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Monday, March 2, 2026 - 08:00
This finishes up the cluster of articles I've been reading on lesbianism in pornography. The current article points out an interesting contrast in the view of lesbian sex depicted in pornography versus that depicted in "learned" texts, especially medical manuals.
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Full citation:
Toulalan, Sarah. 2003. “Extraordinary Satisfactions: Lesbian Visibility in Seventeenth-Century Pornography in England” in Gender and History 15: 50-68
In contrast to the previous article on 17th century pornography, this one is all about the lesbians!
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The typical focus on researching female same-sex desire in the early modern period centers around medical and legal records, the motif of physiological anomaly (the enlarged clitoris myth), and attempts to identify covert homoerotic themes in women’s writing. In contrast, pornography and popular culture (ballads and pamphlets) present a different view, even though they can rarely be interpreted as self-reporting of the women involved.
Pornography is a particularly rich source of imagery for how people thought sex between women was performed, setting aside the question of its accuracy. It contradicts the notion of lesbian sex as “hidden from history” or “something not to be named.” And in particular, pornographic literature diverges from the more learned imagery of “masculine” lesbians or clitoral hypertrophy.
Given the authorship and primary audience for 17th century pornography, it is often considered to reflect male prurient fantasies and have little connection with actual female behavior—a view exacerbated by modern feminist debates over whether pornography is inherently misogynistic, as well as by the persistant trope of the “obligatory lesbian scene” in modern pornography. But the depiction of lesbian sex in early modern pornography is more contradictory than a simple assumption of male gaze and highlights a significant gap between the image of lesbianism in elite literature and that intended for popular consumption.
This article attempts to recover the historical and social context that pornography had for 17th century readers, separate from the meanings imposed on it by modern analysis. Modern analysis is inevitably filtered through a psychoanalytic lens, which views fantasies of sex as serving psychological needs, especially relieving or displacing anxieties. For example, the presence of a dildo in f/f pornography is interpreted as reassuring the male reader that a penis analogue is indispensable to sexual satisfaction. But interpretations like this can be challenged, not only in a historic context, but in contemporary readings as well.
The main body of 17th century literary pornography (such as The School of Venus, The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea/Satyra Sotadica, and Venus in the Cloister) emerged from a genre of “dialogues between whores” which can be traced back to Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, with more recent roots in Aretino and the like. Often the 17th century works would directly allude to these antecedents, either in format or in directly claiming the lineage. The new development was to place the dialogues in the mouths of ordinary women rather than prostitutes, sometimes framing them as instructional literature.
Although the economics and sociology of book buying and reading in the 17th century lean towards assuming a male audience, potential female readers should not be discounted; Direct evidence for any specific readers of pornography is rare, but general references to women and girls having access to erotic works (or works with sexual content, such as medical manuals) is recorded, often in disparaging ways. Reading, in this era, was often a social activity, with one person reading aloud to others.
Although the typically-anonymous authorship of pornographic texts is usually consider to be male, the texts themselves are framed through female voices (sometimes attributed to a fictitious female author) and often proclaim themselves to be intended for a female audience. Women were also active in the publishing industry. Claims that the texts themselves provide evidence of “inauthentic” male fantasies in part derive from modern assumptions about what authentic homoerotic experiences ought to look like. If the texts themselves are often contradictory or incoherent, is that proof of inauthenticity or evidence of multiple competing experiences and understandings? The contradictions between pornography and “professional” literature in this area have already been noted.
Traub (“The Perversion of Lesbian Desire”) argues for two dominant models of female homoerotic desire in the early modern period: the “masculine” tribade and the “chaste female friend.” But the protagonists of lesbian pornography fit into neither category. Although reference may be made to such ideas, the central characters are depicted as typically “feminine” women with no anatomical abnormalities. Their sexual activities include mutual acts, contradicting the image of a contrasting active/passive pair. Further, their encounters result in mutual orgasm, despite the absence (mostly) of any penis-analogue. Orgasm can be achieved by manual stimulation, and though dildos may be discussed in the text, they are absent from the women’s beds.
The actual content of these texts thus contradicts the assertions that early modern understandings of lesbianism assumed analogy to male-female relations. In a French context, it’s possible that this reflected harsh legal penalties for women engaged in penetrative sex (though why this should affect texts that include many different modes of transgressive sex is unclear). However English pornographic texts similarly offer few examples of dildo use by female couples (as opposed to being used for solitary pleasure). Exceptions (the examples are ballads) typically involve cross-dressing women who are suggested to have used an artificial penis, not only for disguise, but for sexual activity. This is a decidedly different context from the female-presenting women of the pornographic dialogues. Another context in which dildoes are mentioned in a putatively same-sex context involves men who disguise themselves as women in order to gain sexual access—an access which assumes that women might engage in erotic play together—who then pretends that his actual penis is a dildo to maintain the charade.
The author summarizes that 17th century pornography cannot be classified as merely intended to male consumption. It offers a different take on the possibilities for sex between women than the professional literature of the era. This apparent contradiction can be seen, instead, as illustrating the competing discourses available to readers. Although pornographic texts can’t be viewed as directly representing an “authentic” female experience, they do demonstrate that the popular imagination included the possibility of women engaging in satisfying sex together without the participation of a man, even symbolically.
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Monday, February 23, 2026 - 16:00
Just two more posts from the group of articles on pornography. Then I'll have a fun series on a primary source, which will tie in with a planned podcast. (Got to get working on that podcast script!)
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LHMPFull citation:
Mourão, Manuela. 1999. “The representation of female desire in early modern pornographic texts, 1660-1745” in Signs, 24: 589-94.
The author notes a lack of attention paid to mid-17th century literary pornography, a telling absence in considerations of gender-related shifts in this era, while also noting that feminist analysis of pornography focuses mostly on contemporary issues and treats the genre as monolithic and inherently misogynistic. [Note: This article was written in the wake of the “pornography wars” of the ‘70s and ‘80s, which provides context for the author’s observation.] This article challenges that simplistic position and tries to examine 17th century pornography as pollical and social critique, as well as titillating entertainment.
While this article is fascinating reading, it touches only slightly on f/f representation, despite the regular presence of sex between women in pornographic works. Rather, the focus is on how female characters in pornographic texts are empowered to value and prioritize their own pleasure, and to convince men of the importance of providing, not just experiencing, pleasure. Even when discussing the “educational,” dialogue-based texts that feature female initiation of a woman into sexual pleasure, the author primarily focuses on how this illustrates the validation of women’s experiences, with little reference to the specifically homoerotic context.
An exception comes in the discussion of Satyra sotadica, when analyzing the rhetorical device of giving lip service to the inability of women to provide mutual sexual pleasure, set against scenarios that clearly contradict that claim. This is framed as one of a range of non-reproductive sexual experiences that “allow readers to begin to imagine a model of female desire.” However it is noted that, even as the central female characters of Satyra sotadica move on to ever more transgressive sex acts, they are depicted as preferring and gaining their most consistent enjoyment from each other. This preferential desire was more threatening to the status quo than isolated same-sex encounters.
The text also depicts voyeurism primarily in the context of women observing women, or women recounting sexual encounters to other women for their enjoyment. Thus even when m/f sex acts are described, the context is providing pleasure for a female audience.
These pornographic texts rarely represent male homoeroticism, much less provide it the tacit endorsement given to lesbian acts. (Keeping in mind that this is the era when a male homoerotic subculture was developing in London and elsewhere.) Thus a male audience is pressured into cross-gender identification in many of the work’s scenarios.
The article concludes by speculating about differences in the social context between 17th century and modern pornography that affect its reception as feminist versus anti-feminist.
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Saturday, February 21, 2026 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 336 – Aye, There’s the Rub - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/02/21)
This podcast is going to include discussions of sexual techniques, as well as vocabulary. Just FYI.
Literature about sex between women—both historic texts and academic studies—tend to have a major focus on the sexual activities that caused the greatest amount of anxiety for normative society. This tended to be those techniques that were the closest analogues to heterosexual intercourse, especially the use of dildoes and the mostly-mythical enlarged and penetrating clitoris. This can make it hard to sort out exactly what types of sex actual women might be engaging in together. But there’s one data source that gives us a clear window into the importance of non-penetrative sex in people’s understandings of sex between women: the meaning of some of the words most commonly used to describe it.
When discussing vocabulary, I’ve often focused on terms deriving from Sappho of Lesbos, because they’re not only the most iconic words, but because they’re the ones most common today. But when we look at terms used historically in cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean, there is an obvious theme of the act of “rubbing.” Once these terms became established, they picked up more general meanings—or even might be redefined in entirely different ways—but for those with even a smattering of multi-lingual knowledge, the reference to sexual friction was always available. So let’s take a tour through these words, in various languages and cultures, and see how they developed and evolved.
Descriptions of “Rubbing”
Descriptions of rubbing-based sex can be ambiguous, in part due to the heteronormative assumptions of observers. If a woman is lying on top of another woman and they are rubbing their vulvas together, it may be described as acting “like a man with a woman” leaving it ambiguous whether penetration is involved or even meant to be implied. In many cases, we get this simple version. In other cases it may be more detailed, as in the early 15th century French record of Jehanne and Laurence that describes how Jehanne “mounted her like a man does on a woman.” Or the early 17th century report of Abbess Benedetta’s activities by her partner that includes “Embracing her, she [Benedetta] would put her [partner] under herself and kissing her as if she were a man, she would speak words of love to her. And she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves. [I.e., came to orgasm.]” An 18th century Dutch prosecution record describes two women lifting their skirts and one woman making “movements as if she were a male person having to do with a female.”
In other contexts, this act is described without reference to gender roles and is more specific about the physical actions. The 1st century Latin poet Martial describes—in a satirical epigram—women “joining two cunts” and thus committing adultery without the presence of a man. A 13th century Arabic text by the author Al-Tifashi includes detailed instructions for a technique called “the saffron massage” that involves rubbing the genitals together. In this case, the level of detail in the description makes it clear that there is no penetration. The late 15th century author Bartolommeo della Rocca describes “women [who] come together vulva to vulva and rub one another” referring to them as tribades. Also in the early 17th century, the French writer Brantôme clearly distinguishes women engaging in penetrative sex together (which he considers medically dangerous) and those “joining twin cunts” (quoting the Latin from Martial).
Vocabulary
These are the types of activities that are reflected in labels for such women that are based on the act of rubbing. The majority of this discussion will focus around two word groups: those based on Greek tribas and those based on Latin fricare. Other terms for rubbing will be introduced but not explored as deeply.
Tracing the documentary record of sexual language referring to rubbing is affected by multiple factors. There is the basic question of what words were being used, combined with the question of how they were being used. But our ability to track that data depends on the willingness of writers to record those words and provide candid indications of what they referenced. Turton, in Before the Word was Queer, points out the active censorship that can be traced in English dictionaries as more explicit definitions are repeated across multiple editions with gradual erosion of their specificity (or are eliminated from the listings altogether). Further, the dictionary citations given for such words may distance them from contemporary usage by quoting classical authors, even when the words can be demonstrated to be in current use in less formal documents. There is also the consideration of how the women themselves might describe themselves and their activities versus how others might describe them, which could differ based on language formality, education, and the judgements implied by the words.
Tribas
The earliest word we can identify is the Greek tribas, from a verb meaning “to rub.” Although often used in the original form, which was also borrowed unchanged into Latin, this gave rise later to tribade and the associated terms tribadism, tribadistic, and so forth. The earliest surviving examples are from the beginning of the Common Era and in Latin texts, despite the Greek origin. But the word was clearly in common use prior to that, given the variety of texts it shows up in.
In a fable about the origins of same-sex desire by the 1st century author Phaedrus, the tribade is presented as the result of a drunken Prometheus mixing up genitals when creating human beings out of clay, and thus accidentally putting female genitals on a male body, which therefore would desire sex with women.
Hallett (1997) notes that while Roman authors used the term tribas when describing historic or foreign (i.e., Greek) women, it is less commonly used when discussing the sexual activities of Roman women, even when explicit language for sex is used.
Tribas also occurs in early (and later) astrological literature to indicate a woman whose astrological alignment has influenced her to have male-coded sexual desires, including desiring sex with women. An example comes from Claudius Ptolemy, writing in 2nd century Egypt, about an astral conjunction that makes women “what we call tribades, for they deal with females and perform the functions of males.”
The 5th century medical author Caelius Aurelianus defines tribade as only indicating the “active” partner—indeed, as a woman who sexually desires both men and women, though preferring women—but ascribes that desire to a psychological condition, not to anatomy. (This is relevant in a little bit, because Aurelianus, like several early Roman medical authors, was well aware of the clitoris and its function in sexual pleasure, but makes no connection between it and same-sex desire.)
A 10th century commentary on Clement of Alexandria presents the words tribas, heteiristria, and lesbian as synonymous in referring to women who “act as men against nature.” This is a key text as it provides an early triangulation of words that may have other meanings, but intersect on the point of same-sex desire. Each word may have been used in broader contexts, but the thing they have in common is women loving women.
Later writers sometimes seem to indicate that tribade is an archaic or obsolete term, commenting on its classical usage, but this can also be a form of distancing, where the very phenomenon of female homoeroticism is displaced to earlier ages or distant lands.
For example, tribade appears in both English and French sources by the early 17th century but a French legal discussion in 1618, in discussing the crime of sodomy, cites “women who corrupt each other, whom the ancients called tribades,” though other terms are also mentioned, but without the emphasis on ancient use. Nicholas de Nicolay in his late 16th century description of the Ottoman Empire, describes women who act “as in Times past [did] the Tribades [of ancient Greece.]” Similarly, a late 17th century English source notes of confricatrices that they were “anciently [called] tribades.”
The linguistic origin of tribade in the act of rubbing survives today primarily in the formal term “tribadism” to mean the rubbing of female genitals together as a sex act. I haven’t traced down when this specific word came into use, though it seems to show up in medical terminology by the late 19th century. But that use indicates that, whatever the other applications of the word tribade, it retains some connection with its origins.
Frictrix
A Latin word equivalent in meaning, frictrix and its derivatives, shows up around the 2nd century in the writings of Tertullian. Derived from the verb fricare meaning “to rub” (also the root of “friction”), the verb can apply to a number of different sexual actions. Adams (in The Latin Sexual Vocabulary) questions whether it originated as a calque (that is, a translation) of Greek tribas, but several other verbs about rubbing or grinding also appear in Latin sexual senses, including molo (to grind, as a grain mill), depso (to knead, as in bread), and tero (to rub or grind). Adams doesn’t provide any examples of these used in female same-sex contexts, but then, he works fairly hard to ignore or erase female same-sex references entirely (even suggesting that frictrix refers only to masturbation and failing to discuss tribas at all, despite including it in several quotations). So I have no faith that his failure to identify examples is meaningful. In any case, the Romans seem to have made a general connection between sex acts in general and rubbing, kneading, or grinding.
Forms of fricatrix and its derivatives such as confricatrix appear in English and French by the early 17th century, supplementing late 16th century examples in Latin glossaries, as in a 1593 entry for fricatrix which is coyly glossed as a woman who “useth unlawful venerie.”
Brantôme, writing in the early 17th century about events of the late 16th, is a rich source of French vocabulary for lesbian relations. He describes how women who practice the same love as Sappho are called tribades in Greek, and in Latin or French, fricatrices because they practice “fricarelle.” He says a specific woman mentioned by Junvenal was a tribade because she loved the rubbing (frictum) of another woman. Brantôme’s descriptions distinguish clearly between different types of sex acts, and “fricarelle” is primarily used for non-penetrative acts.
Vocabulary for lesbian sexuality virtually disappears from general English dictionaries in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and may be given a very vague definition of “loose morals” when it does appear, while more explicit meanings were retained in specialized medical glossaries. This is not due to the words not being used, but rather to deliberate bowdlerization of reference works in an era when women were becoming a larger audience for them. During this period there arises a split between the classical vocabulary of tribades and fricatrices, which appears in professional contexts, and everyday colloquial language, which shifts to terms with other origins, such as sapphist or tommy.
Rubster
The English term “rubber” or “rubster” may have originated as a calque on fricatrice, or it may have arisen as a direct description. Whatever the source, it is recorded as early as the early 17th century. It appears in a dictionary entry of 1663 to translate the Latin confricatrix, implying that readers would be familiar with it as an English word. And in 1689 it appears in an anatomy text describing how “female rubbers do not feel less Pleasure in that Coition, that Men in their Copulation.”
It's likely that there are vernacular terms in other languages meaning “one who rubs” used in the same way that I haven’t found references to yet.
Sahq
In medieval Arabic, a variety of words relating to sex between women derive from the root sahq, which also refers to rubbing, pounding, or grinding. (Some authors regularly translate it as “grinding” and the noun as “grinders” both as a literal translation and to avoid the anachronistic implications of translating it as “lesbian.”) In general, saḥq is framed as a rejection of men and of penetration in general. Some words derived from it clearly indicate a mutual activity rather than something one woman does to another. Arabic medical theories attribute female same-sex desire, among other reasons, to a type of itch in the genitals that is satisfied by rubbing.
Sahq refers specifically to sexual activity, with implications of love and affection. Arabic-speaking cultures had other terms to indicate a gender-crossing woman, whether or not she engaged in sex with other women.
When European writers turned their attention to the sexual practices of the Islamicate world, they made the connection between this word and more familiar terminology, as in a 1615 travelogue that described woman-loving women in Morocco called “Sahacut, that is to say, Rubbers or Ticklers, for they…tickle one another like unto Tribades.”
Other Words
Some words that might seem to have the same meaning and application are questionable on closer scrutiny. Spanish tortillera, identical to a word meaning “tortilla maker,” is attested in an 1830 Spanish-French dictionary as equivalent to tribade. It might at first appear to be another slang term referring to grinding or kneading, except for the problem that Spanish “tortilla” didn’t yet refer to the unleavened bread product it’s associated with today. The best guess at the original sense of the slang term is something like “bent” or “twisted,” although a number of folk etymologies have arisen around the hand motions used in patting out a corn tortilla.
Expansion of Meaning
Over time, two phenomena affected the understood meaning of “rubbing” terminology, both driven by changes in the popular image of sex and gender as it relates to women’s same-sex relations. These two processes were intertwined but I’ll discuss them separately. The first is an expansion of terms for rubbing from a specific sexual technique to a general sense of lesbian activity. The second is a contraction of meaning to a specific sexual image unrelated to the original meaning of the terms.
It's clear from the earliest examples in Latin that tribade and fricatrix had already expanded in meaning beyond only referring to rubbing-related activities to indicating any type of sexual activity between women—or sometimes any non-normative sexual activity by women. Tribade and fricatrix retained a strong connection with their linguistic roots, even when used more generally, but they also weren’t the only ways female same-sex activity was described.
Early medieval texts that explicitly discuss sex between women include penitential manuals, but these do not use terms related to tribas or frictrix –or indeed any terms referring to classes of people—but rather discuss specific acts, using words like vice, sodomy, or fornication. In general, penitentials are less concerned with non-penetrative sex, and when it is mentioned, it tends to be labeled masturbation regardless of the number of women involved.
During the medieval period, examples of tribade and fricatrix tend to be found in professional literature deriving from the classical tradition: medical texts, astrology texts, and the like. The few clear references to sex between women in legal contexts and literature are more likely to either refer to sodomy (usually only when an artificial penis was involved) or to use circumlocutions that avoided using any specific terms at all.
The classical language begins appearing more widely again as the Renaissance spread greater familiarity with older literature, but it was clear they had entered everyday language at some point. By the 17th century, both tribade and fricatrice had become something of generic sexual insults in English. In stage drama, a woman might be insulted as both a whore and a tribade without any indication that either was literally true, and the epithet “fricatrice” is even found being applied to men.
The French writer Brantôme uses both tribade and fricatrice when describing women who have sex with women. The way he distinguishes the terms suggests that the two may have been diverging in usage in French at this point. Generally he describes fricatrice and fricarelle as referring to rubbing—including a specific definition of fricarelle as meaning a rubbing technique as contrasted with penetration. In contrast, he uses tribade for women who enjoyed sex with a woman who had an enlarged clitoris. About which, more in a moment.
In the 17th century, the English poet Ben Johnson could accuse a rival (female) poet of being a tribade and “raping” her female muse, which would seem to imply that (metaphorical) penetrative sex was within its scope of meaning. The term “tribadry” also occurs in a similarly metaphorical context.
As we’ll discuss in a moment, the word tribade seems to have become associated with a physiological theory of same-sex desire in the 17th century. but by the later 18th century, this theory is waning with the rise of the “separate species” approach to gender. If men and women didn’t exist on a physical gender continuum, then the argument that desire for women derived from pseudo-masculine anatomy was no longer supportable. On a vocabulary level, this weakened the association of words for such women with abnormal physiology and the activities it supposedly made possible.
Also beginning in the 18th century, we begin to see a new wave of generalization in the meaning of rubbing-related terms, such as a French legal manual of 1715 that defines fricatrices and triballes as “women who corrupt each other,” or the French dictionary of 1765 that defines tribade as “a woman who has a passion for another woman.” It isn’t always clear whether this more general meaning was prevalent in everyday usage or whether it had more to do with a growing squeamish aversion to discussing sex acts in detail.
This shift in definitions begins to be reflected in dictionary entries of “tribade” in the mid 18th century where, in contrast to earlier definitions, the word is defined in vague terms such as the “name given to lascivious women who try to obtain among themselves pleasures they can receive only from the other sex.” (1755). These descriptions present the tribade no longer as behaving “like a man” but there is also an emphasis on the lesser pleasure she enjoys.
In late 19th century dictionary entries, we can trace the erosion of earlier, more specific definitions as fricatrice becomes defined simply as “a lewd woman,” and “frigstress” as a woman who masturbates,
Contraction of Meaning
Circling back to the 16th century, when professional literature on anatomy and sex “rediscovered” the clitoris, with the consequent invention of a physiologically driven cause of female same-sex desire, the ground was ripe for shifting the definition of words from generally indicating same-sex desire to a specific meaning of “a woman who uses an enlarged clitoris to engage in penetrative sex with women.” The function of the clitoris in sexual pleasure had been noted earlier in Roman and early medieval texts, but it wasn’t until the 16th and 17th centuries, when anatomists recognized it both as an analog to the penis and as an organ that had no obvious function other than sexual pleasure, that it became the focus of social anxieties about lesbianism.
These anxieties about the independence of female pleasure from men were made concrete in the image of the macro-clitoral, penetrating woman, which came to dominate that aspect of sexual discourse. In this context, language that had previously indicated any type of female same-sex activity was transferred to this specific sense, erasing the visibility of non-penetrative acts or of same-sex desire among women with ordinary anatomy. Especially in medical contexts, now we consistently find definitions of tribades and tribadism that involve an enlarged, penetrative clitoris—and it seems to have been especially the word tribade that became associated with this image, as noted previously.
“Rubbing” was still a feature of the macro-clitoris theory, but now there was a confused idea that excess rubbing—either manual or by clothing—could cause clitoral enlargement, which in turn could cause lesbian desire. In parallel there was the conflicting theory that an enlarged clitoris was a congenital defect that pre-determined an orientation toward lesbian sex. In either case, it was only the woman with non-normative anatomy who was considered a tribade, rather than applying the term to both partners.
Early 17th century medical texts not only began defining rubbing-related terms as specifically referring to women with enlarged clitorises, but then projected that definition back onto classical uses of the words, as in a 1645 text that claimed that women who used their clitoris for penetrative sex “were for this reason called by the Latines Fricatrices; by the Greekes, tribades; and by the French, Ribaudes.” In France, the macro-clitoral tribade became hopelessly tied up with political discourse, especially in the 18th century, when she became an icon of transgressive, disruptive femininity within what were considered to be “masculine” spheres.
This connection continues in early 18th century dictionary definitions, describing confricatrices as “lustful Women who have learned to titulate one another with their Clitoris,” or alternately, women who use a dildo. Perhaps inspired by the linguistic indication of mutual activity in confricatrice, this word appears describing same-sex activities in mutual terms, but still assuming the presence of non-normative anatomy.
The clitoral fixation persisted in medical contexts through the 19th century, which preferred to use classical language, even as the Greek and Latin terms became less common in everyday usage in any sense.
Even as the Latinate vocabulary was appropriated for this more specific meaning, a separate discourse evolved for female homoeroticism that did not focus on heteronormative roles and activities—a discourse that moved away from existing vocabulary, which was becoming ever more strongly associated with low culture and vulgarity. Instead circumlocutions and euphemism were used, and we see the rise of sapphic and sapphist in circulation. And yet even as late as 1777 we find a bit of journalistic gossip alleging that the Hon. Mrs. John D--r [had held a meeting with like-minded others to "consult relative to a proper, and suitable name for [their] new female Coterie [...] when it was agreed, that sect should be called Tribadarians" followed up by some time later by the newspaper explaining, “'Tribadarian', [as] [m]any of [its] readers [had] expressed a desire to know the meaning of the term [...] it seems they are a set of fashionable ladies, who upon particular occasions prefer the company of their own sex.” (Based on the dates, name, and context, this may well be a reference to sculptor and reputed lesbian Anne Damer.) Tribade thus remains in currency, but the sexual context is entirely by implication.
Mis-Definitions
Although the fixation on the macro-clitoral tribade only began appearing in the 16th century, and took another century to permeate everyday usage, authors of that era projected their definitions back on the classical usage of the words. For example, in the 16th century Rodrigo de Castro misleadingly claims that classical author Caelius Aurelianus calls women with enlarged clitorises tribades. Caelius does discuss the clitoris and does call women who desire women tribades, but makes no connection between the two topics.
Unfortunately some modern scholars have taken such projections at face value, confusing the interpretation of classical texts. For example, Hallett, in “Female Homoeroticism and the Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature,” suggests that despite the linguistic origin of tribas it “typically implied masculine-framed activities such as penetration,” even though the actual examples of sexual reference do not focus specifically on this act. The idea that the word referred exclusively to a penetrating woman is contradicted in a number of contexts, as in Seneca the Elder’s description of a legal case in which two women engaging in sex are both called tribades. It should be noted that Latin had an expansive vocabulary for transgressive sex acts and those who perform them, and these are commonly used in more specific contexts.
Boehringer takes a fairly strong position that no texts of the classical period support the idea that Greek or Roman cultures associated sex between women with a specific physiology, in particular with clitoral enlargement. The interpretation of various of the Roman sources as supporting the “tribade with an enlarged clitoris” is, she asserts, a back-projection based on later material in which that theme is present. Medical texts from Antiquity do not make any connection with atypical anatomy and same-sex desire in women.
The historic record on the meaning of tribade becomes confused when researchers focus only on a narrow timespan and the uses the words had during that period, or when they attribute later definitions to an earlier era when that usage isn’t supported. We see this, for example, in Halberstam’s Female Masculinity which takes the 17-18th century definition of a tribade as “a woman who engages in penetrative sex using an enlarged clitoris” as the basic definition and origin of the word. Similarly, Traub in "The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England,” asserts that before the 17th century the image of the tribade was closely tied to the use of a dildo. But while dildo use certainly appears regularly in same-sex contexts in prior ages, it appears equally commonly in other contexts, and there is no evidence that it was considered a defining feature of lesbian activity before the 17th century, as opposed to one of a variety of options.
Bonnet, in “Sappho, or the Importance of Culture in the Language of Love,” overlooks the shift from Latin to French as a documentary language for the types of texts discussing sexual matters, and therefore asserts that the vernacular term tribade was invented anew in French in the mid-16th century for activities that were previously unknown and unnamed, taking at face value the authors that claimed that lesbianism had only recently been introduced in France from foreign sources. She isn’t the only author that seems to overlook the question of changes in the languages used for official records as opposed to changes in the actual vocabulary being used. Lanser makes a similar claim in The Sexuality of History that vernacular terms for female homoeroticism were being invented in the 16th century, as opposed to first being documented at that time.
Conclusions
As with many aspects of lesbian history, myths and misunderstandings often have more visibility than detailed scholarship. The assertion that words like tribade always and only referred to women with pseudo-masculine anatomy is just as much a myth as the claim that the word lesbian wasn’t used to mean women who loved women until the late 19th century sexologists appropriated it. But it takes careful readings of the original texts and the context of usage in light of other historical developments to identify where that myth came from. And there’s the rub: once a myth is promulgated, it’s very hard to dislodge.
And yet, embedded in vocabulary used to describe sex between women across the ages, we find clear evidence of the importance of genital rubbing as a contrast to the anxieties around penetrative activities and analogs to male-female relationships that tend to get more publicity. When culture after culture names homoerotic women after the same activity, you have to figure it means something.
References
- Adams, J.N. 1982. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-4106-2
- Amer, Sahar. “Lesbian Sex and the Military: From the Medieval Arabic Tradition to French Literature” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- Amer, S. 2009. “Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like'” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18(2), 215-236.
- Andreadis, Harriette. 2001. Sappho in Early Modern England: Female Same-Sex Literary Erotics, 1550-1714. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226020099
- Benkov, Edith. “The Erased Lesbian: Sodomy and the Legal Tradition in Medieval Europe” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn. Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
- Bonnet, Marie-Jo. 1997. “Sappho, or the Importance of Culture in the Language of Love” in Queerly Phrased: Language Gender, and Sexuality, ed. Anna Livia & Kira Hall. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510471-4
- Borris, Kenneth (ed). 2004. Same-Sex Desire in the English Renaissance: A Sourcebook of Texts, 1470-1650. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-1-138-87953-9
- Brantôme (Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme). 1740. Vies des Dames Galantes. Garnier Frères, Libraires-Éditeurs, Paris.
- Braunschneider, Theresa. 1999. “The Macroclitoride, the Tribade, and the Woman: Configuring Gender and Sexuality in English Anatomical Discourse” in Textual Practice 13, no. 3: 509-32.
- Brown, Judith, C. 1986. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-504225-5
- Cassio, Albio Cesare. 1983. “Post-Classical Λεσβίας,” The Classical Quarterly, n.s., 33:1, pp. 296-297.
- Cheek, Pamela. 1998. "The 'Mémoires secrets' and the Actress: Tribadism, Performance, and Property", in Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (eds), The "Mémoires secrets" and the Culture of Publicity in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
- Donoghue, Emma. 1993. “Imagined More than Women: Lesbians as Hermaphrodites” in Women’s History Review 2:2 199-216.
- Fleming, Rebecca. 2022. “The Classical Clitoris: Part I” in Eugesta 12. (Online: http://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/1280)
- Habib, Samar. 2009. Arabo-Islamic Texts on Female Homosexuality: 850-1780 A.D. Teneo Press, Youngstown. ISBN 978-1-934844-11-3
- Halberstam, Judith (Jack). 1997. Female Masculinity. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 978-1-4780-0162-1
- Hallett, Judith P. 1997. “Female Homoeroticism and the Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature” in Roman Sexualities, ed. By Judith P. Hallett & Marilyn B. Skinner, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
- Hubbard, Thomas K. 2003. Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 978-0-520-23430-7
- Kamen, Deborah & Sarah Levin-Richardson. 2015. “Lusty Ladies in the Roman Imaginary” in Blondell, Ruby & Kirk Ormand (eds). Ancient Sex: New Essays. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus. ISBN 978-0-8142-1283-7
- Karras, Ruth Mazo. 2005. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-415-28963-4
- Lanser, Susan. 2001. “’Au sein de vos pareilles’: Sapphic Separatism in Late Eighteenth-Century France” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
- Lanser, Susan S. 2014. The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-18773-0
- Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. “Tribadism/Lesbianism and the Sexualized Body in Medieval Arabo-Islamic Narratives” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn. Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- Merrick, Jeffrey. 1990. “Sexual Politics and Public Order in Late Eighteenth-Century France: the Mémoires secrets and the Correspondance secrète” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, 68-84.
- Merrick, Jeffrey & Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. 2001. Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-510257-6
- Rowson, Everett K. 1991. “The categorization of gender and sexual irregularity in medieval Arabic vice lists” in Body guards : the cultural politics of gender ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-90388-2
- Traub, Valerie. 2001. "The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England" in GLQ 7:2 245-263.
- Turton, Stephen. 2024. Before the Word Was Queer: Sexuality and the English Dictionary 1600-1930. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-316-51873-1
- Van der Meer, Theo. 1991. “Tribades on Trial: Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1:3 424-445.
- Walen, Denise A. 2005. Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6875-3
- Williams, Craig A. 2010. Roman Homosexuality. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-538874-9
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- Vocabulary for women-loving women referring to “rubbing”
- Shifts of meaning and usage
- What too many authors get wrong
- Sources mentioned: see transcript
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
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMPMonday, February 9, 2026 - 16:03
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 335 - On the Shelf for February 2026 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2026/02/09)
Welcome to On the Shelf for February 2026.
I delayed this episode a little to allow time for the story contracts to come back. So I can announce the 2026 fiction line-up. Just like last year, there were a number of shorter stories in the final selection process, which allowed me to buy an extra. I should note that writing short doesn’t place a story higher in my evaluation, but it does give me an excuse to move the cut-off to include more. In alphabetical order by title, we’ll be publishing:
- “Between One Word and the Next” by L.J. Lee. We published L.J. previously in 2024 and like that story, this is set in 15th century Korea.
- “Love for Love’s Sake” by Shannon Lippert is a different take on the story of Julie d’Aubigny.
- “Salt for the Unmarried” by Khayelihle Benghu traces a colonial encounter in 19th century Ghana.
- The Sultan’s Vetala by Priya Sridhar is a supernatural tale involving multiple types of love in 13th century India.
- The Tale of Gudrun Sigurdsdóttir by repeat author Daniel Stride grants one of my long-standing wishes for a solidly historic tale from the Viking era.
A number of interesting observations on this year’s submissions. We had the largest number ever, and this time they came in fairly steadily across the month, relieving the anxiety I feel when everyone waits for the last minute to submit. Usually most stories fall near the top of the word-count limit, but this year the largest group was in the 3000-4000 word range, and a fair number were under 1000 words in the flash fiction range. The majority of settings were spread evenly across the 16-19th centuries, rather than clustering strongly in the 19th. Settings were drawn from 20 different named regions, which I think is the most geographically diverse we’ve ever seen. I’m glad people are listening to my wish for more diversity, so that I can easily build that into the final selections.
News of the Field
I was able to distract myself from worrying about submissions in January with a two-week trip to the east coast, visiting friends and family and also taking the opportunity to visit the exhibition of the art of Emma Stebbins that Karli Wurzelbacher came on the show to talk about last fall. If you happen to be on Long Island in the near future, I encourage you to stop by the Heckscher Museum to check it out. The museum is small—just three rooms—but they have a wealth of information about Stebbins and the community of queer women artists that she and her wife Charlotte Cushman hung out with. And, yes, the exhibition used the word “wife” to my delight.
I also had a chance to visit the exhibition on medieval sexuality at the Cloisters museum, but alas it had functionally nothing on lesbians.
Publications on the Blog
My travels distracted me from posting my prepared blogs, so I only just finished the group I had all set to go in January and only managed 7 articles this month. Starting off with Barry Reay’s historiography review “Writing the Modern Histories of Homosexual England” then moving into some articles interrogating gender and its perceptions, including Marissa Crannell’s Utterly Confused Categories: Gender Non-Conformity in Late Medieval and Early Modern Western Europe, Nico Mara-McKay’s “Becoming Gendered: Two Medieval Approaches to Intersex Gender Assignment,” and Jonas Roelens’ “A Woman Like Any Other: Female Sodomy, Hermaphroditism, and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Bruges.” The month finished up with a group of articles on pornography: Kiki Loveday’s “Sister Acts: Victorian Porn, Lesbian Drag, and Queer Reproduction,” Ruth Larson’s “Sex and Civility in a 17th-Century Dialogue: L’Escole des filles,” and Christopher Rivers’ “Safe Sex: The Prophylactic Walls of the Cloister in the French Libertine Convent Novel of the Eighteenth Century.”
Time to dive into my spreadsheet and decide which theme to tackle next.
Book Shopping!
I’ve picked up three new research books since last month. I’d already mentioned ordering Sara Lodge’s The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective, which looks at both historical female detectives and how they were fictionalized. Given the popularity of this motif among sapphic Victorian novels, I highly recommend checking this book out for the historic background.
I picked up the exhibition catalog for the Emma Stebbins exhibit, which not only includes all the information from the exhibit itself, but many more details about the life of this American sculptor.
And as part of my growing research library on Viking-era culture, I got Rebecca Boyd’s Exploring Ireland's Viking-Age Towns. I recognize a lot of the contents from the extensive exhibits I saw back in 2017 at the Dublin Archaeology Museum. By the time I get around to writing my Viking-era novel, I’ll probably have to write a dozen to justify all the research books I’ve accumulated, just like my collection on historic magic and alchemy.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
The end goal, of research is, of course, books. So let’s talk about new and recent book releases. There are a lot of books in this month’s episode, so I’m going to condense the cover copy in most cases. There were a number of December releases that I only recently discovered.
Hawthorn & Bitter by Shannon K. Kelly from Archway Publishing looks like it has a bit of a Cinderella vibe. Clara Allingham, trapped in servitude to her cruel aunt and uncle, in their country house on the North York Moors crosses paths with the capricious Alicia Broderick, pressured to choose a husband by the night of her 25th birthday ball. How far can they push their boundaries and defy expectations to reach for the magic they have discovered with each other?
In Cut on the Bias by Susanna Bonaretti from Busybird Publishing, Rebecca Victoria Davies -- Australian, bastard, and unrepentant murderess -- has spent three decades delivering justice in Edwardian London where the law refuses to tread. The Metropolitan Police's covert Special Branch, has charged her with hunting the men abducting and murdering young aristocrats. When a criminal gang seizes Lady Katherine, niece of their intended victim, Rebecca and her mentor Major Williams are dragged into a conspiracy that reaches into the highest levels of Special Branch. Old ghosts claw their way back into Rebecca's life: a forbidden love that ended in blood, the men she killed in Australia, and the revenge she took when justice failed her. Old ghosts, and now the unexpected possibility of love.
Before the Swallow Dares by Hannah Perrin-Haynes turns a life into an artistic journey. On the cusp of death, world-renowned artist, Etta Snowe, asks her granddaughter to curate a posthumous exhibition revealing the hidden secrets of her pivotal Second World War years, spent in London and on the magical Isles of Scilly. Each chapter opens onto a new room of the exhibition, where four invited visitors gradually discover who the others are and why they have been brought together. Through Etta’s art, letters and diaries, a story unfolds of an unlikely love, the irresistible pull of ambition, and the painful necessity of lying to oneself to survive.
When I see an author release 6 books in the space of two months, it triggers my suspicions, but in the case of Clara Bellweather’s two series, it seems to be a case of two sets of short, connected stories released as individual titles. Her Voices of the Hive trilogy center around bees. In The Stillness Between Us, a grieving widow in 1873 Bath, finds that her new lodger is a botanical illustrator with secrets of her own. As they share a piano, a garden, and quiet moments charged with unspoken longing, their careful propriety gives way to stolen glances, trembling touches, and a love that blooms in the stillness between words. In The Language of Bees, a reclusive beekeeper's daughter guards her mother's secret: a forgotten language of women's folk songs that keep the hives thriving-and the heart alive. When a disgraced linguist arrives, exiled from Oxford for loving another woman, she sees not just folklore, but a lifeline. Eliza Croft came to document lost voices. She never expected to find her own. Then in The Keeper of Tides a Cornish lighthouse keeper disgraced by the Royal Navy encounters a marine biologist exiled for daring to think like a man. Forced into uneasy alliance, they discover that some truths aren't found in data-but in the quiet language of tides, touch, and shared vigil as they work to preserve the fragile tidal lands they love.
Bellweather’s second trilogy, The Silent Companions, comprising The Language of Leaves, The Marginal Truth, and The Stitched Confession are slow-burn romances set in late Victorian England. From a greenhouse in Kent to a seamstress's atelier in East London, to a hidden library beneath the British Museum, three pairs of women forge lives of meaning, passion, and partnership-using their crafts to preserve truth, protect each other, and build legacies that outlast silence.
Continuing on with other January releases we start with Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley from William Morrow. You may recognize the historical character of Jacquotte Delahaye from the short stories by Catherine Lundoff published as part of our fiction series. Here, Jacquotte Delahaye is the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy tavern owner on the island of Tortuga in 1675. Instead of marriage, Jacquotte dreams of going to sea. In Haiti she becomes Jacques, a dockworker, and joins forces with others who use disguise to make their way in a hostile world. But the pursuit of riches eventually palls and Jacquotte begins instead to plot a war of liberation.
Like Jacquotte Delahaye, certain historic figures lived such vivid and improbable lives that they draw the attention of authors again and again. Another such is 17th century swordswoman and opera singer Julie d’Aubigny, as attested by one of the stories bought for our fiction series this year. And this month we have two—count them, two—books that fictionalize her life.
Sword and Silk: The Legend of Julie d'Aubigny by Maeve Campbell tells a story of reinvention and rebellion as she escapes convent walls, duels noblemen at dawn, and conquers the stage of the Académie Royale de Musique with a voice as bold as her blade, searching for a place in a world that cannot decide whether to worship or destroy her.
La Maupin: The Scandalous Story of Julie d'Aubigny by C.C. Parke takes us through the course of Julie’s life, from the court of the Sun King, to the opera stage, to a scandalous raid on a convent, always refusing to choose between love and freedom.
Returning to the sea, we have The Black Lark's Oath by Tess Wilder. When a pirate raid tears Isolde Fairchild from the safety of the only world she has ever known, she expects fear, captivity, and eventual return. Instead, she finds the Black Lark and its formidable captain Rowan Blacktide who represents everything Isolde has never been allowed to be—decisive, dangerous, and utterly free.
Embers on the Moor by Giada Moretti takes us to Thornwood Hall, a decaying Gothic estate stranded on the windswept Yorkshire moors. Scholarly, rational Beatrice Ashford, newly arrived from London, has inherited more than crumbling walls and cold halls. Mysterious fires begin erupting and Rowena Blackwood, whose mother died in a fire fifteen years earlier, becomes the target of suspicion and superstition. Together, they uncover signs of deliberate arson, a conspiracy rooted in greed, and a legacy of violence against women who dared to live outside society’s control. What neither woman expects is the slow, undeniable pull between them.
Unfinished Story by Jade Winters from Wicked Winters Books gives us a cross-time story in which historian Mia Winters and fiercely skeptical podcaster Gabby Pearson clash over discovering the truth about Eliza Beckett, a trailblazing Victorian woman who designed and ran her own hotel and whose life hints at a love that was never allowed to fully exist. But some love stories don’t end, and strange occurrences ripple through the hotel, pushing fragments of the past into the present. Gabby came to expose an infamous medium, but now she questions what truths she’s willing to accept.
The Midnight Daughters by Aeressa again crosses the time streams when Imara Thornwood, a Black lesbian scholar of Victorian England inherits Ashwood Estate and finds a house alive with memory-and women who were erased for loving other women, for knowing too much, for refusing to be small. Amid spirits whispering from mirrors and corridors the cursed Seraphine Ashwood-a woman neither living nor dead, bound to the house by betrayal, blood magic, and unfinished longing.
The late 19th century women’s suffrage movement in Boston is the setting for The Hidden Petition (Beacon Hill Mysteries #1) by Maeve McQueen from Digital Ginger Publishing. When young secretary Annie Phelps discovers the theft of a hard-won petition on the eve of its presentation to the legislature, the shock sends her into a dangerous brain fever. As she lies delirious in a quiet Beacon Hill boarding house, her devoted friends—sharp-minded Miss Eleanor Hargrove and gentle Miss Clara Whitcomb—take up a vigilant nursing watch that soon turns into a shadowy investigation to protect the fragile cause they hold dear.
The inheritance of decaying gothic manors named Thornwood seems to be the fashion this month as we encounter another in The House of Hidden Hearts by Matus Zelenay. Rare book specialist Elena Voss plans to catalogue the contents of her legacy, then lock the doors and leave. Then she finds the journals of a young woman named Constance who lived a century ago—and loved another woman in secret. The estate’s landscape architect, Iris Blackwood, should be nothing more than a professional distraction but as the past begins to surface and the house begins to wake she becomes Elena’s anchor to reality.
E.V. Bancroft offers us some short stories from her Women in War series from Butterworth Books: a collection titled The Unshuttered Window in the form of intimate journal entries by the protagonist of the novel, On the Edge of Uncertainty, and a stand-alone holiday short, A Very Hamble Christmas, set while sheltering from a December air raid.
Star & Thea at Court by A V Kakkad follows a quintet of very different women and girls at an English boarding school in 1959 in an era of change and resistance.
The Hidden Flower in the Palace: A Queer Court Tragedy by Shin Hwayoon provides an important content warning in the subtitle. Set in a fictional Korean-inspired court, this is a story of forbidden bloom, memory’s rebellion, and a legacy that can no longer be erased.
At last we arrive at the February releases, beginning with She-Wolf: A Sapphic Beowulf Retelling by E.K. O'Connor from AQH Publications. In this retelling of the Old English epic, Beowulf has spent years proving that strength is not solely a man's domain. She fights not just for victory, but for the right to wield her own destiny, defend her love and stand toe to toe against monsters that lurk in the dark.
In The Fifth Day of Her Heart by Richard Cicay, Sigrid, a capable farmer in a quiet Viking-Age village, widowed by war and known for her kindness keeps losing herself. Every five days, her memory resets. Faces become strangers. Conversations vanish. Only her hands remember how to tend the land—and her heart remembers feelings it cannot name. But with each new cycle, she notices patterns others overlook… and finds herself repeatedly pulled toward Astrid, a warm-eyed shepherd woman who feels impossibly familiar. What Sigrid doesn’t know is that Astrid has already loved her dozens of times.
The Found Family Victory (Salvation's Edge #1) by Lady K follows Rosa Delgado, a Pinkerton detective in 1880s America, to find the disappeared: sex workers, drifters, immigrants, the invisible ones that the local marshal refuses to investigate. Partnering with other marginalized people, she finds courage to face a supernatural enemy that thrives on their separation. But her employers have entirely different goals and consider her new-found allies to be acceptable casualties.
Belonging to the Air by Avery Irons from Screen Door Press is the coming-of-age story of "Bird" Bennett, a young, Black girl with a hunger to learn what lies beyond the house she shares with her mother and grandmother. In Bennettsville, Illinois, a freedman's town established by Bird's great-grandfather, she must reckon with turbulence at home and with what it means to fall in love with a childhood friend. As an adult, Bird spreads her wings and plants roots in Harlem, but a clash with the neighboring white town of Tuckersville pulls her back home.
Joe the Pirate by Hubert from Iron Circus Comics is a graphic novel following real-life personality Marion Barbara Carstairs—"Joe" to her friends—always in pursuit of speed and adventure, from ambulance driving in World War I, to speedboat racing, to her eventual rule over her own Caribbean island where she entertained and sometimes pursued affairs with women like Gwen Farrar, Dolly Wilde, Marlene Dietrich, and Tallulah Bankhead.
And…now we’re back to crumbling haunted manors in A Slow and Secret Poison by Carmella Lowkis from Atria Books, but in the 1920s this time rather than the Victorian era. When Vee Morgan accepts the job of gardener at Harfold Manor, she’s hoping it’s a fresh start. Vee is fascinated by her enigmatic new employer, Lady Arabella Lascy, a woman obsessed with the curse she believes has killed her family one by one and is coming for her next. Her only hope for escape is a local folktale: the elusive dancing hare that gave her ancestor its blessing and the house its name. But even as Vee falls deeper under the thrall of Harfold and Lady Arabella, her own dark past finally catches up to her.
What Am I Reading?
And what have I been reading? I’ve fallen back into my usual pattern of not reading much when traveling. (New Zealand was an anomaly.) So the only new book I finished was Nekesa Afia’s Harlem Renaissance murder mystery Dead Dead Girls. It’s exceedingly well written and thoroughly sapphic but has a rather high body count, for those who need that as a content warning, alongside the period-appropriate racism.
I also finished a re-read of one of my own books, to refresh myself on details for the current work in process. I confess it’s a bit daunting—how did I ever manage to hold all these details in my head at the same time? Can I do that again? But I did, so I expect that I will be able to. I guess we’ll all find out.
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- The 2026 fiction line-up:
- “Between One Word and the Next” by L.J. Lee
- “Love for Love’s Sake” by Shannon Lippert
- “Salt for the Unmarried” by Khayelihle Benghu
- The Sultan’s Vetala by Priya Sridhar
- The Tale of Gudrun Sigurdsdóttir by Daniel Stride
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Reay, Barry. 2009. “Writing the Modern Histories of Homosexual England” in The Historical Journal, 52, 1. pp.213-233
- Crannell, Marissa. 2015. Utterly Confused Categories: Gender Non-Conformity in Late Medieval and Early Modern Western Europe. Dissertation.
- Mara-McKay, Nico. 2018. “Becoming Gendered: Two Medieval Approaches to Intersex Gender Assignment” in Prandium: The Journal of Historical Studies vol. 7, no. 1.
- Roelens, Jonas. 2017. “A Woman Like Any Other: Female Sodomy, Hermaphroditism, and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Bruges” in Journal of Women’s History, vol. 29 no. 4, Winter 2017. pp.11-34
- Loveday, Kiki. “Sister Acts: Victorian Porn, Lesbian Drag, and Queer Reproduction” in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, vol. 60, no. 2, 2019, pp. 201–26.
- Larson, Ruth. 1997. “Sex and Civility in a 17th-Century Dialogue: L’Escole des filles” in Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, no. 47: 497-514.
- Rivers, Christopher. 1995. “Safe Sex: The Prophylactic Walls of the Cloister in the French Libertine Convent Novel of the Eighteenth Century” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 5, No. 3: 381-402
- Book Shopping
- Wurzelbacher, Karli. 2025. Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History. Huntington: The Heckscher Museum of Art. ISBN 979-8-9925162-1-0
- Lodge, Sara. 2024. The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-28660-1
- Boyd, Rebecca. 2024. Exploring Ireland's Viking-Age Towns. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-03-259109-4
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Hawthorn & Bitter by Shannon K. Kelly
- Cut on the Bias by Susanna Bonaretti
- Before the Swallow Dares by Hannah Perrin-Haynes
- The Stillness Between Us (Voices of the Hive Trilogy) by Clara Bellweather
- The Language of Bees (Voices of the Hive Trilogy) by Clara Bellweather
- The Keeper of Tides (Voices of the Hive Trilogy) by Clara Bellweather
- The Language of Leaves (The Silent Companions) by Clara Bellweather
- The Marginal Truth (The Silent Companions) by Clara Bellweather
- The Stitched Confession (The Silent Companions) by Clara Bellweather
- Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley
- Sword and Silk: The Legend of Julie d'Aubigny by Maeve Campbell
- La Maupin : The Scandalous Story of Julie d'Aubigny by C.C. Parke
- The Black Lark's Oath by Tess Wilder
- Embers on the Moor by Giada Moretti
- Unfinished Story by Jade Winters
- The Midnight Daughters by Aeressa
- The Hidden Petition (Beacon Hill Mysteries #1) by Maeve McQueen
- The House of Hidden Hearts by Matus Zelenay
- E.V. Bancroft by E.V. Bancroft
- A Very Hamble Christmas by E.V. Bancroft
- Star & Thea at Court by A V Kakkad
- The Hidden Flower in the Palace: A Queer Court Tragedy by Shin Hwayoon
- She-Wolf: A Sapphic Beowulf Retelling by E.K. O'Connor
- The Fifth Day of Her Heart by Richard Cicay
- The Found Family Victory (Salvation's Edge #1) by Lady K
- Belonging to the Air by Avery Irons
- Joe the Pirate by Hubert
- A Slow and Secret Poison by Carmella Lowkis
- What I’ve been consuming
- Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia
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
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMPSaturday, February 7, 2026 - 09:00
Having concluded that I'm going to postpone the On the Shelf podcast for a day or two in hopes that I'll get all the story contracts back and can announce the line-up in the show, I'm finishing up the last of the current prepared set of blogs with this exploration into why lesbian convent pornography was quite so popular in 18th century France.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Rivers, Christopher. 1995. “Safe Sex: The Prophylactic Walls of the Cloister in the French Libertine Convent Novel of the Eighteenth Century” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 5, No. 3: 381-402
This article focuses on the highly specific genre of 18th century French erotic “convent novels,” part of the larger genre of libertine literature. Within the field of libertine novels, clerical themes—especially those relating to nuns and convents—are more common than references to prostitution and brothels. Such works combine the double-taboo of sex and religion. And the focus on convents brings in a third transgressive element: lesbianism. The author argues that there are enough similarities of theme and content to declare the “libertine convent novel” an identifiable genre.
As a prototype for the genre, Venus dans le cloître (Venus in the cloister) adopts the “sexual initiation dialogue” format found in L’Escole des filles and transposes it to the convent, marking a “transition between seventeeth-century libertinism (free thought with respect to religious questions) and eighteenth-century libertinism (free religious thought combined with free sexual expression.” An extensive list of other works in the genre is given (only some of which are listed in the tags for this publication). But there seems to be an obligatory convent scene in most libertine novels of the era.
Why this particular thematic intersection? The author suggests such works are a targeted resistance to the religious and secular power structures of 18th century France, without being a reaction to any one specific event or factor. The form of the genre is relatively static across the era of its popularity, rather than dynamically commenting on specific circumstances. Why lesbianism? While depicting f/f sex simultaneously as titillating and forbidden, situating it in the convent also depicts it as “subordinate, contained within walls both literal and figurative.” It is both transgressive and unthreatening. On a philosophical level, the novels address the question of whether homosexuality is “natural” or perverted.
The author notes that, following the Foucaultian premise that repression creates eroticism, the convent as the most intense site of sexual repression becomes the “most highly charged site of pornographic fantasy.” In the premise that convents inevitably breed homosexuality, the Madonna/whore distinction is erased and anti-clerical and misogynistic forces are bound together. While other single-sex venues, such as the Ottoman harem, also attracted erotic same-sex fantasies, these were set apart from the everyday experience of the French reader, whereas everyone would know at least one person with connections to the convent.
The texts themselves express the concept that, in shutting sex out, convents necessarily shut it in as well. Erotic impulses that cannot be denied entirely are focused inward, invisible to the outside world. The imagined female sexual pedagogy of L’Escole des filles is acted out between a novice and an older nun, with no waiting heterosexual outlet for the knowledge and expertise. The initiation into sexual pleasure is accompanied by indoctrination into libertine philosophy, including the questioning of all religious authority. This pedagogical context is reinforced within the text as religious mentors recommend to their novice-pupils specific real-life titles in the genre of sexual instruction. As convents of the time served as a site of scholarship and literacy for young women, the two themes blend seamlessly. The philosophical principles align with Enlightenment valorization of “nature,” arguing that as Nature bestowed sexual desire on women, it is acceptable—even necessary—to respect and act on that desire. Most typically, sexual instruction is not predatory (although there are exceptions) but comes in the form of an awakening and recognition of existing desires.
In these novels, the connection between lesbianism and the convent goes both ways: convents inevitably give rise to lesbians, but references to lesbianism (in the novels) inevitably include some connection to convents. (A connection that remained in the popular imagination well into the 19th century.)
In parallel with all the above, lesbianism within the convent is depicted as “a harmless, pleasurable, and necessary substitute…for heterosexual sex.” Regardless of how much the nuns enjoy themselves, there is an inevitable nod to how much better it would be if they had access to men. The younger secular “pupils” often end their stories longing for their release from the convent to the joys of marriage. If they return afterwards to their female lovers, it is to recount their heterosexual adventures. (There are, of course, inherent contradictions in this, as the erotic context of these recountings continues to be a homosexual one.)
Thus, in contrast with the internal philosophical arguments that desire is natural and must be obeyed, same-sex desire is alleged to be “unnatural” in that it is provoked and satisfied only by the constraints of the convent that exclude the possibility of heterosexual encounters. This satisfies any potential anxieties in the audience that non-cloistered women might be engaging in lesbianism from preference.
The conversations within the convent call what they’re doing “foolishness” and “play.” But the clear framing within libertine literature of lesbianism as the most transgressive sex imaginable contradicts this supposed triviality. (Male homosexuality is, of course, even more transgressive but appear to be far less “imaginable” within the context of libertine literature of the day.)
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Thursday, February 5, 2026 - 10:00
Two points make a line and two posts clarify which cluster of articles I'm working on currently. Yes, it's a pornography theme again.
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LHMPFull citation:
Larson, Ruth. 1997. “Sex and Civility in a 17th-Century Dialogue: L’Escole des filles” in Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, no. 47: 497-514.
This article examines the 17th century pornographic text L’Escole des filles (School for girls) not only as a sexual dialogue but as a satire (or at least reflection) of the fashion for pedagogical texts aimed at women and girls. This is illustrated (literally) by the frontispiece image in the 1668 edition, which depicts figures representing the two women in the dialogue studying a copy of the book itself in an academic setting.
The article begins with a brief publication history. The first edition published in France in 1655 was immediately banned, but Dutch editions soon supplied the market and the work was widely distributed across Europe. Authorship has been hotly debated and most critical studies have focused on it as a pioneering work of pornography—a focus dating to 18th century discourse about the book. Occasional discussions have raised the theme appearing in this article: interpreting it as a “sex manual” or perhaps a “seduction manual,” situated within a tradition of works of moral education for women (and their satires, as with Molière’s L’Ecole des femmes, published 1660).
This emerging tradition of pedagogical works reflects contrasting shifts: printed educational works (in the vernacular) made their subjects accessible to a broad range of the population, while also undermining the expectation of individual knowledge and expertise. In this specific case, rather than sexual education being something one received from family and neighbors, it became a type of esoteric knowledge only transmissible by “experts.”
Another contradiction comes from the (almost certain) male authorship of the text contrasted with the internal framing of the content as passed from one woman to another. Some scholars discussing this point make rather tenuous claims for a “tradition” of considering women to be the experts in erotic arts in the pre-modern world. Larson suggests instead that the image of the “female sexual pedagogue” did exist, but as an invention of male authors. The dynamics of textual production mean that, to the extent that there was a tradition of women as sexual teachers, it would have been an oral tradition.
As noted previously, the other relevant tradition was that of manuals of moral and social education which had become prevalent in the 17th century. These manuals were typically created for (or one might say, aimed at) a female audience as part of the program of controlling and shaping women’s behavior. This tradition had existed for at least a century at the time L’Escole des filles was published, starting with works such as Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, which aimed to define standards and structures of polite and refined behavior. In contrast to earlier genres of instruction that focused on biographies and stories, these were more prescriptive and organized more as a reference work with indexes and descriptive headings.
The Counter-Reformation and its focus on feminine moral instruction was a significant driver in this fashion, but the contents have significant secular focus. The books themselves might emphasize the dangers of human teacher as contrasted with a text that could be reviewed for appropriateness and approved prior to dissemination.
The tradition of sexual texts also contributed to the format and nature of L’Escole des filles. Aretino’s 16th century Ragionamenti (dialogues) adapted an existing tradition of dialogue-based exposition to sexual topics, using discussion between female characters. The best-known sexual text had been versions of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, presenting itself as instruction in seduction and successful sexual relationships. Both works were, at heart, cynical satires presenting women as focused on how to exploit men sexually for their own advantage (with some nods to the economic factors that inspired such an attitude). Both were primarily satirizing social conditions, with the sexual aspects as the medium of that critique. In contrast, L’Escole des filles primarily satirizes the process of educational instruction, with the sexual content presented as titillation for the reader, where earlier works had framed sex as a tool rather than an experience. Where Aretino treats sex itself cynically, L’Escole emphasizes the importance of sexual pleasure and the ability to both experience and provide it.
There is a constant tension in L’Escole between orality and textuality. It is both: a written text representing an interactive dialogue. Initially structured as a casual conversation between the ingenue and her experienced mentor about an upcoming marriage, it moves on to a more structured presentation of information, such as a catalog of terminology for sexual organs and acts. In this structure, it resembles philosophical dialogues. The success of this instruction is manifest, not simply in the ingenue’s new sexual knowledge (and practice), but in her overall increase in social fluency and self-confidence.
Returning to the topic of L’Escole as a “textbook,” Larson details the structural elements of the text and how it “fragments” the contents in to modules that might be studied or reviewed as needed, made easier by a detailed index of topics. The author’s preface is a parody of similar introductions in educational manuals.
The article ends with an anecdote potentially tying together the traditions of conduct and sex manuals more closely. One of the accused authors of the text was a sometime tenant of the widow of the author of the first French conduct manual. Coincidence or synergy?
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Monday, February 2, 2026 - 10:00
I really needed to have read this article before I wrote the trope podcast episode about familial models in f/f relationships.
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LHMPFull citation:
Loveday, Kiki. “Sister Acts: Victorian Porn, Lesbian Drag, and Queer Reproduction” in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, vol. 60, no. 2, 2019, pp. 201–26.
This article addresses the ticklish topic of the “sapphic incest motif” in erotic art and drama around the turn of the 20th century. Multiple themes braid together within this general context. The rhetorical use of “sisterhood” in support of feminist and sapphic communities. (It isn’t too far a stretch to assert the existence of sapphic communities at this point.) The use of actual or fictional family ties to defuse potential sapphic readings, as with actress Charlotte Cushman’s Romeo playing opposite her real-life sister’s Juliet. And the imagery of implied (or actual) family ties in deliberately erotic imagery, such as “French postcards” depicting nude women.
Focusing for a moment on Cushman’s Romeo: there was an entire industry of pop culture depictions of her and her sister in these roles, encompassing Staffordshire china figurines and lithographs. The mollifying factor of casting her sister as Juliet is contradicted by later performances in which her Juliet was played by at least two of her female lovers (Matilda Hays and Sarah Anderton).
Another thread in the public debates around the definition and perception of incest appears in the long consideration of an English bill concerning the legality of a man marrying his dead wife’s sister. Some have connected this concern to male pornographic fantasies and depictions of “having both sisters,” while pornographic images of pairs of women embracing raised the specter that the sisters might prefer each other instead.
The depiction or presentation of “sister acts” in art and on stage created a gradient of eroticism from explicit postcards to musical and comedy acts in with “sisterhood” could be interpreted as standing in for lesbian sexual relationships (even when performed by real-life sisters). The gradient was expanded further by Victorian attempts to re-define the historical Sappho’s same-sex desire as maternal in nature, focusing on the image of her as a teacher and mentor. [Note: At the same time, some women in erotic relationships used the language of mother-daughter bonds, with no actual familial basis.]
These tangled popular culture connections between family bonds and erotic connections carried over into early 20th century theatrical imagery, such as the vaudeville sister act known as Tempest and Sunshine who appear on the covers of sheet music publications with one sister in drag and the two in a romantic embrace, illustrating songs of courtship and love. Silent films in the pre-Hayes Code era were rife with imagery of “sisters” (whether in terms of the characters or the actresses) in eroticized scenes.
The author suggests that, rather than the ambiguity of “sisterhood” providing a deniable cover for lesbian eroticism, this imagery demonstrates that “any such invisibility or ‘deniability’ was produced in relation to an overwhelming abundance of visibility and plausibility.” That is, any deniability is being projected by modern critics rather than being attributable to the women participating in the production of these images at the time. (A large number of relevant early film titles are mentioned.)
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Saturday, January 31, 2026 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 334 - Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 334 – Fiction Double-Header: Down By the Tumbling Stream by E C Hallewell & Where You Go by Jennifer Nestojko - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/01/31 - listen here)
Submissions for the 2026 fiction series close today, so this episode’s stories were bought as part of the 2025 call for submissions. When I had my choices narrowed down to only one more story than I had slots for, I noticed that two of the remaining pool, taken together, were still below the 5000 word limit so there was no reason to say no to any of them. (Mind you, I’m not saying that these two specific stories were going head to head for a spot. Simply that it gave me an easy out.) I tend to view the word limit more as a budgetary cap, though doubling up on scheduling does have its own complications. The only other time I’ve had a double episode it involved two flash fiction pieces by the same author. So I’ll introduce and air the first story, then have a brief musical transition, then introduce and air the second story. Don’t leave too early!
Rather than flipping a coin, I’ve arranged them in chronological order of the setting. “Down By the Tumbling Stream” by EC Hallewell is set in the Cumbria region of England in the early part of the 17th century, before the English Civil War. It’s a tale of yearning and barriers and second chances with quite a twist at the end.
EC Hallewell grew up in the Lake District, England, and now lives in Scotland with a small child and a large hoard of books. The lakes and fells of their childhood often sneak into their writing, as does the windswept Scottish coastline. They tend to write sad, slightly strange queer tales. When they’re not writing, you’ll find them taking long walks by the water – any water will do! You can find them on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/echallewell.bsky.social. See the links in the show notes.
We tried to arrange for a narrator with the proper local accent, but alas it didn’t work out, so I will be doing the narration for both stories.
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. This statement applies to both stories in this episode.
Down by the Tumbling Stream
By EC Hallewell
After the fourth time we slipped away, I knew we would be lovers.
From the melancholy hysteria of the harvest festival, we fled into the dark woods, laughing drunk, bumping shoulders and catching each other when we stumbled. Your hands were smaller than my husband’s, and so much kinder.
Under empty branches and a cloud-black sky, we walked until the din faded and the lakeshore willows gave way to hawthorn, ash, and oak. We came to Waters Meet and your bad hip was aching, so we crossed the beck to rest under the old rowan tree. Far overhead, the clouds parted, and the world lit up silver.
“I used to swim here when I was a lass,” you said.
“Aye, me too.”
We sat with shoulders pressed together, and watched the becks merge with a flicker and a swirl, catching starlight only to let it go.
True night was falling. Away from the festival, from our families, we might have been alone in the valley. Behind us, Skiddaw was a black wall; above us twined bare branches and then — the sky. A vastness veiled by scudding clouds.
“It’s almost too big,” you whispered.
I couldn’t reply, flattened by the mass of stars and their hard light.
“They’ll be singing the blessings by now,” you said.
“We could sing our own.”
“We should get back,” you said.
Before anyone noticed we were gone, and whispers flew from barbed tongues.
But to go back felt like failure. To give up the night and your shoulder against mine, and to wake in the morning wrapped in layers of skin like peeling paint, a wooden doll with an empty smile.
“We could go on,” I said.
“…We could.”
You hesitated, then brought from your pocket a small flask of fragrant juniper spirits.
“Made this for you.”
I held out a hand, but you lifted the rim of the flask to your own lips. Where it touched, it left an indent, one that would fit my finger if I were to press it there. You took a sip, then passed me the flask. With shaking fingers, I held it to my lips, inhaled the sharp berry scent, then drank. Liquid fire swirled around my mouth and shot to my stomach, setting me aflame.
“Is it good?” Your voice was low, rough from the spirits or from something I did not yet dare think about.
“It is.”
I tried to hand it back, but your fingers curled over mine and you pressed it to my chest.
“A gift.”
I swallowed. “Thank you.”
We went back to the festival, to orange lanterns and raucous song. The children of Hawse and Crossthwate were sleeping in piles like puppies in the warmth of the dying bonfires, watched over by mothers and aunts and grandmamas. And so, for a while, we sat beyond the edge of the light, bundled against the night in bright wool blankets.
We leaned closer over hot apple cider until your face blurred and the gaps nestled within our conversation grew longer. You told me you loved your husband, though you never wished to be a wife. You told me you loved your children, though you never wished to be a mother. I tried to understand, but the violent silence of my husband’s low stone cottage held few answers.
I asked myself again why you chose to run away with me, when you already had so much. And in a drunken haze I finally let an answer in when I licked cider from my lower lip and your eyes followed the movement and your own lips parted in a sigh.
But we were still too tame, creatures of our homesteads, dutiful daughters and wives.
And so we went home, and the long empty winter drew in. On the surface a wooden doll draped in undyed wool, underneath I dreamed of you as I darned shirts and whittled new spoons for my kitchen, pricking and slicing my wooden skin until I reached something real. My blood stained red the threads over my husband’s heart, and sank into the thirsty wood to touch every meal I made. I wanted to suck it out, but then my teeth would have been red too, and I was not ready for that. Instead, I sipped juniper and let your heat flow down into my belly, ran my tongue around the hole of your flask as my fingers slipped beneath my skirts.
Our villages were close enough to celebrate the harvest, to lend space on a cart for the sheep auctions over in Keswick, but in the hungry depths of winter we turned in on ourselves, shunned anything outside our separate circles of light, while out on the fells the starving wolves howled.
I saw you, once, in the distance. When the lake froze over and everyone rushed out in joy at the novelty of it. Away to the north, where the stream came down from Hawse. I recognised you from your stature, your feigned nonchalance, the way you held your bad hip as you skated across thin ice. You wove slow loops and occasionally span like the wind had caught you. I wanted to ask you to hold me, to teach me how to dance. But instead, I lent my niece a hand and pulled her along until she fell over from giggling, and then we went to my sister’s home for mulled ale and cake, while my husband chased blush-cheeked young women across the lake.
Spring came in waves; now unfurling, now shrinking from the frost, now tentatively opening again; a touch of bright colour where crocuses pushed up through the snow. Wood sorrel and wild garlic spread across the meadows and under the trees, and bright sap rushed in branch and twig and swelling bud. Green scents called my blood to run faster.
And, finally, the lake thawed completely and there was a new warmth in the air, and I dreamed each night of slipping into the water and drifting under the stars.
Lambing time came and went, and our villages prepared for May Day. The women hung garlands of yellow flowers and made grinning masks of twigs and grasses and green-stained wool; the men built great piles of wood on the shore by St Bega’s, ready to become blazing bonfires.
Young ones at the cusp of adulthood gathered in the lengthening evenings and thought their parents could not see the lingering glances, the pink cheeks and brushing hands.
I thought of you.
The sun shone bright and hot on our festival. I chased shadows down to the water, stood under weeping willows and watched wavelets lap at smooth stones.
In the breathless quiet of this sanctuary, you came to me.
Our husbands were gone to drink ale with the other men, your children to splash in the water and beg sweet treats of the baker. Veiled from the festival by trailing branches with their deathly soft catkins, we were almost alone.
Yours were the only eyes that did not fill me with discomfort. When they caught me, I did not want to look away. They were brown and soft and filled with liquid luminosity, and I felt rather than caused the movement of my fingers, my feet towards you. Like a lodestone to a heart’s desire, every part of me was drawn to every part of you.
You fascinated and frightened me. Beneath your neatly embroidered blouse and pressed linen apron, beneath your learned smile and the dazzling true one, beneath your skin, there was something more, something else.
“Hello, you,” you said.
I melted like candlewax.
“Hello.”
And in those two syllables were the things I could not say with my human tongue: let me lay you down and unravel you; I want to understand every part of you – would you want the same of me? If I rest my fingers on your flushed cheek, will you kiss me? Do you think of me late at night, in your bath, when your lips touch a tumbler of cool water? I want you to shiver when my mouth brushes your skin.
A fire is in my stomach. Come, love, come, away from the music and the people. Down by the tumbling stream, hidden by bramble thickets and sharp coconut gorse, we can be alone.
The bank is green with damp moss and sedge. We sit, let our skirts soak through. Your fingers tremble as you reach for me; your eyes are wide as if you are afraid.
“We could go back,” I say.
“We could.”
With your fingertips, you trace the curve of my lips. Your words mingle with the hollow sounds of the stream. “You are like nothing I have known.”
I cannot speak. I let my lips fall open, take your finger between my teeth. As I bite down, you make a noise between a gasp and a moan, and heat rushes through me, undeniable. I reach for you and you for me and your lips are upon mine, as soft as I had imagined, and as hungry.
Slick tongues and teeth that leave marks; eager fingers seeking skin. With fumbling hands and panting breaths, we discard the trappings of humanity. My fingers brush your ribs, your tongue finds the hollow of my neck and you lick away a swathe of my skin. A moment of agony, then a soft warmth spreads.
Taking turns, we strip away layers with rough tongues that ache and burn. With each fresh revealing, there is further to go. We keep on and keep on, desperate in our need.
The sun scorches raw flesh and we slip into the stream, into cool water that dances over our heads as we tumble.
Claws emerge from the stubs of our fingers, and we rake at tattered remnants of the skins we have shed. The water carries them away, washes clean the brown fur underneath until it gleams in the fractal light.
At last, we are done.
The bank of the stream feels different under the thick pads of my paws. We drag weary limbs from the water and, spent, collapse onto the moss. Sleek furred bodies twined together, we nuzzle one another’s faces, drop gentle bites like kisses on round cheeks and black noses. In the warmth of the spring sun, we can close our eyes and finally rest.
We wake, and love the dance of the water, the heat of the sun on our bellies, fresh fish caught between sharp teeth. There is an echo, sometimes, in the empty night, of something left behind. But behind slips from our grasp like quick darting prey and we let it go, content to drift under the stars.
Jennifer Nestojko has been a regular contributor to the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast’s fiction program. “Where You Go” is the fourth story of hers that we’ve published. The setting is 17th century Germany and it shares the themes of yearning and second chances that the previous story featured.
Jennifer Nestojko is a writer and a teacher who lives near Monterey, CA. The past is full of stories, and the most intriguing are the ones that are hidden by other narratives. Jennifer wants to give voice to some of those stories and experiences, because they speak to the stories of those who are here now and may also be silenced by dominant narratives. She also just likes a good story and is excited to be part of this series.
Where You Go
by Jennifer Nestojko
The smell of warm bread filled the front of the house as Hilde removed the finished loaves and placed them on the work table, which was worn from generations of farm women preparing food for their families. Hilde loved the aromas that filled this part of her little domain and she loved the sense of moving in the same space as her mother and grandmother. She had grown up by this hearth, had shaped her first Easter loaves here, made her first soups and stews under her mother’s watchful eye. She wondered how much longer this would be her space. Too much had happened since summer’s heat and the harvest’s plenty.
Easter was just now past, with its baking and celebrations, and spring was moving forward. Hilde carefully covered the loaves with a cloth and looked at the flowers arranged in an earthenware cup in the center of the work table. That was Liesl’s work, and Hilde smiled to herself. It had been a hard autumn and winter, following the sudden death of Johan, and Hilde was gladdened by the sight of the flowers. Liesl was coming out of her grief at the death of her father.
Hilde checked on the hearthfire. It was still cool in the evenings, though she thought bread and cheese would suffice for her meal. Liesl was at the spring festival in town and had been given enough coin to buy her supper and some trinket. Where would she be without Liesl, she wondered. No one quite knew what she had given up when she married so that the farm’s legacy could continue. She had been an only child, and she was grateful for Hans, her son. Liesl could marry well and move to her new home as its mistress. As Hilde busied herself about, doing the little clean up needed, she wondered what life would be like once Hans and his wife took over the house and she went to the cottage down by the brook. Empty. That’s what it would be. Liesl would be near, but starting her own life soon. As it should be, she thought to herself fiercely.
As if summoned by Hilde’s thoughts, the door to the house burst open and Liesl came running in, her face alight with excitement. She was followed by a new girl, someone Hilde did not know, though Hilde twisted her hands in her skirts, trying to hide the shock she felt at such a familiar face on such an unknown girl.
“Mutti, look” said Liesl eagerly, “This is Anne. She is here with the players.”
The players were a troupe of puppeteers who had fled from England some thirty years before and who traveled through the lowlands and high country, performing their plays and comedies. England had become hostile to players and their like, but they were well received wherever they went now. They came through the village every two or three years, always with new offerings as well as old favorites, such as Punch and Judy. Hilde had eagerly watched their plays once, when she was a girl. Before she was married. She had not gone down to the town festival for many a year, claiming to be needed at home when Johan took the children there. He had teased her about it, but she claimed to be just as pleased to have some peace for once.
“Welcome, Anne” replied Hilde formally, pleased to keep an even tone “Is there anything I can get you?”
“No, thank you,” replied the girl, with a soft curtsy. “I shall have my supper back at the camp. I need to help get ready for tonight’s performance.”
“It’s a small play adapted from the English stage,” offered Liesl. She turned admiring eyes to Anne. “I know girls can’t do the acting, but Anne helps make the puppets and the costumes and all. She let me sew up a gown today. It had velvet and little pearls.” Liesl laughed: “I liked it better than if I were the one wearing it.”
Hilde frowned. “Liesl, you should not be getting in the way.”
Anne smiled at Liesl, and there were secrets dancing in her eyes. Hilde felt the stirrings of alarm, watching Liesl carefully. Liesl seemed to be leaning in to Anne; they seemed far more familiar than expected for a chance encounter.
“Oh no, Liesl is not in the way. She is quite welcome and a great help,” replied Anne demurely.
Liesl took a deep breath and turned to her mother. “I have wonderful news! They have asked me to travel with them for the rest of their circuit. I have always wanted to see more of the world; isn’t this a splendid opportunity?”
“Are you mad, child?” Hilde asked. “What about Matz?”
Liesl frowned and reached for Anne’s hand. “Matz and I are dear friends, yes,” she responded. “But I don’t see why he should mind. He’s known of my wish to travel for years.”
I haven’t known, thought Hilde. I never knew this about my own daughter. The thought stung.
“What about his farm?” asked Hilde coldly. “He needs a wife. You know that.”
“Then he should find one,” said Liesl, with a little stamp. “It shouldn’t be me!”
“And why not?” responded Hilde, still more coldly. She felt a deep anger rising up in her. “It’s a good life. He’s a good man.”
“I don’t want that life,” said Liesl coldly, matching her mother’s tone. That stamp had indicated a more fiery response was coming, but Hilde had seen the little tug on the hand from Anne, and she knew her daughter was taking that cue. It made her angrier, seeing Anne’s face, framed by dark curls, with that famed English complexion. That face – she couldn’t look at her for long.
“You don’t have much choice,” replied Hilde.
“What if she does?” interjected Anne. “What if my aunt and my family can watch over her? She is quick with the work needed for the costumes and the set. We winter near this town, so she can come back then.”
Hilde was watching Liesl’s face – she caught the tightening of her lips. She did not mean to return for winter snows. She did not mean to return.
“No, impossible,” she said. “Say your goodbyes now. This is foolish.”
Liesl said nothing. She stared at her mother for a moment, then turned away and walked out of the house, almost pulling Anne behind her.
Hilde was stunned. What had just happened? Her anger did not die down; it seemed to grow until it hurt too much to contain. She did not know how to release it, and in a blind rage she did the only thing she knew to do in such a moment. She cleaned.
In less than a month she was moving to the cottage. Sophie, Hans’ bride of three years, was more than able to take over. Hilde started sorting her clothing, packing most of it into the chest that had stayed at the foot of the bed her entire married life. It had been a wedding gift from her aunt, the one who had never married and who had been the village seamstress for years. She was the one who had taught Liesl such fine handwork.
Her entire life seemed to fit into that one chest. Some of her garments were turned swiftly into rags for cleaning, and she had little jewelry. The cuckoo clock, her pots and pans, her household figures, all seemed to belong to the house rather than her. She had her good aprons, for holy days and festivals, and she had two dresses for church, and then her daily clothing. Her hands seemed to fold without her having any involvement. They went about their tasks quickly, not needing direction. Not needing her.
She focused so hard on not thinking the next thought, feeling the emotion beneath the anger, that she failed to hear a rapping on the door, nor did she hear the door open. She slowly became aware of the figure at the entrance to her room, watching her. Hilde looked up, knowing, almost, what she was going to see.
A woman of her own age stood there, dressed much like she was dressed. She had dark curls peeking out from beneath her coif and, even now, a clear English complexion. Hilde did not know how to read her expression. She did not know what betrayal was on her own face.
“I figured,” she began, and then couldn’t speak for a moment. “Anne?” she asked.
The woman kept her hands beneath her apron. “She is my niece,” she replied. “Unlike you, I never married. My sister died when Anne was an infant, and I have raised her as my own.”
“Mary,” began Hilde, and then stopped. Mary kept looking at her, her brown eyes more of a mystery than they ever had been.
“Mary,” she began again. “I had to. I had to. I had no choice.”
“No?” asked Mary. Then she sighed and reached out a hand to Hilde. Hilde looked at the outstretched hand a moment, then reached out her own, accepting the help to her feet.
“Ach,” she said, “those girls do not appreciate their youth.”
Mary was silent as they went out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. She sat on the offered stool and calmly accepted a slice of warm bread with honey. Neither woman spoke for a few minutes, breaking bread together.
“I waited by the brook for you,” Mary said, her words like pebbles tossed into a pool.
“I told you not to,” replied Hilde, defensively. This wasn’t real; she had imagined this conversation for years when she was younger. It was mad that she thought it was happening now, that Mary was actually here, eating her bread.
“I know,” said Mary. “I was hopeful, and then I was angry.” She looked at Hilde. “Then, I was sad. I have looked for you when we have come to your town.”
Hilde looked away. “I could not go. I had made my choice.” The only choice, which made it no choice at all.
Mary sighed and reached across the table, taking Hilde’s hand. “Would it have been so bad to see me, so bad to speak to me in the marketplace?”
Hilde refused to meet her glance, but she gripped Mary’s hand tightly. “Yes,” she said.
After a moment Mary let go of her hand. She stood, straightened her skirts, and then walked swiftly to the door, opened it, and walked through.
Hilde stayed up all through the night, sitting in Johan’s old chair, which had always been the more comfortable. She did not bank the coals but kept the small fire in the fireplace going, watching the flames. She watched as the logs were consumed by flame, watched as they crumbled to ash only to be replaced by new logs. In the morning she knew the ashes would be swept away, by her, possibly to be of some later use in making soap or in the garden or for deterring pests.
Sophie was more than capable of such tasks, and she had more energy. Hilde could help here and there and she could keep the cottage, but such a role was nothing more than a burning down to embers before becoming ash and then nothing. Even in the midst of her bleak reflections, her lips twitched at the idea of becoming soap. That could be very interesting, actually, as long as she wasn’t used for dishes. She had had enough of washing dishes.
Hilde had been dozing in the chair, but woke as the door opened. It was Liesl coming home in the early reaches of dawn, opening the door quietly, as if hoping that her mother was still sleeping in her bed. Hilde had always been up early, but that was because Johan needed to see to the animals, and that was a task for Hans now. Sophie was the one waking early and Hilde sometimes woke just past dawn’s light. Liesl obviously hoped that this was one of those mornings as she tiptoed to the stairs. Hilde feigned sleep, and Liesl crept up to the loft. Hilde heard her moving about the room, and the thumps did not sound like the noises made when preparing for sleep. Like mother, like daughter, Hilde thought, wearily, remembering her own packing. Liesl was not planning to stay; she was sneaking out and leaving with her new friends. She felt the start of tears against her eyelids and swiftly suppressed them. She had much practice in keeping tears away.
“Well?” she asked, startling her daughter who was trying to miss the creaking boards on the stairs. Hans had been so much craftier at sneaking out. Liesl had never tried to do so, until now.
“Mother?” Liesl said, looking around the shadowy room, and finally spotting her.
“Were you going to sneak away, like a thief?” asked Hilde. “What, no goodbye?”
Liesl looked confused, came down the rest of the way, then stood, defiant. “You told me I cannot go. I am making my own choice. I won’t let you stop me.”
“That would be good dialogue for one of your puppet shows,” said Hilde, standing up. “I am sure I have heard those lines before.”
Liesl snorted. “You never go to the shows. What do you know?”
Hilde put her hand on Liesl’s hair, admiring the gold that still shone even in the muted light. Her own hair once was that shade. “Is it Anne?” She stroked her daughter’s braids, much as she had when Liesl was younger. “Do you love her?”
Liesl choked a little and blushed. “She is very kind to me, Mutti.”
Hilde sighed. “You love her like you do not love Matz.” She almost laughed at the shocked look on Liesl’s face. Mothers know nothing. They never had.
“Liebchen,” she said, and sighed again. Why was this so hard? “Liebchen, tell Anne to keep you close and keep you safe. You have my blessing.”
Liesl stared at her, trying to parse out the layered meaning in her mother’s words. Tears came more readily to her eyes than her mother’s; a few slipped down her cheek.
Hilde embraced her daughter. She had so much to say, and no words ready for the speaking. “Send word now and then,” she whispered. Liesl nodded. Hilde released her. “Come back and visit,” she said. “Anne as well.”
After Liesl had left, tears still in her eyes, Hilde felt a bit lost. Her anger had changed shape; it now tasted of grief as well. She had been angry for so many years, despite her good life. Her husband had been a kind man and a friend. Her children were gifts. Yet underneath it all she had been angry, and now she understood that her anger had always been paired with grief.
Soon she would be moved to the small cottage. There had never been choices for her, not really, not with so many expectations hanging on them. They were the expectations of others, but they were real and she had felt their weight. Now she was old and done and out of the choices she never really had possessed.
She drifted over to the small secret cubby beneath the stair; it had been her hiding place since she was five and her aunt had shown it to her. She opened it up and drew out an old box wrapped in cloth. She sat it on the table while she had her small breakfast. She missed her husband; his death had ripped a hole in her life and changed everything. She missed her daughter with a fierce ache that burned deep inside, even though she had left only an hour past. She missed her son, though he was nearby.
She missed herself, who she had been, who she was at different moments in her life. Who was she now that husband, daughter, and son were swallowed up into their adult selves or into death?
Hilde tidied up and, sick of her own company in that empty space, so familiar and yet no longer her own, she grabbed the box and walked outside, draping a cloak about her, for the morning was cold. She walked down to the brook, following the winding little path worn by many feet before her. The leaves were showing their new green and there were daffodils and tulips adding color against the boles of the trees. The brook rushed along, finally coming to a small pool and quieting its chatter. In the summer it was a deep brown with shafts of light through the trees turning the depths golden in spots. She loved it, even though it had always made her think of another pair of brown eyes. Johan’s eyes had been blue, similar to her own.
There was a spot where tree roots wove a comfortable seat, especially now since her backside was more cushioned than in former years. She nestled into it, feeling the comfort of its familiarity. She had come to the brook with children and spouse many times, but this space was her own. There were other pools, suitable for children swimming on hot days; this one was too small. It did not feel foreign to her, as her own house was becoming foreign. Had it been just yesterday that she was baking bread and remembering her mother and grandmother, had been thinking of her place in that long chain of women? Of course, she had still been aware of losing that place.
There was a soft murmuring of water here, not the laughing chatter or the louder rush amongst the rocks that could be found elsewhere. It soothed her, and Hilde listened to it for a long while before picking up the box and unwrapping it, gently folding the cloth and laying it aside. The box had been lovingly carved with small faces and trees and flowers, and she traced the face of one particularly amusing gnome that had always been a favorite.
She heard the steps down the path and knew who must be coming. This had been their meeting spot, so long ago.
“Open it,” Mary said. “I did not know that you had kept it.”
Hilde opened the box, removing the small puppet that was nestled within. Its face had been carved with the same care as the box, and it wore a faded dress of velvet. It had a crown on its head. “I would never have thrown it away,” she replied. “Never.”
She waited for Mary to respond with something pithy and bitter – you threw me away – but Mary just sat near her on a protruding root. They had once fit together in the nest of roots.
“It really should see the stage again,” Mary said. Hilde felt the ache inside of her grow.
“Liesl could make it a new dress,” she offered. “Since she will be leaving with you.” She could not keep the echo of loss from her voice.
Mary put her arm around her, drawing her close. Hilde held herself stiff for a moment, then relaxed. “I like the dress it has,” Mary replied. “It was made by the most amazing seamstress.”
Hilde laughed. “Liesl is much better at that than I ever was,” she said. “She has a better sense of color and her stitches are more even.”
Mary held her closer. “Liesl is Anne’s. You were mine.”
Hilde watched the water, not knowing what to say. She remembered the girl who had found love in the most unexpected way. She remembered their little staged shows here by the brook, with no audience but for a few robins and a saucy squirrel. There has been kisses exchanged, and more. The sun was making its way to the pool, lighting parts golden brown. She had once watched for nothing but the golden lights of Mary’s eyes and the shape of her smile. Now Mary was leaving and taking Liesl with her. For a moment she despised the cottage, which was a lovely cottage with roses and small windows and charming cupboards. It did not deserve such hatred, really.
Moments passed, and then it seemed as if an unspoken question had been answered. Mary sighed and stood up. “I must be going; we will be travelling by nightfall.” She turned towards the path.
Hilde also stood up and watched as Mary started up the path. Something within her shifted, or perhaps she finally heard the question Mary had been asking, and she cried out. “Mary – Mary,” was all she could say, and then twenty years of withheld tears erupted, and she bent over, shuddering with sobs.
“No, no, dearest,” Mary murmured, rushing back, holding her, pressing kisses onto her hair, onto her neck, rubbing her back. Hilde held on tightly, trying to stop her sobs. Finally, she quieted, and tried to step away. She looked into Mary’s brown eyes, and then Mary pressed her lips to hers. The years fell away for just a moment.
After, Mary brushed aside her own tears. “I heard Liesl’s story,” she said. “When she said she had a choice, that she wanted a choice. I thought, so many years ago, that you had made a choice, but you really didn’t see that there was one, did you?”
Hilde nodded. No, she had been tied to this place, but she found that she was no longer angry that Liesl had choices, even if her own were over or had never been.
“Dearheart,” Mary said. “So much has changed. I am hopefully wiser as well as older, and I stopped being angry years ago.” Mary cupped Hilde’s face in her hands, looking tentative, but hopeful. “Would you wish to come with me now? This time?”
Oh, Hilde thought. She did have choices. She smiled up at Mary, a shy smile that became a grin.
“Well,” she said. “It’s a good thing that I have already packed.”
Show Notes
This quarter’s fiction episode presents two stories:
- "Down By the Tumbling Stream" EC Hallewell, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
- "Where You Go" Jennifer Nestojko, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
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
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to EC Hallewell Online
- Bluesky: @echallewell.bsky.social
Major category:
LHMPFriday, January 30, 2026 - 10:00
This is a fascinatingly detailed article and quotes extensively from the original records. (This added a number of items to my growing database of f/f-related sexual vocabulary.) I'm always interested in evidence that the historic understanding of same-sex sexuality was varied and subject to challenge.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Roelens, Jonas. 2017. “A Woman Like Any Other: Female Sodomy, Hermaphroditism, and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Bruges” in Journal of Women’s History, vol. 29 no. 4, Winter 2017. pp.11-34
This article concerns one of a number of female sodomy trials in the Low Countries in the 17th century, a time and place where there was an unusual level of concern for the topic. This interest can be connected to the increasing preoccupation with the role of the clitoris in sex and beliefs about its role in gender identity and same-sex activity. However the detailed testimony in the trial is also interesting for suggesting an unexpected self-consciousness by the defendants about their own same-sex desires—a topic for which evidence is difficult to find. Their testimony contrasted sharply with the theories about same-sex activity presented by other witnesses, which included abnormal physiology and witchcraft. This document points up the hazard of taking dominant discourses at face value with respect to how queer people in history thought about themselves.
The trial was held at Bruges in 1618 and concerned two women, Mayken and Magdaleene, and was sparked by an act of spite by Mayken’s husband. Having just been convicted of horse theft and sentenced to hang, his response was to accuse Magdaleene—whom he claimed to be a “hermaphrodite”—of having seduced his wife, Mayken, and convinced her to abandon him a year previously. To try to retrieve his wife, the man even went to a practitioner of magic and had him do a finding ritual that was supposed to locate her. He claimed that Magdaleene had similarly seduced other women and had been banned from at least one town because of it.
The night before his execution, the man was given the opportunity to “relieve his conscience” by providing more detailed testimony. He told how he had heard panting from the attic of the place he and his wife worked, and had gone up to find her lying together with Magdaleene who claimed they had simply been playing around tickling each other. He told his wife to stay away from her but later the two women were seen running naked together and bathing in a ditch near their workplace. Shortly thereafter, the two women disappeared. He also accused Magdaleene of having given his wife a potion to cause a miscarriage. None of this saved him from hanging, but it inspired a follow-up investigation by the town aldermen.
Witnesses included a parish priest who, six years earlier, had seen Magdaleene and an unnamed spinster “lying in bed and playing.” He also took a confession from a woman (unclear if it was the same one) who said she had a “carnal conversation” with Magdaleene who displayed “great affection and lust” and whom she said used “a rod” in this context and produced a quantity of cold semen. This last item invoked the image of how the devil was supposed to have cold semen when engaging in sex with human women.
The list of possible crimes was growing: being a hermaphrodite, sodomy with an instrument, being a poisoner or at least an abortionist, and engaging in witchcraft.
A month after the charges were first raised, Magdaleene and Mayken were located and brought in for testimony. Magdaleene was a widow and had an adult son. She used a variety of aliases and moved a lot, due to being followed by legal troubles. But she denied the charges brought against her.
Mayken testified that she’d left her husband because she was tired of his thieving and his threats to kill her. She hadn’t known about Magdaleene’s past legal troubles when they left together, but she did know that Magdaleene had committed adultery with her own husband—something he had neglected to mention in his final confession. The two women had traveled together across the Low Countries, though with one brief separation. Both women testified that there had been no abortion as Mayken hadn’t been pregnant, and the only potion involved was for a fever, after which that angle of questioning was dropped.
While various witnesses said that Magdaleene was a hermaphrodite, possibly caused by the devil, Mayken testified that her partner was “a woman like any other” with no physical abnormalities that she’d ever seen. Mayken reported that Magdaleene said she’d rather have sex with women than “with seven men” and that women begged her for it, and said further that there were more women who felt the same way she did. Mayken wasn’t always as eager for sex as Magdaleene was, at which the latter would list other women who had been more willing in the past.
Mayken reported on their sexual activity in some detail, describing that Magdaleene had “lain on her and had carnal conversation with her as if she was a man…doing her duty with great force,” but that she had never “felt something that would have been male” and although there would be some wetness when Magdaleene climaxed, it wasn’t much and she couldn’t say whether it was hot or cold.
While the trial pursued several lines of questioning related to potential witchcraft, other theories of the offense were pursued at the same time, and there was interest in how Magdaleene had begun this sexual career. She said she first became aware of female same-sex possibilities at age 9 when she saw several other girls engaging in intercourse together. Now confronted with Mayken’s testimony, she confessed to having had sex with her “on Mayken’s body, but not in her folds as men would communicate with women.”
As was usual for that era, Magdaleene’s testimony was confirmed under torture, where she confessed to sleeping with one of the other named women and “tasting her” but not going further because the woman was ill. [Note: This may possibly refer to oral sex, but I’d say it isn’t unambiguous.] She described another sexual encounter with a woman who’d asked Magdaleene if she was a man or a woman, but who was convinced she was a woman after they had sex. She continued to deny ever having performed witchcraft and evidently the investigators believed her and the torture was concluded.
Mayken was order to pray for forgiveness and was banned from Bruges for 10 years. Magdaleene was held in jail for another 2 years before sentencing. The final charges were restricted to abandoning her husband [note: but I thought she was a widow?], seducing women away from their husbands, and teaching them dishonor by libidinous acts. Her sentence was being banned from Flanders for life under penalty of death, beginning 3 days after sentencing.
The article continues with a survey of female sodomy charges in 17th century Europe, noting the unusual number in the southern Netherlands in the 15-16th centuries, often involving death sentences. This unusual rate of convictions fell off at the end of the 16th century, possibly due to shifts in popular knowledge about the sexual possibilities. In Mayken and Magdaleene’s trial, the word “sodomy” is never used, whereas it commonly appears in earlier records. One factor in this context is that sodomy had come to be defined narrowly in terms of penetration, therefore trials of women tended to focus only on cases where an artificial phallus had been used—something Magdaleene denied. Nor had Magdaleene cross-dressed or expressed anything resembling a masculine identity—other potentially aggravating factors in cases of f/f sex.
One factor in Mayken’s lesser sentence might be due to her testimony situating her more passively. She “endured” the sex and sometimes refused it, though she did not present herself as a victim.
The prevalent medical discourse around the role of the clitoris in female same-sex activity led the authorities to raise this issue strongly, hoping to ascribe Magdaleene’s desires to pseudo-masculine anatomy, although her partners rejected this framing. [Note: At this point in the article, the author discusses how the use of the term “tribade” specifically meant “a woman who uses an enlarged clitoris for sex” but I’ve been coming to strongly question this attribution, especially when projected back prior to the 16th century anatomists. But that’s a subject for a separate discussion.] In the 17th century, anatomical examinations were becoming an inherent part of accusations of female sodomy. The article digresses into explaining the Galenic theory of sexual development, popular ideas about spontaneous physical sex-change, and conflicts between medial and religious ideas about female sodomy, with several case studies listed. There’s an extensive discussion of the theories of demonologists about what types of sex devils preferred or avoided and the potential role of curses in the experience of same-sex desire.
The accusations that Magdaleene had abnormal physiology were discussed at various points in her trial, but her initial accuser was the only person who ever used the word “hermaphrodite” and at no point is there mention of a formal medical examination, suggesting that this was not a strong concern. But “hermaphrodite” didn’t have a narrow physiological definition at this time and could refer to any person who overturned gender roles, especially a woman perceived as dominant over men.
In all, the various discourses present in the trial demonstrate the variety of ideas and models of female same-sex desire that were prevalent at the time, whether in different parts of the population or existing as simultaneous beliefs. But what stands out as significant was how articulate and conscious Magdaleene was of her personal preference for engaging in sex with women and her awareness of other women with similar preferences.
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Thursday, January 29, 2026 - 09:00
Ouch! I hadn't meant to skip posting blogs while I was traveling, but somehow I got distracted, despite having everything lined up and ready to go. It might seem strange that I spend so much attention on research into historic intersex issues, given that my topic is lesbianism. I'll discuss the "why" in detail in my book, but the simple explanation is that ambiguous gender creates a context for understanding how people defined and reacted to gender anomaly. And one of the historic attitudes toward same-sex desire was that it was a gender anomaly, rather than a sexual orientation.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Mara-McKay, Nico. 2018. “Becoming Gendered: Two Medieval Approaches to Intersex Gender Assignment” in Prandium: The Journal of Historical Studies vol. 7, no. 1.
This is a fairly superficial paper comparing differing approaches to assigning gender to intersex people within Christian and Islamic contexts in the pre-modern period. (It’s an undergraduate paper, so the lack of depth is understandable.)
Although the default situation was for gender to be assigned at birth and remain fixed and stable across a person’s lifetime, in the case of intersex people, the assignment of gender might be delayed or reanalyzed (and potentially reassigned) later in life. Approaches to this analysis and assignment are discussed in theological, medical, and legal texts and had significant social and legal consequences for the individual.
The paper notes that the standard terms used in medieval texts for intersex people are “hermaphrodite” or “androgyne” but that these terms had a broader scope and application than specifically people with ambiguous anatomy, also covering behavioral attributes that were considered to cross gender categories.
The article reviews historic theories of gender development (one- and two-sex models) and how they affected whether intersex conditions were considered “natural” or monstrous.
Roman/Christian law codes typically specified that intersex people were to be assigned to “the sex which predominates,” generally in terms of anatomical development, but sometimes taking into account behavioral characteristics. Once assigned a gender, a person was not permitted to change unless a legal proceeding determined that the original assignment was in error. One significant concern in assigning gender was to avoid the possibility of sodomy. Anecdotes are given of cases where gender was reassigned later in life due to new information about the person’s anatomy.
Islamic law was concerned with maintaining gender segregation in society, however as children were not considered sexual beings under Islam, in completely ambiguous cases, gender assignment could be delayed until puberty. There were also possible arrangements for an intersex person to literally occupy a space between male spaces and female spaces in social contexts, to maintain appropriate separation, however if no clear evidence was available the person was usually classified as female.
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