical characteristics of a man: darker skin, greater strength, shorter hair, a longer stride. These are all fairly superficial changes. (There is no mention of but God is granting if mail genitals.) The essential metamorphosis is from an impossible love (between women) to a love that is allowed by nature.

The changes Ovid makes to the Leukippos story are specifically in order to be able to address the topic of love between women. Boehringer reviews various psychological analyses of the story and how it relates to gender identity, but Boehringer feels the structure of the story itself contradicts those interpretations. The resolution negates the possibility of successful f/f love (but not of same-sex love generally) and in that context the ending is not “happy”, but is the acceptance of failure.

Given the variety of romantic and sexual possibilities illustrated in the Metamorphoses (through not always positively), why is this one singled out for impossibility? All of the loves that are framed as possible involve a power differential in which one lover “possesses” and the other is “possessed”. Two women may love, but fulfillment requires sex, which requires an act of possession. The essential rules that make this an impossible love are that a relationship must involve at least one man, and cannot involve partners of equal status. This aligns with the basic Roman attitudes towards sex (and differ from earlier Greek views on f/f love). As with Sappho and Calisto, Ovid presents f/f love to his audience at the point when he erases it.

And yet, paradoxically, in order to deny the possibility of f/f love, Ovid must recognize it and describe it, thus creating and acknowledging it as imaginable.

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Metamorphoses: Iphis and Ianthe (Ovid)

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Feeling Bearish about Callisto

Tuesday, November 23, 2021 - 11:22

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

One of the things Boehringer points out in the earlier discussion of the Callisto myth (in the Greek chapters) is that pre-Ovid sources tend to include only fragments of the story. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that one of Ovid's goals was to create "definitive" versions of the myths he includes (as well as combining them into a connected and unified whole). In a previous podcast (though I forget which one at the moment) I call attention to how much of our modern view of Greek mythology comes filtered through Ovid, whereas the Greek sources--in addition to often being fragmentary--are much more diverse and contradictory.

While the image of f/f desire is at the core of the Callisto myth, that doesn't mean that any specific version of the story includes the concept of spontaneous, self-knowing desire by a woman for a woman. This is particularly true in later retellings, where Callisto may be depicted as needing to be coaxed into accepting Zeus/Artemis's embraces, or where Zeus uses the transformation only to approach Callisto and the erotic/sexual activity occurs after he returns to his male form. Or, as Boehringer notes, the entire episode of the rape may be skipped over and the story dwells only on the consequences once Callisto's pregnancy is discovered.

So it is not a stretch to see meaning in the specific version that Ovid presents, where Callisto is shown as engaging willingly and mutually in erotic kisses with someone she believes to be the goddess Artemis. They may exist in a nebulously mythic past, but they do exist in Ovid's imagination.

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LHMP #334j Boehringer 2021 Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome Chapter 3b: The Roman Period - Callisto in the Metamorphoses

Full citation:

Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2

Chapter 3b: The Roman Period - Callisto in the Metamorphoses

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

# # #

Ovid’s major contribution to classical mythology was to bring individual stories together into a single literary work with a unified theme. As stated in the opening lines, that theme for him was “bodies changed into new forms”. When addressing the sub-theme of love, the stories included the pursuit of a desired object, impossible or forbidden loves, and the disappearance of the beloved. The individual episodes are tied together by groups of related motifs and by cross-commentary within the stories themselves. In addition to the internal structure of the stories, because they are set in a mythic past, they are used to explain and comment on the present world. Thus, the story of Callisto not only emerges from background laid out in previous episodes, but is ultimately used to explain some aspect of the world we know (i.e., the fixed nature of the constellations).

The story involves four metamorphoses: male to female and female to male (by Zeus), human to animal and earthly to celestial (Callisto and her son).

But Ovid doesn’t focus (at first) on Callisto’s backstory and context, not even providing her name until late in the story. She is described in contrast to the domestic ideal, with an emphasis on attributes specific to our to Artemis’s followers. She is a soldier, not a maiden, and the only social bond mentioned in this introduction is the one with the goddess, not a family tie as might be expected. And she is described as being in the highest faver of the goddess.

Thus: Zeus burns with desire for Callisto (a woman with masculine characteristics). Callisto and Diana have a special bond even within their woman-only society. So it seems natural for Zeus to use that bond to get inside Callisto’s defenses by taking the form of someone trusted. Yet Zeus’s purpose also requires him to take the form of someone who could approach Callisto sexually. He engages her in conversation and then kisses her: “not modestly, nor as a maiden kisses.” But when he moves on to embraces, she realizes who he is and struggles in vain against the rape.

There are several shifts in gender focus. Zeus initially is attracted to the boyish Callisto as an erastes for his eromenos—a man for a youth. But when he approaches Callisto, she has set aside her weapons and become a vulnerable girl (in how she is described). It is at this point that Zeus put on Artemis’s appearance. Starting as the desire of a god for a boy, the approach is now as a goddess for a girl, while still keeping the pederastic framing.

The erotic encounter is initially between two women and consensual. Calisto shows no surprise or hesitation in kissing one she believes to be the goddess. It is emphasized that these are not chased, modest kisses. Only when Zeus “betrays himself” in his actions does Callisto realize her partner is not Artemis and she begins to resist.

The discussion dwells on the phrase translated as “by this outrage he betrayed himself”. The phrase “sine crimine” appears nowhere else in the Metamorphoses but echoes Sappho’s line in the Heroides when she says of the women of Lesbos, “whom I have loved to my reproach”. Boehringer speculates that this is a deliberate allusion.

The encounter is full of comic references but the comedy comes from the unequal distribution of knowledge not from the sexual situation. Like other myths involving sexual identity, bathing is a context for knowledge and transformation. However in this case, it isn’t knowledge of the character’s sex that is revealed but knowledge of Callisto’s pregnancy which, in turn, was caused by Zeus’s dual sexual transformations. And unlike other stories involving a bathing Artemis and transformation, it is not an intrusive viewer who is transformed, but the person viewed: the pregnant Callisto who is then subject to Juno’s jealousy, resulting in her transformation to a bear and then to a constellation.

In contextualizing the embrace between the female Zeus/Artemis and Callisto, the author notes the overall fluidity of the mythic universe. Forms are not fixed, humans can become animals, animals become stars. Masculine and feminine intermingle. Gender is not yet tied to sex. The gender relationship between the desiring person (Zeus/Artemis) and the desired (Callisto) shifts multiple times, encompassing multiple gender modes on each side and moving from mutual and consensual to one-sided rape. But the mode in which a female lover kisses and is kissed by a female beloved is fleeting and over-written by the heterosexual outcome.

Boehringer frames this as Ovid’s explanation for the absence of this mode of love within his own (Roman) society. As with Ovid’s Sappho, he focuses on f/f love at the moment in time when it is left behind in the past.

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