2000 Years For The Lesbians To Get Mad At The Lesbians?
So the residents of the island of Lesbos don’t want anybody not of that island to call themselves Lesbians. A little too late, you Lesbos you. You should have thought of that in about 570BCE when Sappho died. ‘Cause it only went uphill from there.
I did think of a couple of things we could call ourselves instead of lesbians and ran the ideas by some Twitter friends. Actually, I have been using these terms in a variety of situations for years and they work quite well.
The first term I prefer is Carpet Muncher. I love to use that one around my gay male friends. It makes their faces turn bright red. All I have to do is look at them and say, Berber, Frieze, or Shag. They leave immediately. When someone at work says, “oh, I thought you were a Mormon,” I respond with, “ha! I’m a carpet muncher.” It is a keeper.
The second is more subtle and is already being used, via my sister, at one of the local hospitals to secretly identify gay and lesbian coworkers. Let’s say we are Australian. Why Australian? Because men like the outback and women like the bush. That seems like a natural one to me.
Another option, instead of US changing our name, is to book every Olivia cruise ship available, float on over to Lesbos, and storm the beaches. We could have Rosie O’Donnell lead the charge, which would by itself scare the shit out of the natives. And of course we would have Annie Liebowitcz there to photograph the whole thing. She would, however, probably make us take off our clothes, more artsy that way, which might cause some chafing or black eyes as we run through the sand, but hey, I’m up for it. Any takers?
Aw, no fair. I say Carpet Muncher around gay boys to make them uncomfy too! Australian… I don’t think I can use that.
Most woman-loving women I know don’t like being called “lesbian” anyway… however most of those also transition to men at which point I think their opinions matter a little less.
So why are lesbians called lesbians? And why isn’t there a similar noun for gay men?
@ Sra Sappho lived on the Island of Lesbos and wrote love poetry to another woman. Thus, Lesbian.
Gay men. Don’t know.
I like the last option best, I’ve been dying to do Olivia’s Greek Isles cruise anyway!
Love the way you think, you crack me up!
I’ve always been a fan of carpet muncher
You are funny. I did not know that the term “lesbian” actually came from an affair of lesbian women… so its not just a coincidence - in that case, i don’t know why the people of lesbos have a problem with this.
Anyway, your blog is great - I always learn something interesting.
Sra has a good point. How’s come gay men don’t have a technical name? There’s a slang term, which I believe is “twink”, just as lesbians are called “dykes”, but no technical term. Of course, I don’t know that we straight guys have any cool terms either.
Carpet muncher has too many syllables. It doesn’t roll of the tongue the way Dyke does. I shall have to ponder this…
@Sov “roll of the tongue”…now you’re talking lesbo.
I’m not a lesbian in either sense of the word, yet that sounds like a temptingly fun cruise…