A great deal of this article isn’t directly of interest, so much will be glossed over. The “proverbs” in question are various Greek adages in reference to people from Lesbos that mostly are not in reference to female same-sex relations. [Note: I’ve seen some arguments that some of the interpretations are more ambiguous that indicated here, but I’ll stick to summarizing what’s in this article.]

Greek proverbs using words relating to Lesbos to refer to fellatio, or to deprecated sexual practices in general, were familiar to, and quoted by, Renaissance authors such as Erasmus. This article asks the question whether those senses continued to be associated with “lesbian” in the same-sex sense, even though the non-same-sex uses were functionally obsolete in the Renaissance and indeed into modern times. Contemporary use would appear not to invoke these other sexual implications at all, but Blank explores the question of whether it’s reasonable or possible to pick and choose etymological heritage in this way. To what extent is past usage a baggage that a word cannot leave behind. [Note: One could ask similar questions without some of the negative aspects about contemporary uses of “gay” or “queer”.]

The article spends a fair amount of time discussing the nature and history of etymological inquiry, and how “folk etymology” has always been a part of the conversation. Then we get a lot of discussion of queer theory and attitudes toward historic connections across time. Fifteen pages later, we get back to the history of the use of “lesbian” to refer to female same-sex relations, inspired by the popular understandings of the poet Sappho of Lesbos. There’s an interesting quote from David Halperin (who, in general, comes off as hostile to "queer continuity" positions) when he notes that, although the use of the word in this sense is relatively modern, the word itself “is in that sense by far the most ancient term in our current lexicon of sexuality.” But the article then repeats the prevalent erroneous claim that the word didn’t develop this sense until the late 19th century, although there has been regular use of “lesbian” in other senses (including the literal “person from Lesbos”) during the intervening time.

Blank refers to “the survival of alternative ‘lesbians’ well into the Renaissance and beyond.” [Note: This may be overstating the continuity, considering how much of the classical material in which it “survives” dropped out of sight for long periods, only being brought back into circulation as part of Renaissance scholarship. So I question the framing “survival…well into the Renaissance” as indicating any greater continuity of non-same-sex usage than the appearance of same-sex usage during roughly the same era with the renewed interest in Sappho’s work and reputation.]

Early Modern Greek and Latin lexicons reiterate the derogatory sexual senses of words deriving from Lesbos and notes that these continue to appear in Greek lexicons into the 19th century, though Blank notes that these senses do not appear to have migrated into vernacular languages. Earliest English dictionary citations are for “related to Lesbos” and an architectural tool called a “Lesbian Rule.” [Note: But see Turton 2024 on the deliberate and systematic exclusion of vocabulary for female same-sex relations from English dictionaries up until the early 20th century.]

Blank questions any earlier citations in which associations with female same-sex relations can be attributed to literal reference to “women from Lesbos,” as in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans distinguishing between “associations” and “denotations.” Thus, for example, Brantôme’s reference to “such women and lesbians in France, in Italy, and in Spain, in Turkey, Greece, and other sites” is considered an association rather than a new denotative meaning. Because the passage makes specific reference to the term being inspired by Sappho of Lesbos, she (and Halperin) consider it still a geographic/ethnic term rather than having acquired an autonomous definition related to same-sex relations. [Note: I strongly disagree with this analysis of Brantôme's use.] And, she notes, new meanings always arise out of polysemous ambiguity. [Note: This may possibly be the only point in the Project where a publication by my dissertation advisor gets a reference in one of the articles I’m reading.]

After discussing how one cannot simply treat the same-sex meaning of “lesbian” as entirely uncontaminated (my term) by earlier senses relating to other types of deviant sexual behavior, Blank questions whether that means we should reject it entirely for same-sex use, to which we can add the anachronism of using a 20th century definition when discussing sexuality in earlier ages. She asks, “If we want a real neologism for female homosexuality, a word that means ‘one thing and one thing only,’ we could consider abandoning ‘lesbian’ and creating one. That might solve the persistent dilemma facing scholars who work on the history of same-sex female desire.” [Note: I have so many issues with this suggestion that it’s hard to know where to start. Is a neologism invented in the 21st century going to eliminate the problem of it coming embedded in 21st century definitions of sexuality and identity? If writers have been using words derived from Lesbos to refer unambiguously to female same-sex relations since at least the 10th century (a commentary on Clement of Alexandria), then how are all those centuries of use not pertinent to considering “lesbian” to have a heritage of use crossing over a wide span of understandings of sexuality and identity? It can be very hard not to feel like people are saying “you have this word that has a rich, unique, beautiful history—'by far the most ancient term in our current lexicon of sexuality'—and we’re going to find every argument possible for taking it away from you.] Several other approaches are discussed, including terms like “proto-lesbian” or “lesbian-like” that only marginally address the concerns. She concludes by suggesting that we can’t claim rights to “lesbian” in the modern sense without also embracing all the other meanings the word has had, even ones in direct contradiction—and this is the choice Smart eventually supports. I’m going to quote part of the conclusion extensively because I want to quote it in my book and this is an easy way to keep track:

“Our current use of ‘lesbian’ goes back to Lesbos, I would add, because we keep talking about the word as if it were an island of language, curiously untouched by the full range of its past and therefore its present meanings. We treat it as an island, perhaps, because our vernacular lexicon has relatively few terms for female same-sex love and desire; apart from slang words such as ‘dyke,’ or ‘femme,’ or ‘butch,’ ‘lesbian’ is practically all we have, and we are protective of it. Though we may alternatively call ourselves ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual,’ such terms are, for some, invariably and problematically gendered male.”

[Note: I should be clear that I agree on many of the points of Blank’s article: that the specific “female same-sex relations” sense of “lesbian” is not original to ancient Greek, that the word has had a variety of senses over the centuries, and that one should not pick and choose among those in order to imply a teleological development of the dominant modern English meaning. But as often happens, there is a tendency to hold same-sex usage to a disproportionate standard of evidence and certainty, while accepting other definitions based on “common knowledge” that has actually been questioned. And it never helps when the same-sex evidence relies on a chronology that is simply incorrect.]