unspeakablevice:Some context: ‘Tribade’ was a common term during the early modern period (15th to
unspeakablevice: Some context: ‘Tribade’ was a common term during the early modern period (15th to 18th century) for women who have sex with women. Tribade indicates a person who commits the act of tribadism, better known now as ‘scissoring’. The origins of the term stretch beyond Latin and Ancient Greek all the way back to the Proto-Indo European language root ‘tere’ which means ‘to rub’. Image: by Paul-Emile Becat (1885-1960) During the late-18th century Marie Antoinette was not uncommonly depicted as a tribade in fictional portrayals, such as pornographic pamphlets and theatrical productions. As Alan Sikes argues, Marie Antoinette stood at the intersection of some very complicated class-based and sex-based politics. This time period was rife with debates over different forms of sexual desire and the class-based baggage perceived to be attached to particular forms of desire, particularly that of same-sex desire. Typically, same-sex desire was associated with the greedy excesses of the aristocratic class. Understandably, in the midst and following a revolution, French society experienced a great deal of class anxiety. French theatre dramatized this class conflict and along with sexual politics, thus the fictional depictions of Marie Antoinette as a tribade. Sikes argues that while same-sex sexuality was associated with the sexual excesses of the aristocratic class, at times it was also associated with an excess of class/revolutionary ‘zeal’. In essence, the depiction of the tribades/tribadism is more complicated than previously thought. Sikes notes plays and pamphlets in which Madmoiselle Raucourt, a French actress (who if I were speaking ~ bluntly ~ I’d say was a renowned and confirmed tribade IRL) was depicted as the organizing force behind fiercely independent, revolutionary tribadic subjects. In one installment of the anonymously published L’espion Anglais (1778) Raucourt is depicted as the president of a sect of tribades. She claims there is “no hierarchy” among “sisters”, and that they are all equal. She addresses the tribade sect as a distinct, legitimate identity group who, Sikes writes, “share specific desires and sexual practices” (pg 46). Sikes finds in this instance, as well as others, a strong association between tribadism and robust revolutionary class politics, rather than those of the aristocratic class. -- source link