Currently reading Plato's Symposium for class and wondering if women ever got to have fun or meaningful sexual relationships. From what I understand it seems that love and sex involving women was generally seen as lustful and impulsive, while relationships between men were on a "higher level," for lack of a better phrase (obviously this is an account from a man's perspective, which biases it). Were women in Ancient Greece able to seek sexual and romantic fulfillment? How was this viewed by society?
Have you read How common was homosexuality (or what we'd now see as homosexuality) in Ancient Greece? It's listed in the FAQ under the Gender and Sexuality section.
In it, /u/cleopatra_philopater gives a very detailed description of male and female relationships and gender roles in Athens (and a less detailed discussion on relationships and gender roles in Sparta).
Wow, terrific question. This is about women's history and-- I think-- lesbian history.
One would be remiss to discuss women's romance in Ancient Greece not to mention one of the most iconic lesbians of history, the poet Sappho, from which "sapphic" as an adjective meaning "women in love with women" comes-- and her home, the island of Lesbos, from which the world "lesbian" comes. Sappho lived from approximately 630BC to 570BC, making her an Archaic Greek.
So, at least one prominent Greek poet from before the Common Era gives her name to lesbians!
In the modern tradition, she is strongly associated with lesbianism. However, this interpretation of her work and her life has varied wildly throughout history, with some claiming reports of her sleeping with her female pupils was "slanderous" and others claiming it is simply too modern a lens to apply to women of that age-- that there was no analog to the male same-sex relationships famous in Ancient Greece. This is an issue of some scholarly contention-- "The Great Sappho Question."
This was disputed over the centuries; John Donne weighed in on the matter in the 17th century; she was discussed by the Decadent Movement in France in the 19th century by Baudelaire as a "daughter of de Sade"-- meaning a sexual deviant. Conversely, in Britain in the 19th century, Sappho was taken up by Caroline Norton among others as an icon not for lesbianism but for women's independence.
Women's independence from men, especially in pre-modern societies-- and even to this day-- is not a given. In order for a woman to carry out an affair with another woman, both would need the freedom and the time to do so. That would mean, in contexts like Ancient Greece with very few rights for women, finding a moment without a brother, husband, father, etc., directing one's movements, and also no infant children in need of care, given the number of children women had on average.
The pre-modern "model" for lesbian relationships tended to be written as the relationship between wealthy women and their maids (fictionalized loosely in 2018's The Favourite, although that story is roughly accurate. No spoilers! But a film well worth watching.) In the intimate spaces of women's chambers, paired with the status and power of Queens or Baronesses, there was a previously unforeseen opportunity for women to carry out intimate relationships with each other. There are likely countless more "types" of story, but they have not been written for us to find.
Writing history is also a very important factor. Women's literacy lagged behind men for centuries, even into the 20th century (and in the poorest countries of the world to this day); it is difficult to write a history of oneself without the words to do so. This is true of both heterosexual women and homosexual women (among others.) We have vast gaps in our understanding of women's relationships through the ages because so many women, relative to men, were forbidden from learning to read and write.
This, paired with a variety of beliefs about women's sexuality-- for instance, that women had no independent sexuality other than as a vessel for men, which was not uncommon even into the 20th century-- means that women-women love is very seldom noted, even in contexts where men-men love is. Consider that most laws against "sodomy," historically, only considered gay sex to be a criminal act; lesbian sex was seldom noted, even in the most aggressively anti-gay legislation.
The facts as they stand are: Sappho wrote lyric poetry (possibly 12,000 lines, of which 600 survived), many addressed to women with whom she was in love, and lived on an island amidst many female pupils. And her name and her home give inspiration to the modern lesbian. (Like me!)
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