The varied meanings lesbian has known since the early 20th century caused some historians to revisit historic relationships between women before the wide usage of the word was defined by erotic proclivities. Discussion from historians caused further questioning of what qualifies as a lesbian relationship. As lesbian-feminists asserted, a sexual component was unnecessary in declaring oneself a lesbian if her primary and closest relationships were with women. When considering past relationships within appropriate historic context, there were times when love and sex were separate and unrelated notions.[67] In addition to the difficulties of this qualification, female sexuality is often not adequately represented in texts and documents. Until very recently, much of what has been documented about women’s sexuality has been written by men, in the context of male understanding, and relevant to women’s associations to men—as their wives, daughters, or mothers, for example.[68] Often artistic representations of female sexuality suggest trends or ideas on broad scales, giving historians clues as to how widespread or accepted erotic relationships between women were.

Ancient Greece and Rome

History is often analyzed with contemporary ideologies; Ancient Greece as a subject enjoyed popularity by the ruling class in Britain during the 19th century. Based on their social priorities, early Greek scholars interpreted Greece as a westernized, white, and masculine society, and essentially removed women from historical importance.[69] Women in Greece were sequestered with each other, and men with men. In this homosocial environment erotic and sexual relationships between males was common, and were recorded in literature, art, and philosophy. Hardly anything is recorded about homosexual activity between women. There is some speculation that similar relationships existed between women and girls. The poet Alcman used the term aitis, as the feminine form of aites — which was the official term for the younger participant in a pederastic relationship.Aristophanes, in Plato’s Symposium, mentions women who love women, but uses the term trepesthai (to be focused on) instead of eros, which was applied to other erotic relationships between men, and between men and women.

Historian Nancy Rabinowitz argues that ancient Greek red vase images portraying women with their arms around another woman’s waist, or leaning on a woman’s shoulders can be construed as expressions of romantic desire.[72] Much of the daily lives of women in ancient Greece is unknown, specifically their expressions of sexuality. Although men participated in pederastic relationships outside of marriage, there is no clear evidence that women were allowed or encouraged to have same sex relationships before or during marriage as long as their marital obligations were met. Women who appear on Greek pottery are depicted with affection, and in instances where women appear only with other women, their images are eroticized: bathing, touching one another, with dildos, and sometimes with imagery also seen in depictions of heterosexual marriage or pederastic seduction. Whether this eroticism is for the viewer or an accurate representation of the scene is unknown.

Women in Rome were similarly subject to men’s definitions of sexuality, what was considered to be well-mannered, and what was not. Though works of art in Rome depict female homoeroticism, it is unknown if the art was intended to reflect accurate representations of same sex love, or if it was created for the benefit of men who found lesbian sex appealing. Sappho was a subject that several Roman scribes used. Generally, however, Sappho’s virtues were associated in Roman literature with Muses, Aphrodite, and weddings.