WordWacky

Can you sue the world if you don’t like a word in general use? My instinct says no, but apparently someone is trying.

The people of the island of Lesbos are not pleased. It seems that one famous Lesbian’s sexual activities have trumped the accomplishments of the entire island. No longer can a straight woman from the Greek island say she’s a Lesbian without raising eyebrows. This is the complaint of a lawsuit filed against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece. [via Deblog]

While the homophobic implications of this are undeniable, I have to say, I empathize for a few reasons.

• I’ve never liked the word, even though I will cop to the identity in certain settings. I prefer to call myself a dyke. It’s hipper, more in-your-face, less apologetic. While I am eternally grateful to the feminist lesbians of earlier generations for doing their absolute best to de-stigmatize the word, I’m not sure it worked. There’s something about the way the way it forms in your mouth that makes it sound a little like a disease, or like you’re trying to spit out a hair caught in the back of your throat. Is this internalized homophobia? Probably. But it’s how I feel, nonetheless, and I’m not alone.
• The activities of certain a soon-to-be-ex-President make me embarrassed to call myself an American. While I won’t equate bombing nations, destroying their infrastructure, claiming their natural resources, and watching the nation’s decline into civil war with, say, cunnilingus, I can understand how one person’s actions should not define that of an entire geographical region.

The man behind the lawsuit, Dimitris Lambrou, also mentions that she wasn’t really a lesbian dyke, anyway. New research (funded by whom, I wonder) has unearthed that Sappho had a family and killed herself over a guy. Two things to say to that: 1) So?, and 2) She should have stuck to women.

Despite my qualified empathy with the plight of the Lesbians, I will enjoy watching this initiative fail. For one thing, there are far more of us than there are of you. Your brand has been co-opted, people of the island of Lesbos.

Sorry?

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under news, words, writers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.