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Not to be pedantic (cough) but surely it's Lesbian when referring to the islanders and lesbian when referring to gay women?
Residents on the Greek island of Lesbos have declared that they alone have the right to call themselves lesbians, and yesterday launched a legal action against the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union (Olke) designed to wrest back control of the word from aficionados of Sapphic luuurv. Local activist Dimitris Lambrou states in his …
One can't help but be reminded of the fuss made by idiot Merkins when the Black Dyke Mills brass band went on tour... Should residents of Victoria (Oz) also complain that we think they're tall-hatted besuited gentlemen and crinoline-and-bonnet-wearing ladies from the Age of Steam when they refer to themselves?
That is an alternative name for the island, and I thought they were taking this up.
'Lesbian' for women has been used for well over 150 years, so it is a bit late. Barn door, horse, etc., folks. It's like objecting to the word 'gay' being 'hijacked' when it's had the homosexual meaning since the early 1800s, if not earlier.
I also take exception to the idea that having the word 'Lesbian' associated with gay women mans that all residents of the island are suffering from psychological 'rape'. It is only if you think lesbianism is an evil, deranged, poisoned, warped way of life. But surely in the Euro zone, we don't feel that being called 'gay' when we're not is something so terrible that we will be rendered insane.
And fellow El Reg posters -- wouldn't it be wise to assuem that lesbians are amongst you? Would you say some of these posted words to the face of a lesbian colleague?
"...continue to use lesbian with gay abandon..."
Chuckle.
An old cowboy went to a bar and ordered a drink.
As he sat sipping his whiskey, a young lady sat down next to him.
After she ordered her drink, she turned to the cowboy and asked him, "Are you a real cowboy?" He replied, "Well, I have spent my whole life on the ranch, herding cows, breaking horses, mending fences. Yep, I guess I am."
After a short while, he asked her what she was.
She replied, "I am a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning I think of women, when I eat, shower, watch TV, everything seems to make me think of women."
A short while later she left and the cowboy ordered another drink.
A couple sat down next to him and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?"
He replied, "I always thought I was, but I just found out that I'm a lesbian."
The potential for jokes about this story is huge. One thing I would say, the inhabitants of Lesbos had better be in bloody good shape - the lesbians I know brook no stupidity and are bloody good in a fight (a few are very competent at martial arts and at least one is good with a sword). I sure wouldn't argue with them!
Please do a playmobil on this story!!!
Skull and crossbones because it's very dangerous to incur the wrath of lesbians.
"A male lesbian is a physiologically heteosexual male who wishes he'd been born a girl. He feels alienated by the social standards of gender roles. He may be a crossdresser or consider himself transgendered, but he is probably not transsexual. His ideal would be to be able to be his feminine self in a relationship with a biological female. If he is open about this, he may be ridiculed by both the gay and straight communities."
See http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=male+lesbian
"
Hadst thou felt desire for things good or noble, and had not thy tongue framed some evil speech, shame had not filled thine eyes, but thou hadst spoken honestly about it.
"
Seriously, this peurility of comment is embarrassing to me (straight male). Watch your videos and I'll watch mine but don't discuss, as some kind of entertaining freaks, women who just happen to like women.
Don't worry pet, as a real-life lesbian (the lady-loving kind, not the Greek kind) it's taken in good humour. We're not scary man-hating militants y'know! I love blokes, I just don't wanna shag them.
Anyway, as the island is really called Lesvos, this is surely only an issue for the Lesvians in the UK? I'm very puzzled. Publicity grab methinks. Greeks never refer to their islands by the Anglicised name. I mean, no Kerkyran would say they were from 'Corfu'.
Gay Girly Geekette, who knows that Aphrodite could kick Sappho's arse.
Didn't lesbians get their name from the women only religion based on this island many many years ago.
Just like the word vandal, lesbian comes from a quite appropriate historical source relating to a people with whom it was first associated.
This greek chap is a muppet who doesn't understand how language works.
""A male lesbian is a physiologically heteosexual male who wishes he'd been born a girl. He feels alienated by the social standards of gender roles. He may be a crossdresser or consider himself transgendered, but he is probably not transsexual. His ideal would be to be able to be his feminine self in a relationship with a biological female. If he is open about this, he may be ridiculed by both the gay and straight communities.""
So, just a new name for Emo kids then?
Almost makes as much sense as the Women Rights groups in Canada wanting the name of a small viallage in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador changed to something other than Dildo as it is demeaning and degrading to women, who cares if it has had this name for over 100 years.
Instead put on a bikini and some baby oil and wrestle.
do I need a reason for the avatar with this type of article.
PS. Where is the IT angle (had to be stated)
Yes lesbians did get their name after the particular women only based religion on this island - to be 'like a lesbian' is very old and as such has its origin from the association with the ruling female population at the island during the antique period. It does seem odd that they would be 'embarrased' by something which has its origin in their own history. It is not even a negative association. Vandals on the other hand have got their name 'vandalized' by the historically constructed defamation by the Romans. Vandals: originally a tribe living somewhere on the northen coast of what is today Polen. By the early vikings they were named something like 'wendes' which is related to the english word 'friends'. The vikings called this tribe for 'friends' presumably because it was one of the (few?) non nordic tribes with which they dealt with as friends. During the folk time of tribe movements in europe (after the birth of christ somewhere between year 0 up to approx year 400) the tribe formerly known by the Vikings as 'friends' moved south through europe down through spain and to north africa. After initially being abused and treated disrespectfully by Rome they mobilized and eventually succesfully sacked Rome. By being succesful in their seizure of Rome and inflicting noticable destruction on the city Rome had been 'vandalized'. So while the word 'vandal' originates from the word 'friend' it is no more associated with this originally positive meaning.
They should make the female inhabitants of the island (fit ones of course) fight the fit lady-loving ladies for the name. This should happen once a year and involve very brief swimwear and lots of oil.....
This is the best news story ever!!!!
Paris - Because nothing else seems right.
I thought that lesbians got their name from the island being associated with the poet Sappho, who lived there and who was particularly noted for her poetry about other women. Anglicised references to her, obviously much later, referred to her as Sappho of Lesbos, giving English the words 'sapphic' and 'lesbian' through association with her.
Aphrodite would have had a big edge over her in a fight, being divine. Not exactly a fair fight. Although maybe Sappho could have taken inspiration from Sc...I'm going to have to look up the spelling..Scheherazade and repeatedly put Aphrodite off by composing poetry about her but not finishing it.
I could have brought the tone of this post down by ending it with the question "or did you typo when you wrote 'kick'?", but I won't.
Oh dear :)
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That depends on how exactly you define "male". It's not exactly easy to come up with a good, robust definition of "male" even in the strictly biological sense. Transsexuals make things even more confusing, though at least they know whether they're male or not.
Still, apparently transsexual lesbians do exist. (There was even a fairly entertaining episode of Dark Angel based around this.) For male lesbians, though, you might be better off looking in Second Life - apparently some of the in-world lesbians are males in real life and it's caused huge amounts of e-drama in the past. (Probably still does - I don't really follow Second Life-related news anymore, and I'm not sure it'd really count as news either.)
I have known many "lesbians" in my time and although alot of the practice good hygiene, most of the tree hugging hippie "lesbians" didnt know how to use a razor. Please tell me that these ones dont braid their underarm hair.
(How do you hide money from a Hippie? Put it under the soap)
/mines the rubber one, no not the used one.
To all confused would-be linguists, yes, the Greek name for the island is Lesvos and the female residents are called Lesvies. But gay females are also called "lesvies" in greek, not lesbians, so, there's your problem.
Which is not a problem at all, because the common name for the island is Mitilini and the residents are called Mitilinii (yes, I know, it looks better in greek).
Don't believe me? Try and call a random girl from Mitilini "lesvia" and see what happens :)