#sappho discourse

[rin-00]

As a lesbian I struggle a lot with talking to girls but not because they make me nervous. As a young Asian woman I’ve experienced, like I’m sure other women have experienced, being on the receiving end of creepy advances from men. I googled asian lesbian growing up and I remember seeing porn before I saw a regular photo. My entire existence as an asian lesbian felt like it was took over by men using me to jerk off at night and I felt disgusting in my own body. I struggle with talking to girls in a romantic way because I don’t want them to feel the same discomfort. I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable or disgusted. And I can’t help but feel like my identity has been corrupted by the porn industry that I now have it caked all over me therefore I emit a perverted, creepy, disgusting energy. I’m genuinely terrified I’m being a creep when I like girls and I don’t even know it.

[kainekillinggod]

I feel like the sapphic community ((not lesbain or mspec but specifically ppl who use the term Sapphic)) is like. Very white. And very anti-masculinity

And this is mostly referring to online,

The portrayal of 'sapphic' relationships always seems to be femme4femme or whenever it's butch4femme the femme is always light skinned and dainty and innocent while the butch is dark skinned and masculine and cold

Whenever I encounter things not labeled as Sapphic but more so wlw/nblw/nblnb it's I guess to sayBetter????Like I'll see specifically lesbains talking abt things and it's never been racially exclusive whereas specifically sapphic things have??????? I'm not sure if that makes sense

Also to say I've never seen sapphic having butch4butch.

[love-bites-and-poetry-burns]

i think yall against irl shipping need to remember SAPPHO HERSELF never came out as queer. ppl speculated ab her sexuality. she never got to live in a time where people could just come out as queer. she couldn't be validated until after her death. don't force coming out on people. just say gay when you see it. like. yall are literally out here living by "don't ask don't tell" when you refuse to speculate or ship queer people. it's annoying.

(inspired by a convo w @buzzez i love my best friend)

[lesbian-polls]

POP QUIZ!

Answer under the cut

From the island of Lesbos, Greece! Home to Sappho the poet, figure of love between women and where sapphics get their name from as well.

[cilantroodon]

[ID: (all caps) It's No Use (end caps) / Mother dear, I / can't finish my / weaving / You may / blame Aphrodite / soft as she is / she has almost / killed me with / love for that boy /End ID.]

i got this book of sappho's poetry only to find out it has translations that paint sappho as straight. like this absolute classic that every dyke knows by heart

istg i hate cishet academics so much.

[luxiomahariel]

Strange little vent of mine on the topic of Achillean discourse and vitriol I've seen lately towards gay trans men and transmasculine people's connection with Achilles and similar Classical figures:

It pisses me off when people say that the Sapphic label is valid because of lesbian connection to Sappho but gay men's connections to classics are problematic and copying lesbians, because it discredits a long, vivid history of gay men in literature using Classical figures to connect to our sexualities. Before gay was even used as a term, homosexual men referred to themselves as Uranians, a reference to Aphrodite Uranos in the Symposium. Many queer male authors would use specific Classical figures in their writing as a sort of flagging and/or queercoding (Wilde comes to mind, but a lot of other Uranian poets did similar). To say that contemporary queer men are wrong for feeling a connection to homosexuality in antiquity is to deny centuries worth of gay authors their main connection between themselves and historical queerness.

Similarly, to compare modern trans men and transmasculine people's interest in Classics to conservative, misogynistic, white supremacist cis men with reductive beliefs about ancient cultures inherently discredits all of the classicists who are people of color or women. Classical studies is a genuine area of research and it's incredibly insulting to so many minority classicists to imply that EVERYONE with a fascination towards Ancient Greece and Rome wants to use that knowledge to oppress minorities. It feels insulting towards so many of my peers and professors in my area of study to imply that any interest in Classics is some sort of tell of conservatism. It's openly hateful to deny certain people a connection to queer history and allow it for others.

^

[sorrydetka]

i didn’t like who i was on the outside. i was ashamed.

água viva by clarice lispector // from blood, tin, and straw by sharon olds // from the dhammapada // electra: a tragedy by sophocles (tr. anne carson) // if not, winter by sappho (tr. anne carson) // a lover’s discourse by roland barthes // the mirror in which two are seen as one by adrienne rich // a burning hill by mitski // typhus by anna akhmatova

[timetravelstudies]

New discourse preserved in cryogenic glass since 2015 uncovered: sappho was straight and was just saying all that to advertise her school

[mariacallous]

Partial list of the books that Helene Hanff ordered from Marks & Co. and mentioned in 84, Charing Cross Road (alphabetical order):

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice, (1813)

Arkwright, Francis trans. Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon

Belloc, Hillaire. Essays.

Catullus – Loeb Classics

Chaucer, Geoffrey The Canterbury Tales translated by Hill, published by Longmans 1934)

Delafield, E. M., Diary of a Provincial Lady

Dobson, Austen ed. The Sir Roger De Coverley Papers

Donne, John Sermons

Elizabethan Poetry

Grahame, Kenneth, The Wind in the Willows

Greek New Testament

Grolier Bible

Hazlitt, William. Selected Essays Of William Hazlitt 1778 To 1830, Nonesuch Press edition.

Horace – Loeb Classics

Hunt, Leigh. Essays.

Johnson, Samuel, On Shakespeare, 1908, Intro by Walter Raleigh

Jonson, Ben. Timber

Lamb, Charles. Essays of Elia, (1823).

Landor, Walter Savage. Vol II of The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor (1876) – Imaginary Conversations

Latin Anglican New Testament

Latin Vulgate Bible / Latin Vulgate New Testament

Latin Vulgate Dictionary

Leonard, R. M. ed. The Book-Lover's Anthology, (1911)

Newman, John Henry. Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education. Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin – "The Idea of a University" (1852 and 1858)

Pepys, Samuel. Pepys Diary – 4 Volume Braybrook ed. (1926, revised ed.)

Plato's Four Socratic Dialogues, 1903

Quiller-Couch, Arthur, The Oxford Book Of English Verse

Quiller-Couch, Arthur, The Pilgrim's Way

Quiller-Couch, Arthur, Oxford Book of English Prose

Sappho – Loeb Classics

St. John, Christopher Ed. Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw : A Correspondence / The Shaw – Terry Letters : A Romantic Correspondence

Sterne, Laurence, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, (1759)

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Virginibus Puerisque

de Tocqueville, Alexis Journey to America (1831–1832)

Wyatt, Thomas. Poems of Thomas Wyatt

Walton, Izaak and Charles Cotton. The Compleat Angler. (John Major's 2nd ed., 1824)

Walton, Izaak. The Lives of ��� John Donne – Sir Henry Wotton – Richard Hooker – George Herbert & Robert Sanderson

Woolf, Virginia, The Common Reader, 1932.

[literaria-journal]

Summer hopefuls 🍓

It's an ambitious list, so I don't know how many of them I'll manage to read till September.

But I'm up for the challenge!

Paperbacks:

• White Nights, Fëdor Dostoevskij

• Daisy Miller, Henry James

• Mr Salary, Sally Rooney

• Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson

• Women in love, D.H. Lawrence

• Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe

• Sappho of Lesbos, Alexander Trocchi

• Lady, Thomas Tryon

• The lady of the camellias, Alexander Dumas (fils)

• Senility, Italo Svevo

• Pillars of the earth by Ken Follett or The name of the rose by Umberto Eco...if I can manage! Not both obv 😅

eBooks:

• A little larger than the entire universe, Fernando Pessoa

• The honey suckle, Gabriele D'Annunzio

• A lover's discourse, Roland Barthes (paused, need to continue this!)

• Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

• Sonnets to Duse and other poems, Sara Teasdale

• The book of the city of ladies, Christine de Pizan

[sappho-favorite-pupil-fandoms]

heyy, my name is Ele, i'm 20 years old, and my pronouns are they/them or she/her (she/her for other dykes and they/them for everyone else - appreciated but not mandatory).

this a sideblog of @sappho-favourite-pupil, where i'll rant/post/reblog discourse about my favourite fandoms. mainly arcane at the moment [and salivate over vi because i mean].

I will also write fanfictions, just for arcane women, for now. requests are kinda open? tell me what you'd like to read and i'll see what i can do about it. just know i will only write for women and nonbinary ppl.

the DNIs and general rules of engagement are the same as the ones i got for my main blog (except for the "men dni" thing, but i will ask men to refrain from interacting with my lesbian nsfw fanfics).

[credit for the profile picture goes to maniac crow, on pinterest]

[st-just]

💌

You are enviably widely read and- cultured, I suppose? (As in, you've read enough classical poetry to have multiple favorite lines from Sappho, and it's hardly your only area of interest), as well as actually being impressively plugged in to the current state of SFF literature.

Plus generally very good takes on politics and current events without letting The Discourse consume your brain.

[tepkunset]

I'm really confused as to why you changed the Sappho lesbian flag to a "sapphic" flag. The sapphic flag already exists; it's pink and white with a violet in the middle. There's nothing wrong with or problematic about that flag either, so why can't your flag just stay a lesbian flag instead of being another sapphic flag?

I'm sorry if I'm being annoying. I recently returned to Tumblr & found this out, and it has just really upset me. I'm struggling with this because your lesbian flag is the ONLY popular lesbian flag I've seen that doesn't have a problematic creator. Even the most popular one, the orange and pink one, has a horrible creator. I know it's just a flag or whatever, but it means a lot to me. I have merch of it, created art with it, etc.

At this point I regret making the flag because asks like this come around every once and a while. I literally feel like taking down that old post because I don't like being part of flag discourse. I made it at a time where I identified as a lesbian and there was no flag I felt appropriately represented me. That is no longer the case. I don't want it. You take it if you want it, call it yours, because it's not mine anymore. Whoever wants it can still use it, except for transphobes. But I don't want it.

What exactly is so horrible about the creator of the pink and orange lesbian flag? You can't just say shit like that and not provide any context or proof or whatever.

[martyrdeer]

SANGLANTE IMMORTALITE

synopsis: wracked with cultural fears and personal dreads of the aging process, elara retreats from the world behind her lover, isolde. the two take comfort in one another, sharing tender dinner preparations and solemnly wordy discourses on the nature of beauty and immortality within their silent house. but buried beneath the apparent serenity is a dark reality: their search for eternal youth obtained by consuming the vital essence of others. while elara is battling the haunting whispers of society's expectations, isolde's mysterious charm and their shared rituals become at once a source of refuge and a chilling epiphany regarding the extent they will go to preserve their ageless beauty.

tags: my original characters!! themes of aging and societal beauty standards! cannibalism, implied violence, mentions of murder, body horror, & dark romance!!

word count is 1.2k!!

The smell of the comforting melancholy rainfall took residence in my bathroom. I opened my window ajar earlier because the weatherman on the radio predicted a storm. Now I'm sitting at my vanity staring into my pale complexion. I look rather sickly, my purple eyebags betraying me. I roughly drag my fingers against my cheek. They leave a faded red mark afterward. I started to get that unsettling feeling that the patriarchal society was right. That women start to become ripe at thirty. All of my precious dollars flushed down the drain along with the false promises of those nonsense anti-aging creams.

“Elara?” My darling, Isolde calls out to me. Her soothing voice snaps me out of the madness. My head turns to the side where the door is. My senses come back to me. I hear a muffled Nina Simone play on our record player. I glance back at my reflection before slipping back out to my kitchen. My silk robe fluttered behind me as I paced to the kitchen, Isolde doesn’t like to wait. Once I got into our kitchen, I smelled a new yet delectable scent. I beamed as I saw Isolde stirring something in the pot. I sneak up on her with a devious smile on my face. When I was up against her, I slipped my hand down her back.

I lean in to look down in the pot & I chuckle. Surprisingly I didn’t frighten her. Her stiffened back eased into my touch. I sniff again, taking into the smell. “What’s this one?” I whisper to her. I felt her lovingly glance as she lifted the spoon. She stayed silent as she held the spoon up to my mouth. I slid my hand under it, tasting it. “Les poumons de notre ami,” Isolde finally tells me. I smile as she says it, she’s always naming her crafts in French. “It's incredible,” I insist, my grin still plastered on my face. She nods as a thank you, “I thought it would be nice to have a friend for dinner.”

I huff while preparing the table, “You’re right. And I’ll always provide the ingredients. Anything for you, my dear.” I place our wine glasses next to our plates. My eyes seem to trail back to Isolde. She’s pouring the soup into the bowls cautiously. When she was done, I strolled back to assist her. Isolde hands me the bowl, I glance down at it while taking it to the table. The soup has Gruyère & bay leaf melted on its surface. If I wasn’t smiling enough, I was now. I place my bowl down as I sit. I look up at Isolde, patiently waiting for her.

When she sits, I am reminded of her immortal beauty. I recall that December night at my father’s work party. The first time I saw her across the room drinking her white wine and talking to a relative of mine. I never understood Sappho’s ramblings until I met Isolde. She was so breathtaking that it made me envious. I remember staring into her perpetual virtue, cursing myself for letting my looks slip away. I asked her how she stayed so fresh-faced, dying to let me in on her secret. The way the seasons change with her. How she had the universe under her control. I will never forget how she batted her eyes at me. Spoke softly in my ear with a gentle laugh, “If I told you, I would have to kill you.”

I came home the next day around noon. My day was shorter than usual, I struggled to walk without aching through the door. Some days I begin to feel my age. I was met with a silent welcome. Others would become worried if their partner didn’t come to them. But I’m not that codependent of Isolde. I can still feel her presence throughout the home. That’s what comforts my pain. I slip off my shrug as I stroll to my living room, I search for her. I find her resting on her wool chair peacefully reading. Like many times before I sneak up behind her and kiss her cheek. I mumble against her cheek, “Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh.”

Isolde’s eyes lit up as I spoke, she stared down at me as I sat next to her. “I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me,” She quoted to me. My eyes scan her face while I smile sweetly at her. I feel like an idiotic fool when I stare at her. I want to devour myself into her beauty & soul. Isolde grazes my face with her hand, her touch is gentle. She brushes a strand of my hair out of my face and pushes it behind my face. My vulnerability starts to grow as her thumb hovers over my cheek. She whispers to me, “You have a cut.” I raised an eyebrow when Isolde’s thumbnail pressed into my cut. My voice is low because I am lost in her touch, “I didn't even notice.”

That night, Isolde was cooking dinner like clockwork. And I was doing my daily routine where I mindlessly gaze into my reflection. The leftover rain smell began to rust in my bathroom. My main focus is my cut, I fear that it might scar. Despite being the size of my nail, it was deep. Isolde promised me that if it did, she would kiss it every day for me. And she gave me a quote along with her oath. “Scars are the threads that weave beauty and bravery into our souls." I wonder where she got it from. After I was done with my insecurities, I went back to where Isolde led. I watch her as I rest my chin on my hand. I temporarily forget everything else in the world while watching her prepare the food. “And this one is called?” I politely pander, referring to the food. She beams up at me and says, “Coeur de ton ennemi.”

At dinner, we eat in solitude. A beguiling harmony plays in my head as I feel myself age backward while eating my meal. I take a sip of the white wine that tastes so rich & refreshing. I can taste Isolde’s endlessly laudable remedy in the meat. The constraint from a chauvinistic coterie that found its way into society’s consciousness was lifted off my shoulders. I start to smile as I take another sip of my wine, feeling celebratory. Isolde notices my happiness and she dittos my simper. “Why are you so happy?” She questions, a hint of curiosity in her voice. I sigh as I collect my words, “The explorers of the Fountain of Youth are so oblivious.” I see the confusion on Isolde’s face. I continue to explain, “They don’t know the real answer to immortality.” I place my wine glass down as she catches on. She nods with a chuckle, “Eternal youth comes from within. The flesh gracefully blurs. Somebody’s instrumental chamber of existence becomes our orchestra. In their grim slumber, we craft a melody of beauty. We absorb their souls & reservoirs. We battle against Father Time. And so far, it seems like we’re winning.” I see a smirk on her face before she sips her wine. I began to feel giddy as I opened my mouth again, “Dévoreurs d'existence."

[batpoisonz]

what are all the flags in your intro? :D /genq

I LOVE ANSWERING THESE TY FOR ASKING I will go in order for u and go in as much depth as I can!!

good faith 4 good faith

made by @stainedlenses! I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that it is for people who support good faith identities and would prefer to be partners with somebody else who is also a good faith supporter :3c (as in supporting all good faith identities such as mspec lesbians)

masculine-identified feminine-aligned cross-aligned flag

I made this one! it's for anybody who identifies as cross aligned and identifies as a masculine gender, but aligns with a feminine gender. for example im transfemmasc intersex and I identify as a man, but im aligned with any fiaspec genders (I think that's the right term).

transfem flag

also made by me! originally this was just supposed to be an "intersex transfem" flag but because the transfem community doesn't ENTIRELY have a flag we have agreed on (same with the transmasc community) I wanted to make it for just anybody who is transfem of any variant. I was also really exclusionary when I made it and decided on the flag with votes so I want to repurpose it for people who aren't exclusionary.

I know we have the pink and blue transfem and transmasc flags but as an intersex person I just wanted to stay away from them bc of all the discourse and potential false information cuz idk who to trust atp.

turigirl flag

idk who made this but basically for any turian/veldian/gay person who identifies as a girl in some way! it's the counterpart for lesboy!

inclusive dawn lesbian flag

made by @redtail-lol! imo it's really pretty, but basically I'm using it in place of the mainstream/sunset lesbian flag bc 1.) it was made by a bi lesbian 2.) it was made by somebody who is inclusive 3.) it isn't 2 flags smashed together so it has originality (which taking inspo is fine, u can have originality while taking inspo but the sunset flag didn't have that), and more! these are all reasons to use the dawn flag over using the sunset flag, in my personal preference. u don't have to use it!

lesboy flag

counterpart to turigirl, for anybody who identifies as a lesbian and a boy in some way!

lunian lesbian flag (idk why this one is smaller)

for lesbians who want to specify they're mspec without an mspec label/for lesbians who want to include lesbians of all genders!

intertransfluid

for anybody who is intersex and cannot specifically pinpoint what their gender is due to having a unique connection to gender/feels like no current terms completely match their gender or one of their genders/is fluid around what terms they use due to not knowing which one fits best. I also made this flag and coined the term!

7 stripe Sappho lesbian flag

made by @thepokedexisgay! for anybody who is a lesbian and wants to use the Sappho flag or this one I believe!! I use it instead of the mainstream one as well bc it's more inclusive and doesn't have connections to any sort of bigotry or racism. nor does it include any part of the lipstick flag which I am uncomfortable with

I think that's all of them! I hope this helps you!

[boltgsr]

if you want to do queer media discourse you have to engage with at least one piece of queer art aimed at adults in a full and direct reading.

questions?

yes, you in the back?

no, YA cartoons do not count.

yes, even if they finally have explicitly queer characters.

yes, I agree it is progress, but a key goal of critical analysis is to consider a broader lens. okay?

anyone el- you, third row?

mhm

mhm.

no, abridged sapphos poems tagged #aesthetic don't count either,