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Biography
/ History / Poetry / Across Cultures
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Sappho & Alcaeus (Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1881)
Sappho Was a
Right-On Girl-Lover!
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by Linda Frankel
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On Lesbos
there was a school teacher named Sappho who had consenting sexual
relationships with her adolescent students. This was no ordinary
school; for the teacher was a priestess of Aphrodite, the goddess of
love and sexual passion. All the pupils were girls. Today we call all
women who prefer women lesbians in honor of Sappho. Yet it has occurred
to no one that Sappho preferred girls. Like Socrates she dallied with
her young students and tended to be just as ecstatic about the joys of
such love as the boy-loving sage of Athens.
How do we know how the girls felt about
it? Sappho quotes her student Atthis as saying:
Sappho, if you will not get up
and let us look at you
I shall never love you again
Get up, unleash your suppleness
lift off your Chian nightdress
(Fragment 43 in SAPPHO: A NEW TRANSLATION by Mary Barnard, University
of California Press 1958)
Contemporary sexual morality would
condemn Sappho out of hand, but the ancients called her "divine
Sappho". Sexual relationships between student and teacher that involved
mutual consent were actually considered in a positive light. Learning
intimacy from an experienced adult was considered beneficial for the
young and a significant part of their education. Sappho would not have
been so well thought of if the girls she taught hadn't grown to an
admirable womanhood through her guidance.
If the lesbian community of today were aware that their foremother,
Sappho, was a lover of girls, they might not be so quick to condemn
NAMBLA. Maybe they might listen to NAMBLA's viewpoint with an
open mind. Perhaps more girl-loving lesbians will begin to speak out,
so their voices can be added to NAMBLA's effort for sexual reform. They
are letting NAMBLA fight a battle that is theirs too.
For all those women who may read this
and who know I am speaking to them, let me close with a benediction
from Sappho:
The gods bless you
May you sleep then
On some tender
girl friend's breast.
(Barnard, Fragment 96)
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From
the NAMBLA Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 3, Pg. 9, 1983
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Copyright © NAMBLA, 2007
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