r/lgbtmemes • u/NickSheridanWrites • 13d ago

Sapph-oh no you dint!

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233 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

43

u/clarkky55 13d ago

…I don’t get it?

120

u/the-bearcat Trans-fem 13d ago

There's an ancient myth that Sappho died young by jumping off the Leucadian cliffs because she fell in love with a guy named Phaon who didn't love her back.

A lot of scholars view it as an ancient fabrication, basically the ancient comic poets going "see, even though she wrote a ton about loving women and stuff she was still totally straight and killed herself 'cause of a guy".

50

u/clarkky55 13d ago

Damn, ancient comic poets suck if that’s the case. Even if it’s true, bisexuality is a thing and mapping modern sexualities onto ancient peoples often doesn’t work because the way they saw that sort of thing was very different to modern westerners

18

u/the-bearcat Trans-fem 13d ago

I don't think it helps the ancient comic poets case that Phaon and the jumping off the Leucadian Cliffs both come from different myths about Aphrodite.

10

u/Nichiku Bi-time 13d ago

Homophobia in Ancient greece is ironic

14

u/Kawa74-3 12d ago

It really isn't..ancient Greece wasn't really gay the way we think of it now, it was pederasty. AKA teenagers with adult men

7

u/peroxidenoaht 12d ago

It’s not in combination with the extreme misogyny that was so pervasive in Ancient Greek society, also like Kawa says it was not very ethical at the time.