Friend groups can become divided and the survivor may fear losing her only LGBTQ support network," Kauffman says. "This can be especially challenging for survivors who live in areas where the community is small or there is a more hostile climate towards LGBTQ people." Similarly, some find evidence in Plutarch that Spartan women engaged in homosexual activities, although Plutarch wrote many centuries after classical Greece. In Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus of Sparta, part of his Parallel Lives, the author claims that older Spartan women formed relationships with girls that were similar to the erastes/ eromenos relationships that existed between some older and younger male Greeks. [30] Historian Sarah Pomeroy believes that Plutarch's depiction of homosexual relationships between Spartan women is plausible. For instance, Pomeroy argues that homosexual relationships between the girls would have "flourished" in the girls' choirs that performed the partheneia of Alcman. [31] I’m loose and light and a little sleepy from my second Corona and a blossoming sunburn. Sure, I say, why not, thinking all the while: If any other 27-year-old lesbians could use a self-esteem boost, all they need to do, clearly, is get themselves on an Olivia cruise. I would sob in a car to uptown Manhattan, where my friend Alia would take me in her arms and tell me it was all going to be OK.

Anne Lister and Shibden Hall | Historic England

This period of time will herein be known as the enslavement term. The slave will obey the Goddess at all times and will wholeheartedly seek the Goddess’s comfort, pleasure and well-being, above all other considerations the slave may have. The slave agrees that the slave shall derive their own pleasures from accepting their part in the relationship described in the Enslavement Documents and that the slave will gladly accept the pleasures the Goddess provides. The slave further agrees to confess the slave’s desires for the Goddess’s consideration. Failing to do so, the Goddess takes no responsibility in the consequences of the slave’s failure to disclose desires, even if the slave is unable to communicate the slave’s desires.

Later in the week, Tisha Floratos, the vice president of travel for Olivia, told me that she and her staff think about this a lot. “We’ve talked about how we begin to promote inclusivity while also preserving our core: that this is a company for lesbians. We don’t publicly, historically, say that we’re trans inclusive, but we’re always welcoming to our trans guests.”

The Hidden Bondage Room Lesbian BDSM Erotica - Archive.org

I was scared of so many things, and worried about, as usual, lesbian stereotypes — moving too fast, feeling too much. And I said so. It was one of our talents that week: saying absolutely everything that was on our minds, and processing until we felt we couldn’t possibly process anymore — at least, of course, until the next night.

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Not all women were so harshly punished, though. In the early fifteenth century, a Frenchwoman, Laurence, wife of Colin Poitevin, was imprisoned for her affair with another woman, Jehanne. She pleaded for clemency on the grounds that Jehanne had been the instigator and she regretted her sins, and was freed to return home after six months imprisonment. [68] A later example, from Pescia in Italy, involved an abbess, Sister Benedetta Carlini, who was documented in inquests between 1619 and 1623 as having committed grave offences including a passionately erotic love affair with another nun when possessed by a Divine male spirit named "Splenditello". She was declared the victim of a "diabolical obsession" and placed in the convent's prison for the last 35 years of her life. [69] Relationships between women are described in The Princess in Search of Herself, [55] a piece of literature from either the Heian [56] :7,450 or Kamakura period. [57] :16 In it Chūjō is a lady-in-waiting for the High Priestess at Ise, and the two are romantically involved. Chūjō becomes angry and jealous when the high priestess abandons her to pursue a relationship with Kozaishō, another lady-in-waiting. [55] [57] :19 The text describes physical intimacy between women clearly, casting doubt on claims that female homosexuality was not present in early Japanese literature. [55] I was captivated by what Eileen Myles told me at the time: “I know how to fight for what I want, to say no, when to wait. I’ve been in time for 65 years. I have a lot to share. That supposedly should only be in my teaching life — that’s not the case. It’s amazing on both sides to be able to share the world from different angles. It’s lively. It’s hot.”