Long marginalized, or even erased in history, sapphism or lesbianism still has a history that suffers from a lack of information.

Sapphism, by Sapphô, the ancient Greek poetess (XNUMXth and XNUMXth century BC) who loved women, designates female homosexuality. Because she was born on the island of Lesbos, Sapho was called the “Lesbian” in the sense of “person from Lesbos”. In the XNUMXth century, this gave rise to the term “lesbian” applied to homosexual women. Unlike men who have homosexual experiences and then later identify as homosexual, lesbians, on the other hand, most often develop close emotional bonds in a context of friendship. Then these established relationships become so intense that intimate feelings are expressed sexually. It is only after entering into a romantic relationship that a woman identifies as a lesbian.

The history of lesbians is a coded history, made of silences, unspoken and traces. In discretion or under the guise of friendship, Sapphic loves, exclusive or not, punctuate the history that would begin in prehistoric times since in several caves on the site of Gönnersdorf (Germany), we can see two naked women entwined, rubbing their breasts against each other. On another site located in Aveyron (France), that of La Magdeleine La Plaine in 1977, a researcher brought to light a limestone plaque adorned with a group of four women nested two by two and placed face to face. The first text that refers to love between women dates from 2 BC and is signed by Akkadian Enheduanna, poetess, priestess in the city of Ur and poetess, daughter of Sargon d’Akkad, founding king of the Akkad Empire in Mesopotamia.

Among the famous Sapphists, the Queen of Egypt Hatshepsut, the German mystic of the Middle Ages Hildegarde de Bingen, the sovereign of the 17th century, the scholar Christine of Sweden who displays her Sapphic connections, the poet Louise Labé, the authors Madame de Staël, Colette, Virginia Woolf and many other women in history. If Antiquity accepted the female homosexuality of young girls before marriage, in the Middle Ages, Christianity condemned homosexuality of both sexes but lesbianism, less visible, nevertheless remained very much alive although marginalized in the within feminist and homosexual movements. It was in the XNUMXth century, after the fall of the Empire, that doctors and moralists considered lesbians to be perverse and dangerous people.

Before the late 1970s, psychological theory and research on lesbians was scarce. When it did exist, it mainly focused on lesbianism as a condition attributed to genetic predisposition and / or early socialization. As a result, many lesbians have been subjected to psychiatric “treatment” in an attempt to cure them of their lesbianism. Since the late 1970s, depending both on the removal of homosexuality from the DSM (the American Classification of Mental Illnesses) in 1973 and the rise of feminism, there has been a seismic shift in the emphasis. on psychological theory and research towards the normalization of lesbianism.

One of the main issues when studying lesbian psychology is the term “lesbian”. Lesbians come in all shapes and sizes, literally. Most importantly, not all women who have social, emotional, and sexual relationships with other women can define themselves as lesbians. For example, they may define themselves as bisexual or use more unusual labels (eg, “pansexual”; “hetero-flexible”), define themselves unequivocally as heterosexual, or not use labels at all. Additionally, identity tags can be problematic. For example, a trans person (or with a trans history) may identify as a lesbian but may not necessarily identify as a woman. Labels are also limited by social definition. It is commonly accepted that a “lesbian” is a woman exclusively attracted to other women. Yet many lesbian women have had (or even continue to have) sex with men.

In one of her studies, the American psychologist June Hopkins collaborated with the lesbian group Minorities Research Group in the 70s. She assessed 24 lesbians and 24 heterosexual women using the 16PF personality test (Cattell, 1957). Although she hypothesized that there would be no personality differences between lesbian and heterosexual women, the results of this study did identify some key differences.

Hopkins had concluded that lesbian women, contrary to the mainstream discourse of the time, were more independent, resilient, reserved, dominant, more autonomous than their heterosexual counterparts. Women who saw their sexuality as a liberation of women, freed from the enslaving influence of men and now in control of their bodies. The study of lesbian lifestyles in the twenties and thirties reveals the richness of lesbian cultures, reflections of a social and political emancipation in progress.

After Gomorrah, the biblical city, and Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos, the original stronghold of Sapphism revived in the Belle Époque, Paris established itself at the end of the 1929th century as the third great city of lesbianism and Sappho is described. in French literature of the time as the prototypical lesbian and model of the liberated woman. Artists, writers, journalists tell the story of the Sapphist culture of the 1928th century. The Belle Époque sees artists like Suzy Solidor, singer, actress, novelist with an androgynous physique, celebrate lesbian love in her songs, and will live eleven years with her partner, Yvonne de Bremond d’Ars. Pierre Mac orlan wrote La Semaine de Sapho in 1932, Victor Margueritte, La Garçonne in XNUMX. The investigative journalist Maryse Choisy wrote, in XNUMX, “Ladies alone”, devoted to lesbianism.