The Volokh Conspiracy

Obviously, in the "female homosexual" sense, "lesbien" would usually take its feminine form, "lesbienne," unless you wanted to talk, perhaps, about a lesbian trapped in a man's body. Of course you could talk about, say, a "lesbian bookstore," but in French you'd probably phrase it differently.

As a Greek-American, I will try to answer this one.

(1) Lesbos is pronounced "Lesvos" in Modern Greek, because "beta" is pronounced "veeta."

(2) As for the Greek word for "lesbian" and "Lesbian," they are, of course, different. For "Lesbian," we say: Λέσβιος ("Lesvios") (male) and Λέσβια ("Lesvia")(female). For "lesbian," we say: "ομοφυλόφιλη" ("omophilophili") ("homosexual" in the feminine form); λεσβιάδα ("lesviada"); and sometimes "τριβαδικός" (trivadikos), but that is more of an adjective (whose root I am not sure I understand or know). We also say: λεσβιασμός (lesviasmos) and τριβαδισμός (trivadismos) for "lesbianism."

(3) I don't know that people from Lesbos are really offended by their name being used to describe Lesbians, but I do know that they are kind of "traditional" or "conservative" people who seem on the whole to dislike the influx of lesbian tourism they get in the summer months. Indeed, unlike Mykonos, which has happily capitalized off of gay travel, Lesbos doesn't really do that. Nonetheless, the lesbians come to visit Eressos, the home of the poet Sappho. A quick search shows that someone has even done a study on these visits, as well as their impact on the locals, but I read it and it looks more like a synopsis and doesn't really say much...it also clearly has a "pro-gay" bias, so might not reflect genuine local feelings.

(4) I don't think that we should avoid using a term because it offends the locals. Greek people don't really care what non-Greek people call them anyway. My parents are from Crete and are "Cretans", but they had no idea (until moving to the states) that this sounded like an insult in English. I guess the Lesbos thing is different. Anyway, I think, and not to be majoritarian, but there are probably more "lesbians" in the word than "Lesbians", so at the very least the term has gathered secondary meaning.

(5) Finally, this issue is quite interesting. Greeks in general, I feel, try to "hide" their "homosexual past", as that so many gays and lesbians try to unsurface in order to find support for their lifestyle. It's an interesting study on changing concepts of morality and the influence of religion. Indeed, going to school in the states (high school at least) we never heard about Shakespeare's bisexuality or Plato's homosexuality.

Eric Muller wins.

Here is one relevant account, from an article in a journal devoted to gay and lesbian studies:

Since the end of the 1970s a fairly large number of lesbian women—coming initially from the United States and northern Europe and later from Italy, Spain, and other places, as well as from elsewhere in Greece—have visited Eresos, which has become known as a point for lesbian women from all over the world to meet during the summer. A seasonal lesbian community is re-created every summer, a community with its own territorial and symbolic boundaries, a community differentiated over time.

...

Since Eresos first gained a reputation as a place that attracts lesbians, overt antagonism has arisen between lesbian women and the local people, often in the form of a contest—on both territorial and symbolic levels—
for the facts. Lesbian women who visit Eresos lay claim to it because it gave birth to and brought up Sappho; in this respect it is a place of symbolic meaning for the lesbian community. Locals who wish to claim it as their own stress their right to invest in the kind of tourists they want. During the years between the establishment of a lesbian community in Eresos in the late 1970s and the discord of today that pits an “us” against a “them,” stories of “wild women” versus “moral locals,” on the one hand, and of “vulgar locals” versus “liberal and independent women,” on the other, have proliferated. Attempts to describe the lesbian community of Eresos have converged to confirm the confrontation.

Kantsa, Venetia, "Certain Places Have Different Energy": Spatial Transformations in Eresos, Lesvos, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies - Volume 8, Number 1-2, 2002, pp. 35-55.

The author goes on with a somewhat more nuanced description. Anyway, this is not a rigorous study, just a perspective.

A Greek-American friend in grad school (for Classics) used to like to shock people by telling them "My mother's a Spartan and my father's a Lesbian".

I've never been to Lesbos, but a Classics professor who has once told me that there's a statue of Sappho in (I think) Mytilene. I think he said it is life-sized and bronze. I know he said that it's right in front of a warehouse with the Greek word for 'moving and storage' in big letters, which makes for amusing snapshots: the word is METAPHORA, which is very appropriate for a poet like Sappho.

Just to confuse things, in Sappho's time Lesbos was known for its fine wines, beauty contests, womens' fashions, and the local girls' (alleged) propensity for fellatio. In other words, the same stereotype as France today. (I don't know whether ancient Lesbian cheese was famours or not.) Of course, fellatio seems entirely incompatible with Lesbianism in the modern sense.

Gianni, I believe the root for τριβαδικός is likely to be τρίβω, the verb (in ancient as well as modern Greek) for "to rub."

Of course, residents of Intercouse, PA live relatively close to Blue Ball, PA.

Given the relative embarrassments, I am sure that helps the residents of Intercourse accept their lot in life.

Eric,
Isn't it true that if you stop a few miles short of Intercourse you end up in Blue Ball?

Whoops, sorry, I see Rich B. beat me to it.

BobDoyle: Yes, but still not as much grief as the denizens of Blue Ball, PA!

Oh, and Paul is very right. Don't take the love the people of Lesbos have for Sappho and her poetry as an endorsement of homosexuality, just like you shouldn't take Greek people's love of Plato, Socrates, etc. as such an endorsement, either.

I studied at Panepistimio Ayyaio (how's that for transliteration) and lived with a family in Mytilene. Believe it or not, the subject never came up.

Perhaps they feel the same way the Dixie Chicks feel about having the President referred to as a Texan.

Oh, sure. Rhymes with "looking." Right. And if you miss it, I suppose you get to "vonk" in Bavaria?

I would confirm what has been said on the way the residents of Lesbos look at the issue. I would however add as a native speaker of Greek two linguistic points.
First (respectfully disagreeing with Giannis) the Greek words for lesbian and Lesbian are very much the same: λεσβία / lesvia. The only difference (apart from the capital L) is (sometimes) the word stress: in lesbian it´s always the i that gets stressed, in Lesbian it may be the e (more modern) or the i (a bit more traditionalist, but still in use). The only actual alternative for lesbian is omophilophili (but it is too long and formal to be used as widely as lesbian), whereas lesviada and trivadikos are absolutely never used; Gianni, maybe you can find them in a dictionary, but they are totally unknown in modern Greece.
Second, the island has nowadays an alternative name as well, i.e. Μυτιλήνη / Mytilini (which is also, as mentioned above, the name of its capital). This leads to a sort of practical solution to the possible confusion between lesbian and Lesbian: the female resident is also called Μυτιληνιά / Mytilinia (and they may also tend to say that they "come from Lesbos"). So residents do try to avoid the confusion in my experience by exploring the possibilities offeren by the Greek language to alter the way they refer to themselves.

Well, I´ve lived in Greece much longer than you, and I have never ever heard them (by the way, I do not suggest they are non-existent in theory, but rather that they are not part of the "active vocabulary" in any formal or informal setting), but I guess we´ll have to live with our disagreement:-) We don´t want to turn the VC to a forum for Greek linguistics, do we?
The stress is important indeed. But, as I mentioned, in a at least equally used form of Lesbian (the resident) even the stress is the same, which makes them feel like the same word anyway. That alternatives for Lesbian are in use also suggests that people do sense some confusion and try to avoid it.

On the other hand, the people of Condom, France, enjoy the publicity.

gp:

(1) I definitely yield to you on the language point; I didn't mean to imply that you were wrong. I was just saying that I wasn't getting mine from a dictionary. I was stupid for forgetting "lesbia" which as you say is a more common way of saying "lesbian." At the same time, I'd point out that I have never heard or read the other version of "Lesbia" (i.e., the one with the stress on the "wrong" syllable). I think the Greek language distinguishes, BUT this could be because I am too young to have heard the "traditional." But you raise an interesting point and the Greek linguistics does answer EV's question I think in part: If Greeks have shied away from calling themselves lesbIa because it sounds like lesbian, then maybe that's a sign that they are disturbed by the connection.

(2) I will say that I think the comment you made about getting around it by saying I am from Lesbos is an overstatement somewhat and involves unwarranted speculation on your part (are you sure this is why they say that). I only question this because ALL Greek people ask the question "Where are you from" and the answer, in my experience, is 90% of the time, "from x or y place." People rarely say "I'm Athenian" or "I'm Spartan." See what I mean? I think that is just a function of the language in general.

(3) We don't "disagree." I was wrong; you were right. There, I conceded, how NOT Greek of me is THAT. :-P

I wonder how the descendants of the Vandals, Goths and the Spankings enjoy the modern use of their names.

gp: Agreed. :-)