Lesbianismo – more correctly lesbianity – is the term used in the Spanish language to refer to female homosexuality , that is, women who experience romantic love or sexual attraction for other women.
The word “lesbian” comes from the island of Lesbos , where the Greek poet Sappho lived . It is used to refer to a homosexual woman who feels sexual, physical, emotional and sentimental attraction only towards women.
Lesbianity is not a disease, and neither is male homosexuality. Several theories of diverse origin try to explain this sexual orientation.
Characteristics
Lesbianity has more affective components than genitals. Statistics indicate that female homosexual relationships last longer – that is, they are more stable over time – than male homosexual relationships.
It would be fair to clarify once again that female homosexuality is not a disease, and neither is male homosexuality. In both cases we speak of a behavior, of a change of sexual object. Instead of being attracted to the opposite sex, he or she feels attracted to a person of the same gender . This is not without its problems, especially due to social non-acceptance.
Adolescence, admiration and tendencies
In the stage of puberty and adolescence , a gender identity crisis occurs, where the boy or girl may think that they are homosexual because they are attracted to the physique or achievements of a friend of the same gender.
According to specialists, at this stage it is normal for this gender confusion to occur, but if the young man or girl is properly oriented and understands that she is the product of an exaggerated admiration, rather than a pleasure for the body or achievements of someone of the same gender, everything will pass without complications. Gender identity is overcome after adolescence, so that during almost all their youth the young person may have this doubt regarding their sexuality. This is where parents have a fundamental role, so that young people, women or men, go to a psychologist for support. This is because some of them create such a huge feeling of guilt that they come to hate themselves for being “abnormal”, generated more by the social environment than by the individual himself. For there is nothing “abnormal” about them.They are only part of a minority on the subject, and only on this, of sexuality itself.
Mario Schauer, Honduran entertainment journalist
Theories
Regarding the origin of female homosexuality, there are at least two positions that are the most accepted today.
The first is believed to be due to a genetic origin and appears at a very young age, at the level of kindergartens or kindergartens, where girls like others. The second is of Freudian origin, in which formation by social groups, by the family, creates homosexual people. According to this theory, it is due to the presence of a strong father (in terms of behavior, of course) and the low appreciation of the mother that begins to be considered as someone who should not be imitated.
This causes the lesbian to identify and imitate her father during her growth. At first she falls in love with him and as she grows up she identifies with her mother. Then he will have the same tastes as her, but when the complex of Electra (a girl who falls in love with the father) is not overcome and she does not identify fundamentally with the mother, but with the father, she will look for the same love or sexual object as this: another woman.
Censorship by default
In most cultures, lesbians have been considered non-existent, unlike male homosexuality, which, although not tolerated, was at least recognized. Women have been persecuted by adulteresses and prostitutes, but very rarely because of their sexual orientation. It could be affirmed then that lesbians have been marginalized by omission, precisely. One of many examples would suffice to illustrate it.
One could be by going back to the 19th century , when homosexuality was declared illegal in England . Lesbianity escaped such a ban because Queen Victoria refused to acknowledge its existence.
The great disadvantage of this “invisibility” was the neglect of the needs of these women, who throughout history have lacked reference models for their lifestyle. And also that very recently, around the 70s and driven by the rise of the gay movement, it was that women with the same homosexual tendencies decided to unite and make public a reality as old as humanity itself, to claim their rights in a society that excluded them.
Historical features and evolution
We could speculate that lesbianity has existed for as long as humanity has existed. It is impossible to determine at what precise moment the first lesbian relationship arose, but certain historical documents allow us to get an idea of how this issue has evolved. In the Code of Hammurabi , around the year 1770 , the salzikrum appears, a figure that characterizes a woman-man who could have one or more wives and whose name means daughter-man.
In Greece and ancient Rome, lesbianity was accepted as normal. In Rome, for example, there were public baths for women who, despite being married, wanted to have sexual contacts with other women. These baths had felato slave slaves, who satisfied their lesbian desires. There is also evidence of weddings between women.
Only a few cases of lesbianity are known from the Middle Ages through ecclesiastical archives. Dark ages for the letters and the truth. The texts collect complaints, convictions and sermons. Saint Ambrose (340-397), described the desire of some women for others as a lustful act. Saint Chrysostom called it shameful. Centuries later, Saint Anselm referred to the sexual relationship between women as an attack against nature and Pedro Abelardo would pronounce himself in the same sense .
Saint Thomas Aquinas established as one of the vices against nature the copulation between female and female. Later many theologians would rely on Saint Thomas to condemn lesbianity as a sin of lust. In ten centuries of documentation there are only a dozen allusions to female homosexuality and they are always linked to ecclesiastical condemnation, heresy or witchcraft .
In Latin America there is evidence of the existence of lesbian women in aboriginal communities at the end of the 16th century ; for example, the women known as “cacoaimbeguira” held the trades of men, went to war, and related to other women who assumed the role of wife.
In the 1920s , the influence of the erroneous stereotypes created by psychologists caused absurd beliefs about lesbians to spread among the population. Thus, campaigns were developed to prevent “lesbian disease” among young girls, and lesbianity began to be associated with marginalization, disease, perversion, and vice. Faced with this treatment, many homosexuals accepted themselves as ill and tried to reject their emotions by marrying or committing suicide.
Already at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st , the rights of lesbian women have been advancing thanks to collective initiatives of recognition as a minority and in favor of their rights; but even in many parts of the world, and in less cultured environments of developed societies, lesbianity continues to be a source of public derision and even inequality and disapproval on the part of the authorities.