In addition to Sappho's accomplishments, literary historian Jeannette Howard Foster includes the Book of Ruth, and ancient mythological tradition as examples of lesbianism in classical literature. Greek stories of the heavens often included a female figure whose virtue and virginity were unspoiled, who pursued more masculine interests, and who was followed by a dedicated group of maidens. Foster cites Camilla and Diana, Artemis and Callisto, and Iphis and Ianthe as examples of female mythological figures who showed remarkable devotion to each other, or defied gender expectations. The Greeks are also given credit with spreading the story of a mythological race of women warriors named Amazons.
Literature
Lesbian
Lesbian | Literature
Yes Yes, in the Book of Ruth Yes Book of Ruth, Lives of Gallant Ladies, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure etc
what is don valley parkway?
user
It is a municipal expressway.
assistant
has it been represented in media?
user
Yes, the music video for the song Subdivisions by Canadian rock group Rush features scenes of the DVP
assistant
when was the construction completed?
user
1966
assistant
is it a busy expressway?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
assistant
what places does it connect?
user
It connects Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto.
assistant
can you elaborate on the architecture of the first place?
user
It is a new, brash, rag-tag place—a big mix of periods and styles.
assistant
is the crime rate high here?
user
It  has a fairly low diurnal temperature range.
assistant
what all modes of transport are available?
user
road, rail and air networks are available
assistant
has there been any developments in the city in the current century?
user
They hosted WorldPride in June 2014, and the Pan American Games in 2015
assistant
what is the former?
user
It is an event that promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ pride) issues on an international level through parades, festivals and other cultural activities.
assistant
where was it first held?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
assistant
where would it be held in 2023?
user
Sydney, Australia
assistant
about the various groups that you mentioned, have the first one been depicted on films?
user
Yes
assistant
and in fiction?
user
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics. Fiction that falls into this category may be of any genre, such as historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance.
Lesbian literature | Introduction
In the 1980s and 90s, lesbian literature diversified into genre literature, including fantasy, mystery, science fiction, romance, graphic novels, and young adult.
Lesbian literature | 1970 to the present: Second wave feminism, mainstream acceptance, and diversification
Physical and therefore emotional satisfaction was considered impossible without a natural phallus. Male intervention into relationships between women was necessary only when women acted as men and demanded the same social privileges.
Lesbian | Literature
This is a List of lesbian-themed fiction. It includes books from the 18th century through the 21st century. It also includes lists of works by genre, a list of characters that make recurring appearances in fiction series, and a list of lesbian and feminist publishing houses.
List of lesbian fiction | Introduction
In the 15th and 16th centuries, French and English depictions of relationships between women ("Lives of Gallant Ladies" by Brantôme in 1665, John Cleland's 1749 erotica "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure", "L'Espion Anglais" by various authors in 1778), writers' attitudes spanned from amused tolerance to arousal, whereupon a male character would participate to complete the act. Physical relationships between women were often encouraged; men felt no threat as they viewed sexual acts between women to be accepted when men were not available, and not comparable to fulfillment that could be achieved by sexual acts between men and women. At worst, if a woman became enamored of another woman, she became a tragic figure.
Lesbian | Literature
She focused on the beauty of women and proclaimed her love for girls. Certain works have established historical or artistic importance, and the world of lesbian fiction continues to grow and change as time goes on. Until recently, contemporary lesbian literature has been centered around several small, exclusively lesbian presses, as well as online fandoms. However, since the new millennium began, many lesbian presses have branched out to include the works of trans men and women, gay and bisexual voices, and other queer works not represented by the mainstream press. Additionally, novels with lesbian themes and characters have become more accepted in mainstream publishing.
Lesbian literature | Overview
In the 1950s, parts of French author Violette leDuc's novel "Ravages" were censored because they contained explicit lesbian passages. The deleted passages were published in the 1960s as "Therese and Isabelle" and made into the 1968 film of same title.
Lesbian literature | 1950 to 1970: Pulp fiction and beyond
Between 1955 and 1969 over 2,000 books were published using lesbianism as a topic, and they were sold in corner drugstores, train stations, bus stops, and newsstands all over the U.S. and Canada. Most were written by, and almost all were marketed to heterosexual men. Coded words and images were used on the covers. Instead of "lesbian", terms such as "strange", "twilight", "queer", and "third sex", were used in the titles, and cover art was invariably salacious. A handful of lesbian pulp fiction authors were women writing for lesbians, including Ann Bannon, Valerie Taylor, Paula Christian, and Vin Packer/Ann Aldrich.
Lesbian | Lesbian-themed fiction
During the twentieth century, lesbians such as Gertrude Stein and Barbara Hammer were noted in the U.S. avant-garde art movements, along with figures such as Leontine Sagan in German pre-war cinema. Since the 1890s the underground classic "The Songs of Bilitis" has been influential on lesbian culture. This book provided a name for the first campaigning and cultural organization in the United States, the Daughters of Bilitis. Joseph Sheridan le Fanu's 1872 novella "Carmilla" is often cited as a root of the lesbian vampire trope about the predatory love of a vampire (the title character) for a young woman (the narrator) which was picked up in 20th-century exploitation films.
Media portrayal of lesbianism | Literature
Women who are left without men can be seduced and violated by predatory lesbians (usually butch women). The depictions of lesbianism in prison, the military, and boarding schools was a well-used motif. Lesbianism was often linked to other topics that were seen as salacious or shocking at the time: witchcraft, Satanism, bondage and discipline, orgies, and voyeurism. Many “lesbian” pulps actually depict characters who may now be read as bisexual and who end up in heterosexual relationships at the end of their stories. During this time, however, bisexuality was seen less as a permanent identity and more as a stepping-stone to homosexuality or to various forms of sexual promiscuity.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Content
Fanfiction writers have produced many works in which female characters from fictional sources (such as television shows, movies, video games, anime, manga or comic books) are paired in romantic, spiritual, or sexual relationships. The genre is known by a variety of terms, including femslash, saffic, yuri and f/f slash. Lesbian content in fanfiction dates at least to 1977, but has become more popular during the 1990s and 2000s.
List of lesbian fiction | Fan fiction
These science fiction works frequently address the issue of feminist/lesbian separatist communities. See Lesbian science fiction for a more detailed review.
List of lesbian fiction | Science fiction, fantasy, and horror
Lesbian literature includes works by lesbian authors, as well as lesbian-themed works by heterosexual authors. Even works by lesbian writers that do not deal with lesbian themes are still often considered lesbian literature. Works by heterosexual writers which treat lesbian themes only in passing, on the other hand, are not often regarded as lesbian literature. The fundamental work of lesbian literature is the poetry of Sappho of Lesbos. From various ancient writings, historians have gathered that a group of young women were left in Sappho's charge for their instruction or cultural edification. Not much of Sappho's poetry remains, but that which does demonstrates the topics she wrote about: women's daily lives, their relationships, and rituals.
Lesbian literature | Overview
Black lesbian literature is a subgenre of lesbian literature and African American literature that focuses on the experiences of black women who identify as lesbians. The genre features poetry and fiction about black lesbian characters as well as non-fiction essays which address issues faced by black lesbians. Prominent figures within the genre include Ann Allen Shockley, Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, and Barbara Smith. Black lesbian literature is characterized by its central focus on black women's experiences as they are shaped by interlocking systems of oppression like racism, sexism, homophobia, and class discrimination.
Black lesbian literature in the United States | Introduction
En-hedu-ana, a priestess in Ancient Iraq who dedicated herself to the Sumerian goddess Inanna, has the distinction of signing the oldest-surviving signed poetry in history. She characterized herself as Inanna's spouse. For ten centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, lesbianism disappeared from literature. Foster points to the particularly strict view that Eve—representative of all women—caused the downfall of mankind; original sin among women was a particular concern, especially because women were perceived as creating life. During this time, women were largely illiterate and not encouraged to engage in intellectual pursuit, so men were responsible for shaping ideas about sexuality.
Lesbian | Literature
Gay literature is a collective term for literature produced by or for the LGBT community which involves characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying male homosexual behavior. The term is now used most commonly to cover specifically gay male literature, with a separate genre of lesbian literature existing for women. Historically, the term "gay literature" was sometimes used to cover both gay male and lesbian literatures.
Gay literature | Introduction
Lesbianism, or the suggestion of it, began early in filmmaking. The same constructs of how lesbians were portrayed—or for what reasons—as what had appeared in literature were placed on women in the films. Women challenging their feminine roles was a device more easily accepted than men challenging masculine ones. Actresses appeared as men in male roles because of plot devices as early as 1914 in "A Florida Enchantment" featuring Edith Storey. In "Morocco" (1930) Marlene Dietrich kisses another woman on the lips, and Katharine Hepburn plays a man in "Christopher Strong" in 1933 and again in "Sylvia Scarlett" (1936). Hollywood films followed the same trend set by audiences who flocked to Harlem to see edgy shows that suggested bisexuality.
Lesbian | Film
The next major novel is "Julia", published by Ana María Moix in 1969. The main lesbian character expresses sexual desires for other women including her aunt and a professor. "Celia Bites the Apple" () by María Luz Malecón in 1972 implies through its lesbian characters that being a lesbian is a result of trauma or people who provide a bad influence on their lives. "Time of the Cherries" () by Montserret Roig in 1976 is an example of the cliche of students in an all girls school having lesbian sexual experiences. During the 1960s, Ester Tusquets and her brother Oscar were the owners and influential forces behind the left leaning antidictatorial publisher Editorial Lumen.
Women's media in Francoist Spain | Lesbian literature
The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes...Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone." These books were sold at drugstores, magazine stands, bus terminals and other places where one might look to purchase cheap, consumable entertainment. The books were small enough to fit in a purse or back pocket (hence both the brand-name and the generalized term "pocket books") and cheap enough to throw away when the reader was through with it.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Introduction
Regardless of the lack of information about homosexuality in scholarly texts, another forum for learning about lesbianism was growing. A paperback book titled "Women's Barracks" describing a woman's experiences in the Free French Forces was published in 1950. It told of a lesbian relationship the author had witnessed. After 4.5 million copies were sold, it was consequently named in the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials in 1952. Its publisher, Gold Medal Books, followed with the novel "Spring Fire" in 1952, which sold 1.5 million copies. Gold Medal Books was overwhelmed with mail from women writing about the subject matter, and followed with more books, creating the genre of lesbian pulp fiction.
Lesbian | Lesbian-themed fiction
The next major novel is "Julia", published by Ana María Moix in 1969. The main lesbian character expresses sexual desires for other women including her aunt and a professor. "Celia Bites the Apple" () by María Luz Malecón in 1972 implies through its lesbian characters that being a lesbian is a result of trauma or people who provide a bad influence on their lives. "Time of the Cherries" () by Montserret Roig in 1976 is an example of the cliche of students in an all girls school having lesbian sexual experiences. During the 1960s, Ester Tusquets and her brother Oscar were the owners and influential forces behind the left leaning antidictatorial publisher Editorial Lumen.
Lesbians in Francoist Spain | Literature
Lesbian fiction in English saw a huge explosion in interest with the advent of the dime-store or pulp fiction novel. Lesbian pulp fiction became its own distinct category of fiction in the 1950s and 60s, although a significant number of authors of this genre were men using either a male or female pen name. Tereska Torrès is credited with writing the first lesbian pulp novel, "Women's Barracks", a fictionalized story about women in the Free French Forces during World War II. The 1950 book sold 2 million copies in its first five years of publication. One notable female author of lesbian pulp fiction, who came out later in life as a lesbian, was Ann Bannon, who created the Beebo Brinker series.
Lesbian literature | 1950 to 1970: Pulp fiction and beyond
Lesbian pulp fiction is a genre of lesbian literature that refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel or pulp magazine with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same paperback publishing houses as other genres of fiction including westerns, romances, and detective fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference the public (lesbian and otherwise) had for modeling what lesbians were. Stephanie Foote, from the University of Illinois commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Introduction
A character had either to turn heterosexual and end up coupled with a man or, if she remained homosexual, suffer death, insanity or some equally unappealing fate.
Lesbian pulp fiction | "Spring Fire" and the establishment of a formula
Spanish lesbian literature has three main periods. The first is from 1964 to 1975, during the last years of the Franco regime. The second is the transition period of 1975 to 1985. The last period was from 1985 to the present. Novels featuring lesbian characters during the regime included Ana María Matute's 1964 novel "The Soldiers Cry at Night" (). The lesbian character is featured as a morally reprehensible woman. The next major novel was the 1967 Premio Nadal finalist "The Last Summer in the Mirror" () by Teresa Barbero, where the lesbian couple is portrayed as being bad women who struggle to conform with their social reality.
Lesbians in Francoist Spain | Literature
The novella has since been adapted into a webseries, as well as a based on the series. During the 1950s and 1960s, lesbian pulp fiction was published in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, often under "coded" titles such as "Odd Girl Out", "The Evil Friendship" by Vin Packer and "The Beebo Brinker Chronicles" by Ann Bannon. British school stories also provided a haven for "coded" and sometimes outright lesbian fiction. During the 1970s the second wave of feminist-era lesbian novels became more politically oriented. Works often carried the explicit ideological messages of separatist feminism and the trend carried over to other lesbian arts.
Media portrayal of lesbianism | Literature
Bisexual literature is a subgenre of LGBT Literature that includes literary works and authors that address the topic of bisexuality or biromanticism. This includes characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying bisexual behavior in both men and women. Fiction that falls into this category may be of any genre, such as historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance.
Bisexual literature | Introduction
Lesbians portrayed in literature, film, and television often shape contemporary thought about women's sexuality. The majority of media about lesbians is produced by men; women's publishing companies did not develop until the 1970s, films about lesbians made by women did not appear until the 1980s, and television shows portraying lesbians written by women only began to be created in the 21st century. As a result, homosexuality—particularly dealing with women—has been excluded because of symbolic annihilation. When depictions of lesbians began to surface, they were often one-dimensional, simplified stereotypes.
Lesbian | Media representation
Female-female examples are most historically noticeable in the narrative arts: the archaic lyrics of Sappho; "The Songs of Bilitis"; novels such as those of Christa Winsloe, Colette, Radclyffe Hall, and Jane Rule, and films such as "Mädchen in Uniform". More recently, lesbian homoeroticism has flowered in photography and the writing of authors such as Patrick Califia and Jeanette Winterson. Female homoerotic art by lesbian artists has often been less culturally prominent than the presentation of lesbian eroticism by non-lesbians and for a primarily non-lesbian audience. In the west, this can be seen as long ago as the 1872 novel "Carmilla", and is also seen in cinema in such popular films as "Emmanuelle", "The Hunger", "Showgirls", and most of all in pornography.
Homoeroticism | Female–female
Despite its price of $5 — twice the cost of an average novel — it would sell over 100,000 copies in its first year. In the United States, as in the United Kingdom, applied, but New York case law had established that books should be judged by their effects on adults rather than on children and that literary merit was relevant. Morris Ernst, co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, obtained statements from authors, including Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, Ellen Glasgow, and John Dos Passos.
History of lesbianism in the United States | Lesbians in literature
Authors of lesbian paperbacks were both male and female, and often used pseudonyms - the male authors frequently used female names. One retrospective summed up the genre as, "The vast majority of these lesbian novels were written by men, designed to fulfill straight men's fantasies...But perhaps 40 or 50 lesbian (pulp) novels were written by women, and were also good enough to becoming underground classics...The pulps also reached isolated, small-town lesbians who could read them and see that they were not the only lesbians in the world."
Lesbian pulp fiction | Authors
Hermaphroditism appeared in medical literature enough to be considered common knowledge, although cases were rare. Homoerotic elements in literature were pervasive, specifically the masquerade of one gender for another to fool an unsuspecting woman into being seduced. Such plot devices were used in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" (1601), "The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser in 1590, and James Shirley's "The Bird in a Cage" (1633). Cases during the Renaissance of women taking on male personae and going undetected for years or decades have been recorded, though whether these cases would be described as transvestism by homosexual women, or in contemporary sociology characterised as transgender, is debated and depends on the individual details of each case.
Lesbian | Female husbands
The two become lovers and drink the blood of children. Ultimately, they are hunted down by their husbands and murdered.
Lesbian vampire | In literature
On the other hand, Terry Castle contends that English law in the eighteenth century ignored female homosexual activity not out of indifference, but out of male fears about acknowledging and reifying lesbianism. The literature of the time attempted to rationalise some women's lesbian activities, commonly searching for visible indications of sapphic tendencies. In "The New Atlantis", for instance, the "real" lesbians are depicted as being masculine. However, Craft-Fairchild argues that Manley – along with Cleland in "Fanny Hill" – failed to establish a coherent narrative of lesbians as anatomically distinct from other women, while Fielding in "The Female Husband" instead focuses on the corruption of Hamilton's mind as leading to her homosexual acts and cross-dressing.
History of lesbianism | Early Modern period
Often artistic representations of female sexuality suggest trends or ideas on broad scales, giving historians clues as to how widespread or accepted erotic relationships between women were.
Lesbian | General
Many pulp novels have been reissued in e-book form, and most print books published today are also issued as e-books.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Reemergence of lesbian pop fiction
The first novel in the English language recognised as having a lesbian theme is "The Well of Loneliness" (1928) by Radclyffe Hall, which a British court found obscene because it defended "unnatural practices between women". The book was banned in Britain for decades; this is in the context of the similar censorship of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", which also had a theme of transgressive female sexuality, albeit heterosexual. In the United States, "The Well of Loneliness" survived legal challenges in New York and the U.S. Customs Court. In 1923, Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled "On a Grey Thread".
Lesbian literature | 1900–1950: Beginnings
Sexual relations between women have been illustrated as well as narrated, but much of the written material from the early modern period has been destroyed. What seems clear from the historical record is that much of the lesbian material in pornographic texts was intended for a male readership.
Lesbian erotica | Cultural background
It was not until the mid-1950s that obscenity regulations began to relax and happy endings to lesbian romances became possible. However, publications addressing homosexuality were officially deemed obscene under the Comstock Act until 1958. "Spring Fire", the first lesbian paperback novel, and considered the beginning of the lesbian pulp fiction genre, was published in 1952 and sold 1.5 million copies. It was written by lesbian author Marijane Meaker under the pen name "Vin Packer", and ended unhappily. 1952 also saw the publication of lesbian classic "The Price of Salt" by lesbian author Patricia Highsmith, published under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan", in which the women break up but are implied to get back together in the end (the novel was republished as "Carol" in 1990 under Highsmith's name).
History of lesbianism in the United States | 1950s: Lesbianism in literature
copyright. Customs barred the book from entering the country, which might also have prevented it from being shipped from state to state. The United States Customs Court, however, ruled that the book did not contain "one word, phrase, sentence or paragraph which could be truthfully pointed out as offensive to modesty".
History of lesbianism in the United States | Lesbians in literature
After the birth of an explicitly gay and lesbian literature in the 1970s, the following decades saw a tremendous rise in its production. While gay male novels had more crossover appeal and often became mid-list sellers in mainstream publishing houses; lesbian literature, depending on smaller presses, developed smaller but 'respectable' audiences. In the 1980s, with the advent of sex-positive feminism, a few lesbian literary magazines began to specialize in more explicitly erotic work, such as "On Our Backs", a satirical reference to the feminist 1970s magazine, "Off Our Backs". The 1988 founding of the Lambda Literary Award, with several lesbian categories, helped increase the visibility of LGBT literature.
Lesbian literature | 1970 to the present: Second wave feminism, mainstream acceptance, and diversification
List of lesbian fiction
List of poets portraying sexual relations between women | See also
As a result, authors were forced to limit their stories to fit these requirements. However, as the decade went on, publishers became bolder in printing material that might be judged as immoral.
Lesbian pulp fiction | "Women's Barracks"
Bannon, who also purchased lesbian pulp fiction, later stated that women identified the material iconically by the cover art. Many of the books used cultural references: naming places, terms, describing modes of dress and other codes to isolated women. As a result, pulp fiction helped to proliferate a lesbian identity simultaneously to lesbians and heterosexual readers.
Lesbian | Lesbian-themed fiction
This subgenre consists of teen romance novels that contain LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning) themes or characters.
Young adult romance literature | LGBTQ
In addition to Sappho's accomplishments, literary historian Jeannette Howard Foster includes the Book of Ruth, and ancient mythological tradition as examples of lesbianism in classical literature. Greek stories of the heavens often included a female figure whose virtue and virginity were unspoiled, who pursued more masculine interests, and who was followed by a dedicated group of maidens. Foster cites Camilla and Diana, Artemis and Callisto, and Iphis and Ianthe as examples of female mythological figures who showed remarkable devotion to each other, or defied gender expectations. The Greeks are also given credit with spreading the story of a mythological race of women warriors named Amazons.
Lesbian | Literature
Spanish lesbian literature has three main periods. The first is from 1964 to 1975, during the last years of Francoist Spain. The second is the transition period of 1975 to 1985. The last period was from 1985 to the present. Novels featuring lesbian characters in Francoist Spain included Ana María Matute's 1964 novel "The Soldiers Cry at Night" (). The lesbian character is featured as a morally reprehensible woman. The next major novel was the 1967 Premio Nadal finalist "The Last Summer in the Mirror" () by Teresa Barbero, where the lesbian couple is portrayed as being bad women who struggle to conform with their social reality.
Women's media in Francoist Spain | Lesbian literature
For more information about fictional characters in other parts of the LGBTQ community, see the lists of lesbian (with sub-pages for characters in anime and animation), bisexual (with sub-sections for characters in anime and animation), gay, trans, pansexual, and intersex characters. See the corresponding page about intersex characters in fiction.
Asexual characters in fiction | Introduction
The feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the development of a more politicized voice in lesbian literature and more mainstream acceptance of lesbian-themed literature that moved away from the 'tragic lesbian' theme that had dominated earlier works. A pioneering autobiographical novel of this era was the picaresque 1973 novel "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown, which became a national best-seller. Jill Johnston argued for lesbian separatism in her 1973 book "Lesbian Nation". In the 1970s, more voices of American lesbians of color began to be heard, including works by Audre Lorde, Jewelle Gomez, Paula Gunn Allen Cherrie Moraga, and Gloria Anzaldua.
Lesbian literature | 1970 to the present: Second wave feminism, mainstream acceptance, and diversification
The large amount of material within the scope of "fiction and myth" has been divided into the following:
Lists of LGBT figures in fiction and myth | Introduction
In France, Monique Wittig published "Les Guérillères", (The Women Warriors), which envisioned a lesbian-dominated world. Similarly, Joanna Russ's 1975 novel "The Female Man" contains an alternative universe inhabited solely by lesbians. The 1970s also saw the advent of feminist and LGBT publishing houses, such as Naiad Press, and literary magazines like "Sinister Wisdom", and "Conditions" which published lesbian works. Adrienne Rich and Judy Grahn were important poets and essayists of the era. "Patience and Sarah" by Alma Routsong, published under the pen name "Isabel Miller" in 1971, examined the historical confines of a romance between two 19th century women in a Boston Marriage.
Lesbian literature | 1970 to the present: Second wave feminism, mainstream acceptance, and diversification
In more recent years, LGBT characters have increasingly been included in books for older children and young adults. The characters are now not just parents, but young people themselves. One of the reasons it is difficult to identify bisexuals in children's literature is the tendency to focus on one relationship per character creates the perception of the character being either straight or gay.
Bisexual literature | Children's and young adult fiction
Author and women's history scholar Bonnie J. Morris and many other lesbian activists, such as same-sex marriage groundbreaker Robin Tyler, Ashley Obinwanne, screenwriter and co-founder of the platform "Lesbians Over Everything", and AfterEllen owner and Editor in Chief Memoree Joelle, say the amorphous term "queer", when used to describe lesbians, is a "disidentification" term that contributes to lesbian invisibility. In an interview about her 2016 novel "Beyond the Screen Door", author Julia Diana Robertson discovered that her self-identification as a lesbian and her description of the novel's genre was changed to "queer" and "queerness" in the published quotes. At the 2018 Brighton Pride parade, the only instance where the word "lesbian" appeared was on a banner celebrating Stormé DeLarverie.
Lesbian erasure | Language and lesbian spaces
In the early 20th century, an increasingly visible lesbian community in Paris which centered on literary salons hosted by French lesbians as well as expatriates like Nathalie Barney and Gertrude Stein, who produced lesbian-themed works in French and English, including "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes, "Idyll Saphique" by Liane de Pougy, poetry by Renee Vivien, Barney's own epigrams, poetry, and several works by Stein. Radclyffe Hall also spent time in Paris at Barney's salon and modeled one of her characters in "The Well of Loneliness" after her.
Lesbian literature | 1900–1950: Beginnings
Authors March Hastings and Paula Christian both stated their publishers lost interest in their subject in the mid-1960s. As well, common plot points in the books involved women who were coming to terms with realizing their attraction to women in a world that did not allow it. With the rise of feminism, and the gay rights movement in 1969, these plot points were decreasingly relevant. However, certain lesbian pulp novels, including Ann Bannon's books, were reprinted in the 1980s by Naiad Press with the goal of bringing lesbian authors to light. Naiad provided new covers for the books, for example portraying silhouettes of lesbian couples on the covers of Bannon's novels.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Decline and republishing
This difficulty in establishing a narrative framework to fit female homosexuality into was acknowledged by Jonathan Swift in his writing for the "Tatler" in 1711, where he describes a woman having her virginity tested by a lion. Despite the onlookers' failure to see anything unusual about the woman, the lion identified her as "no true Virgin". At the same time, writings which were positive, or potentially positive, about female homosexuality, drew on the languages both of female same-sex friendship, and of heterosexual romance, as there were at the time no widespread cultural motifs of homosexuality. Only among the less respectable members of society does it seem that there was anything like a lesbian subculture.
History of lesbianism | Early Modern period
The film is structured around four dramatic segments with interviews interspersed in which a depiction of a retro pulp lesbian romance is recreated on-screen and altered to include a happy ending for the characters. The movie opens with a dramatized scene of two women saying goodbye at a train station, alluding that they were to run away together. One of the women, named "Beth" declines to go with "Laura" and leaves her at the station. A discussion of the impact of lesbian pulp fiction for women in the 1940s and 1950s begins, featuring Ann Bannon, discussing her experiences as a writer in the 1950s.
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives | Subject matter
It has also been claimed that LGBT readers identify strongly with the mutants, aliens and other outsider characters found in speculative fiction.
Gay literature | Speculative fiction
The leading male figures in people's lives may know nothing because people are too scared to tell him things. Invisibility of lesbians in the book is discussed through the terms used for gay men and lesbian women. Gay men are referred to as "fam e mina" in Spanish and "bequebe fafam" in Fang, meaning man woman or man who behaves like his sister. While the Fang language has a word to describe gay men, the language has no word to describe lesbians.
La Bastarda | Main themes
Another surge of activity published as lesbian pulp fiction occurred in the 1950s and early 1960s, during which several notable lesbian authors such as Ann Bannon and Valerie Taylor helped to establish lesbian literary identity. These fictions helped to inform readers about the lives and cultural landmarks of lesbians when very little information existed. Waters states that she is not on a deliberate crusade to write about lesbians, but that it is a reflection of what she knows: "Lesbianism is at the top of the agenda for my books because it's at the top of the agenda for my life.
Tipping the Velvet | Sexuality
She also questioned why lesbians should want the love and respect of society, given the way it treated them. She also maintained that while Martin and Lyon's account of lesbianism was accurate as far as it went, it ignored "the various alternatives now open to lesbians."
Lesbian/Woman | Early reviews
They also portrayed the content of the novels as scandalous and sensational, and made it clear that the reader would find sex scenes inside. Additionally, some blurbs were written by doctors, who would recommend the books on the basis of their value as case studies, suggesting that people would read the novels for their educational value and demonstrating the way in which lesbianism was pathologized at the time.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Cover art
The characters of Beth and Laura are allusions to characters in Ann Bannon's "Beebo Brinker Chronicles", the six lesbian pulp fiction novels she wrote. Bannon's first book, "Odd Girl Out" ends very much like the opening sequence of the film, with Beth leaving Laura at a train station while a man named Charlie waits for her, as a Charlie waits for the Beth in "Forbidden Love". Bannon has stated that a major influence on her choice to write lesbian pulp fiction was the novel "Spring Fire" by Vin Packer, which features a lesbian character named Susan Mitchell, who goes by her nickname Mitch.
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives | Allusions to literature
This subgenre is an important part of literature and has been prevalent since the mid 1700s. The lesbian romance genre is often a subgenre of broader genres such as BDSM romance, paranormal romance, coming-of-age romance, fantasy romance, and inspirational romance.
Contemporary romance | Lesbian romance
The first lesbian-themed feature film was "Mädchen in Uniform" (1931), based on a novel by Christa Winsloe and directed by Leontine Sagan, tracing the story of a schoolgirl called Manuela von Meinhardis and her passionate love for a teacher, Fräulein von Bernburg. It was written and mostly directed by women. The impact of the film in Germany's lesbian clubs was overshadowed, however, by the cult following for "The Blue Angel" (1930). Until the early 1990s, any notion of lesbian love in a film almost always required audiences to infer the relationships. The German silent film Pandora's Box (1929) is the first film to have a lesbian subplot, where a Countess (portrayed by Alice Roberts) is deeply infatuated with the protagonist Lulu (Louise Brooks).
Media portrayal of lesbianism | Cinema
Felice Picano recalls that the group started because straight editors, agents, and fellow writers weren't being helpful with advice on gay themed writing. Gay fiction before the Violet Quill was of four classes. The first two were primarily or ostensibly for straight audiences where the gay characters are either minor to the main theme, or in which they live tragic lives and then died. The third was those of high literary vales and were therefore valued by critics. The fourth was gay pornography. The AIDS sea change not only resulted in the death of many members of the gay community, but forever changed gay literature, including gay fiction.
The Violet Quill | History
Starting in 1968, following the departure of Oscar, the publisher began publishing works by gay men, women in general and lesbians specifically, along with foreign works, cultural theory texts and children's stories. "The Same Sea as Every Summer" () was published by Tusquets in 1978, while "Love is a Solitary Game" () was published a year later and the final book of her trilogy, "Stranded" () was published in 1980. These works were part of an important lesbian political literary criticism of the stresses faced by lesbians in try to exist in a heterosexist society. They were published in the same period as Carmen Riera's 1980 "A Woman's Word" (), another important work in the lesbian literary canon of the period.
Lesbians in Francoist Spain | Literature
However, lesbianism became the central theme in Alexanderson's novel "Kontradans" (1969, "Contra Dance"), which depicts two women who fall in love at a commune. The story may have been autobiographical as the main character, like Alexanderson, is a writer named Eva who writes a novel about lesbians. "Kontradans" caused controversy upon its release and Alexanderson did not publish another novel for more than two decades.
Eva Alexanderson | Biography
The diaries were not published until the 1980s. In 2010, they were the basis for a BBC television production, "The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister". Twenty-first century writer and editor Susan Koppelman compiled an anthology titled "Two Friends and Other 19th-century American Lesbian Stories: by American Women Writers", which includes stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson, Octave Thanet, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Kate Chopin and Sarah Orne Jewett that were originally published in periodicals of their time. Of these stories, which range "from the explicit to inferentially lesbian", Koppelman said, "I recognize these stories as stories about women loving women in the variety of romantic ways that we wouldn't even have to struggle to define if we were talking about men and women loving each other."
Lesbian literature | 19th century: forerunners
The vast majority of characters in lesbian pulp were white. Rea Michaels, writer of novels including "Cloak of Evil" and "Duet in Darkness", stands out as one of the only pulp authors to include people of color and interracial relationships in her books and to have representations of lesbians of color on the covers of her novels.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Content
Their catalog includes 130 titles. Regal Crest Enterprises, established in 1999, has a catalog currently exceeding 150 works and they publish lesbian romance, lesbian mystery, some erotica, sci-fi, fantasy, and sagas. Alyson Books specializes in LGBT authors and has a number of lesbian titles. Smaller publishers of exclusively lesbian fiction include Bedazzled Ink, Bywater Books, Intaglio Publications, Sapphire Books Publishing, Supposed Crimes, Wicked Publishing, and Ylva Publishing. Some women's presses also produce lesbian fiction, such as Firebrand Books and Virago Press.
Lesbian literature | Publishers
Despite very limited sympathy, American society began at least to acknowledge the existence of a sizable population of gays. The film "The Boys in the Band", for example, featured negative portrayals of gay men, but at least recognized that they did in fact fraternize with each other (as opposed to being isolated, solitary predators who "victimized" straight men).
Counterculture | LGBT
A lesbian is a homosexual woman. Lesbian may also refer to:
Lesbian (disambiguation) | Introduction
However, the authors found many respondents were frustrated with the negative or male-centric literature that made up the bulk of information available in libraries; libraries needed to ensure that information was readily available, current and positive to best serve lesbian populations.
Libraries and the LGBTQ community | Creelman and Harris (1990)
In terms of lesbian fiction, these books were the only ones available in many locations to people who had no previous access to information or stories that involved lesbian characters. Several publishing houses created special imprints, such as Fawcett's “Gold Medal” division, to satisfy the demand for pulp fiction. Unlike many publishers, Fawcett made a point of publishing lesbian pulp written by lesbians, or sometimes by heterosexual women, rather than by heterosexual men. It made a significant contribution to the lesbian community to have lesbian authors writing more or less authentic stories about what it was like to be a lesbian, as opposed to only having heterosexual men writing stories about lesbians for the titillation of other men.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Development of the genre
One of the earliest known examples of bisexuality in literature is "Fanny Hill" by John Cleland. In the novel, the titular character Fanny has "exciting and satisfying sexual relations with other women as well as with men." During this time period, homosexuality was considered an action rather than part of an identity, and so instances of any homosexuality, including bisexuality, were rare in literary works. A more famous example of characters implied to be bisexual includes Dorian Gray and supporting characters from "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. Wilde himself was married with children but was understood by his contemporaries to have had extra-marital relationships with both women and men.
Bisexual literature | Pre-1900
The School Library Journal reported: Judy Blume has been cited as a catalyst in the 1970s for an increase in inclusion of "taboo" topics in children's literature, which include homosexuality.
Lesbian literature | 1970s
passionate, tender, and erotic". Writer Diane Hamer attests that Bannon's books and characters represent a part of identity where women are unsure if they are gay or straight, man or woman, ashamed or accepting of who they are. In receiving no clear answers from Bannon herself, women were left to try to figure these questions out for themselves. Hamer writes, "What Bannon did was to provide a "range" of possible trajectories to lesbianism ... Bannon, by constructing fictional biographies for her lesbian characters, produced a new knowledge about how one arrives at a lesbian identity."
Ann Bannon | Identity
In much the same way as publication of the 1950s/1960s pulp novels was made possible by new technology, another wave of lesbian literature came into existence due to the new technologies of the 1980s to the present. In the 1980s and 1990s, lesbian fan fiction surged to the forefront with hundreds of authors writing stories, novels, and whole series and making them available online via the Internet. This online publication continues to be popular to this day. In the 2000s, with increased availability of the internet and awareness of the genre, authorship grew into the tens of thousands. Many of the authors who wrote in the 1980s and 1990s gravitated away from fan fiction and began to write original works, and small presses sprang up to publish that work.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Reemergence of lesbian pop fiction
Along with this, some argue that Shockley uses too many generalizations in her texts, has a poor stylistic choice, and did not work to battle common stereotypes about black lesbianism. In her first novel, "Loving Her," the main character, Renay, chooses to live her life as a lesbian but still performs stereotypically heteronormative notions on romance, which works against Shockley's supposed intentions of exposing what a lesbian relationship really is like in the late twentieth-century. Nonetheless, the fictional novel is still admit-tingly one of the first of its kind.
Ann Allen Shockley | Criticism
Lesbian vampirism is a trope in 20th-century exploitation film and literature. It was a way to hint at or titillate with the taboo idea of lesbianism in a fantasy context outside the heavily censored realm of social realism. Also, the conventions of the vampire genre—specifically, the mind control exhibited in many such films—allow for a kind of forced seduction of presumably heterosexual women or girls by lesbian vampires.
Lesbian vampire | Introduction
Other early publishers include Spinsters Ink (which has been sold a couple of times and now is part of the Bella Books organization), Rising Tide Press, Crossing Press, Onlywomen Press, Kitchen Table Press, and New Victoria. In many cases, these presses were operated by authors who also published with the publication house, such as Barbara Wilson at Seal Press, which became part of the mainstream company Avalon Publishing, and Joan Drury at Spinsters Ink. The current largest publishers of lesbian fiction are Bella Books, Bold Strokes Books, and Regal Crest Enterprises. Bold Strokes Books, established in 2005, publishes lesbian and gay male mystery, thrillers, sci-fi, adventure, and other LGBT genre books.
Lesbian literature | Publishers
Doris Claus, for example, emphasized the liberating value of the work in her analysis of the novel "Arme Kleine Jett" by Selli Engler, who was featured in "Die Freundin" in 1930. In imagining the lesbian way of life as existing openly in the context of Berlin's vibrant arts scene, without conflicts or stigmas, he created a world view which lesbians could imagine themselves in. Hanna Hacker and Katharina Vogel even consider the stylistic means of “trivial literature” as crucial for understanding the lesbian condition, since the use of "stereotypes by lesbian women also helps develops and stabilize their own culture."
Die Freundin | Fiction
The Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a work of fiction on lesbian themes. As the award is presented based on themes in the work, not the sexuality or gender of the writer, men and heterosexual women may also be nominated for or win the award.
Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction | Introduction
Even suggestions of a romantic attraction between women were rare, and the "L-word" was taboo. Lesbianism was not treated in American cinema until the 1962 release of "Walk on the Wild Side" in which there is a subtly implied lesbian relationship between Jo and Hallie. Depictions of lovemaking between women first appeared in several films of the late 1960s – "The Fox" (1967), "The Killing of Sister George" (1968), and "Therese and Isabelle" (1968). During the 1970s, depictions of sex between women were largely restricted to semi-pornographic softcore and sexploitation films, such as "Cherry, Harry & Raquel!" (1970), "Score" (1974), "Emmanuelle" (1974), and "Bilitis" (1977).
Lesbian erotica | Cinema and television
Lesbian writer Emma Donoghue found that the term lesbian (with its modern meaning) has been in use in the English language from at least the 17th century. The 1732 epic poem by William King, "The Toast", uses "lesbian loves" and "tribadism" interchangeably: "she loved Women in the same Manner as Men love them; she was a Tribad".
Terminology of homosexuality | Lesbianism
During this period, lesbians were almost entirely unrepresented as either heroes or villains. One of the earliest examples of genre science fiction that involves a challenging amount of unconventional sexual activity is the early novel "Odd John" (1935), by Olaf Stapledon. John is a mutant with extraordinary mental abilities who will not allow himself to be bound by many of the rules imposed by the ordinary British society of his time. The novel strongly implies that he seduces an older boy who becomes devoted to him but also suffers from the affront that the relationship creates to his own morals.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction | Pulp era (1920–30s)
To date, there have been no explicitly bisexual characters–either children or adults–in children's books. Some young adult fiction books do feature bisexual characters, including "Empress of the World" by Sara Ryan (2001), "Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies" by Brent Hartinger (2007), "Pink" by Lili Wilkinson (2009), and "It's Our Prom (So Deal with It)" by Julie Anne Peters (2012). When they do appear in young adult fiction, bisexuals are often portrayed as confused or greedy.
Gay literature | Bisexual themes
In the early 19th century, Chinese poet Wu Tsao gained popularity for her lesbian love poems. Her songs, according to poet Kenneth Rexroth, were "sung all over China". Though lesbian literature had not yet evolved as a distinct genre in English in the 19th century, lesbian writers like the essayist and supernatural fiction writer Vernon Lee sometimes hinted at lesbian subtexts in their work or, like Lee's lover Amy Levy, wrote love poems to women using the voice of a heterosexual man. Others wrote, but kept their writing secret. Beginning in 1806, English landowner and mountaineer Anne Lister kept extensive diaries for 34 years, which included details of her lesbian relationships and seductions, with the lesbian sections written in secret code.
Lesbian literature | 19th century: forerunners
Conception occurs in test tubes. In lesbian families, one of the women carries the child. Gay male couples turn to surrogate mothers to bring their children to term. The Netherlands is the only country where mixed-sex marriages are permitted. In this world intimacy between the opposite sexes is rejected, world history and the classics of world literature have been falsified in order to support the ideology of the homosexual world. The author paints a grotesque situation, but underlying this story is the idea that society should be tolerant and accepting and respect the right of every person to be themselves.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction | 21st century
Bayard Taylor wrote "" in 1870. Archibald Clavering Gunter wrote a lesbian story in 1896 that would serve for the 1914 film, "A Florida Enchantment."
LGBT history in the United States | 18th–19th century
In the early to mid-20th century, only a handful of books were published that addressed lesbians as characters in relationships with women. Those notable novels were published in hardcover and were as follows: During World War II, the military distributed small paperbacks to its forces, causing a large population of Americans to become accustomed to having access to cheap books and thus creating a demand for the same easy access to reading material when the soldiers returned home. As a result, in the years after the war, there appeared a new and often subversive trend in publishing that allowed for books to be written, cheaply produced, and widely distributed using technology previously unavailable.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Development of the genre
Because the social acceptance of homosexuality has varied in many world cultures throughout history, LGBT literature has covered a vast array of themes and concepts. LGBT individuals have often turned to literature as a source of validation, understanding, and beautification of same-sex attraction. In contexts where homosexuality has been perceived negatively, LGBT literature may also document the psychological stresses and alienation suffered by those experiencing prejudice, legal discrimination, AIDS, self-loathing, bullying, violence, religious condemnation, denial, suicide, persecution, and other such obstacles. Themes of love between individuals of the same gender are found in a variety of ancient texts throughout the world.
Gay literature | Overview and history
Lesbian characters rarely appear in opera; Countess Geschwitz in Alban Berg's "Lulu" is one exception, but Charles Gounod's "Sapho" portrays the poet as straight. "Patience and Sarah", based on the Isabel Miller novel, has been described as the first lesbian opera. In theater, there are quite a few plays and musicals that have lesbian characters or focus on lesbian themes. One particular musical that has received a lot of recognition in the past few years is "Fun Home". Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Fun Home is a personal account of Alison Bechdel's self-discovery as a lesbian.
Media portrayal of lesbianism | Opera and theater
Homosexuality in speculative fiction refers to the incorporation of homosexual themes into science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres which together constitute speculative fiction. Such elements may include a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) character as the protagonist or a major character, or exploration of varieties of sexual experience that deviate from the conventional. Science fiction and fantasy have traditionally been puritanical genres aimed at a male readership, and can be more restricted than non-genre literature by their conventions of characterisation and the effect that these conventions have on depictions of sexuality and gender. During the pulp magazine era (1920s-30s), explicit sexuality of any kind was rare in genre science fiction and fantasy.
Gay literature | Speculative fiction
Many wealthier women married to satisfy their familial obligations, and others escaped to Europe to live as expatriates.
Lesbian | Butch and femme dichotomy
To find her sense of self, Hammer explores the lives and works of artists including D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Shirley Temple. In the film, she says "I invented myself as an artist by reading autobiographies of famous artists, poets, painters. None of these were by or about lesbians".
Tender Fictions | Content
Some are also uncomfortable with male interest in lesbians. As of the early 2000s, there is a very strong lesbian erotic literature movement, as well as a small genre of pornography made by lesbians for a lesbian audience. An increasing amount of queer erotic literature has been released in recent decades, written by women and usually for women. There is a large sub-category of this erotica that involves various queer relationships while also including bisexuality and transgender characters into the writing. By introducing various other identities and sexualities, it opens up the erotica world to more gender-fluidity and acceptance of other queer or non-heteronormative sexualities.
Lesbian erotica | Feminist views
As of 2020, there are no known fiction picture books with bisexual characters. Most nonfiction works portraying historical people who had relationships with members of more than one gender tend to omit those elements of those characters' biographies. One picture book biography of Frida Kahlo's life, Nadia Fink's "Frida Kahlo for Girls and Boys", published in English in 2017 by Books del Sur, mentions that Kahlo loved both men and women.
Bisexual literature | Picture books
Lesbian pulp novels typically had lurid, titillating cover art. Although many women (lesbian and otherwise) bought and read these novels, book publishers marketed them to men as erotic fantasy. Covers might have a few provocative lines of text meant to draw attention to the sexy and scandalous nature of what was between the covers. Publishers inserted words such as "twilight", "odd", "strange", "shadows", and "queer" in the titles of these books. Author Ann Bannon has stated that men would read the covers literally, attracted to the art of half-dressed women in a bedroom scene, and women would read the covers iconically: two women looking at each other, or one woman standing, another on a bed, with the trigger words of "strange" or "twilight" meaning that the book had lesbian content in it.
Lesbian pulp fiction | Cover art