Editing Lesbian (section)

=== Ancient Greece and Rome ===
{{Further|Homosexuality in ancient Greece|Homosexuality in ancient Rome}}
[[File:George Hare - Victory of Faith.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[The Victory of Faith (painting)|''The Victory of Faith'']] by [[Saint George Hare]] has been described by [[Kobena Mercer]] as depicting an interracial lesbian couple, likening it to ''Les Amis'' by [[Jules Robert Auguste]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Mercer |first=Kobena |author-link=Kobena Mercer |title=Travel & See: Black Diasporic Art Practices Since the 1980s |year=2016 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |location=Durham |isbn=978-0-8223-7451-0}}</ref>]]
Women in ancient Greece were sequestered with one another, and men were segregated likewise. In this homosocial environment, erotic and sexual relationships between males were common and recorded in literature, art, and philosophy. Very little was recorded about homosexual activity between Greek women. There is some speculation that similar relationships existed between women and girls — the poet [[Alcman]] used the term ''aitis,'' as the feminine form of ''aites'' — which was the official term for the younger participant in a [[Pederasty|pederastic]] relationship.<ref name="Bremmer1989">{{cite book |editor-last=Bremmer |editor-first=Jan |date=1989 |title=From Sappho to de Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0-415-02089-1}}</ref>{{rp|pp=27–28}} [[Aristophanes]], in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]'', mentions women who are romantically attracted to other women, but uses the term ''trepesthai'' (to be focused on) instead of ''eros'', which was applied to other erotic relationships between men, and between men and women.<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|p=47}}

Historian Nancy Rabinowitz argues that ancient Greek [[Pottery of ancient Greece|red vase]] images which portray women with their arms around another woman's waist, or leaning on a woman's shoulders can be construed as expressions of romantic desire.<ref name="Rabinowitz2002"/> Much of the daily lives of women in ancient Greece is unknown, in particular their expressions of sexuality. Although men participated in [[Pederasty in ancient Greece|pederastic]] relationships outside marriage, there is no clear evidence that women were allowed or encouraged to have same-sex relationships before or during marriage as long as their marital obligations were met. Women who appear on Greek pottery are depicted with affection, and in instances where women appear only with other women, their images are eroticized: bathing, touching one another, with [[dildo]]s placed in and around such scenes, and sometimes with imagery also seen in depictions of heterosexual marriage or pederastic seduction. Whether this eroticism is for the viewer or an accurate representation of life is unknown.<ref name="Bremmer1989"/>{{rp|pp=27–28}}<ref name="Rabinowitz2002"/> Rabinowitz writes that the lack of interest from 19th-century historians who specialized in [[Hellenic studies|Greek studies]] regarding the daily lives and sexual inclinations of women in Greece was due to their social priorities. She postulates that this lack of interest led the field to become over male-centric and was partially responsible for the limited information available on female topics in ancient Greece.<ref name="Rabinowitz2002"/>

[[Women in ancient Rome|Women]] in [[ancient Rome]] were similarly subject to men's definitions of sexuality. Modern scholarship indicates that men viewed female homosexuality with hostility. They considered women who engaged in sexual relations with other women to be biological oddities that would attempt to penetrate women—and sometimes men—with "monstrously enlarged" [[clitoris]]es.<ref name="Verstraete2005">Verstraete, Beert; {{Proper name|Provencal}}, Vernon (eds.) (2005). ''Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and In the Classical Tradition of the West'', Harrington Park Press. {{ISBN|1-56023-604-3}}. pp. 238–240.</ref> According to scholar James Butrica, lesbianism "challenged not only the Roman male's view of himself as the exclusive giver of sexual pleasure but also the most basic foundations of Rome's male-dominated culture". No historical documentation exists of women who had other women as sex partners.<ref name="Verstraete2005"/>