Editing Lesbian (section)

=== Early modern Europe ===
[[File:Hermaphrodite engraving circa 1690.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Lesbianism and [[hermaphrodite|hermaphroditism]], depicted here in an engraving {{circa|1690}}, were very similar concepts during the Renaissance.|alt=A front and back illustration of a Renaissance-era hermaphrodite showing a person with female facial features, breasts, and what appears to be a small penis or large clitoris. She wears a small hood and open robe tied multiple times around the legs. Where it opens in the front, the apparent rear appearance shows it to be perhaps a shell of some kind, as one with her body. Two squares are missing from her the back of her head and torso. She has no buttocks.]]

Female homosexuality did not receive the same negative response from religious or criminal authorities as male homosexuality or adultery did throughout history. Whereas sodomy between men, men and women, and men and animals was punishable by death in England, acknowledgment of sexual contact between women was nonexistent in medical and legal texts. The earliest law against female homosexuality appeared in France in 1270.<ref name="Norton1997"/>{{rp|page=191}} In Spain, Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire, sodomy between women was included in acts considered unnatural and punishable by burning to death, although few instances are recorded of this taking place.<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|page=130}}

The earliest such execution occurred in [[Speyer|Speier, Germany]], in 1477. Forty days' [[penance]] was demanded of nuns who "rode" each other or were discovered to have touched each other's breasts. An Italian nun named Sister [[Benedetta Carlini]] was documented to have seduced many of her sisters when possessed by a Divine spirit named "Splenditello"; to end her relationships with other women, she was placed in solitary confinement for the last 40 years of her life.<ref name="Norton1997"/>{{rp|p=190}} Female homoeroticism was so common in English literature and theater that historians suggest it was fashionable for a period during the [[Renaissance]].<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|p=1}} Englishwoman [[Mary Frith]] has been described as lesbian in academic study.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chess |first1=Simone |title=Male-to-Female Crossdressing in Early Modern English Literature: Gender, Performance, and Queer Relations |date=2016 |page=16 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=New York |isbn=978-1138951211 |quote=(and Frith, by extension) has been described in scholarship as a roaring girl, a transvestite, a lesbian, and, more recently, as both (proto-) butch and transgender. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2z7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16}}</ref>

Ideas about women's sexuality were linked to contemporary understanding of female physiology. The [[vagina]] was considered an inward version of the penis; where nature's perfection created a man, often nature was thought to be trying to right itself by prolapsing the vagina to form a penis in some women.<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|p=12}} These sex changes were later thought to be cases of [[hermaphrodite]]s, and hermaphroditism became synonymous with female same-sex desire. Medical consideration of hermaphroditism depended upon measurements of the [[clitoris]]; a longer, engorged clitoris was thought to be used by women to penetrate other women. Penetration was the focus of concern in all sexual acts, and a woman who was thought to have uncontrollable desires because of her engorged clitoris was called a "tribade" (literally, one who rubs).<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|pp=14–16}} Not only was an abnormally engorged clitoris thought to create lusts in some women that led them to masturbate, but pamphlets warning women about [[masturbation]] leading to such oversized organs were written as cautionary tales. For a while, masturbation and lesbian sex carried the same meaning.<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|p=129}}

Class distinction became linked as the fashion of female homoeroticism passed. Tribades were simultaneously considered members of the lower class trying to ruin virtuous women, and representatives of an aristocracy corrupt with debauchery. Satirical writers began to suggest that political rivals (or more often, their wives) engaged in tribadism in order to harm their reputations. [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] was rumored to have a passionate relationship with [[Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough|Sarah Churchill]], Duchess of Marlborough, her closest adviser and confidante. When Churchill was ousted as the queen's favorite, she purportedly spread allegations of the queen having affairs with her bedchamberwomen.<ref name="Aldrich2006"/>{{rp|p=137}} [[Marie Antoinette]] was also the subject of such speculation for some months between 1795 and 1796.<ref name="Jennings2007"/>{{rp|pp=17–18}}