KIBI GôApr 17, 2018
does there yet exist a book or analysis or discussion on lesbian terminology in the late twenty teens because i know a lot of the tumblr crowd uses terms like “wlw” or “sapphic” but i've never understood the cultural or community distinctions that those connotate over gay and/or lesbian
Show threadsummer spriteApr 17, 2018

@kibi i think part of it is that there are a lot of people on tumblr who insist on a very narrow definition of lesbian (i mean not unique to tumblr but like, nobody yells at you if yr like, pan and dare to call yrself a lesbian on masto forex afaict)

so like some of it is being influenced by those folks' usages, some of it is due to wanting to avoid getting harassed by the more strident of them, some of it is an intentional positioning in opposition to them

Show threadsummer spriteApr 17, 2018
@kibi oh also some of it is because of treating "lesbian" as, like, an identity term instead of a descriptive one, in that, like, if yr talking about some woman who's into other women but you don't know whether they'd call themselves as a lesbian, "wlw" can feel safer, less charged, less likely to be upsetting, in that cultural context
Show threadaschmitz
@kibi @srn I'm probably not the right person to be commenting all too much, but I'll agree with this: it seems "wlw" is a little softer in its intent even with the same effective meaning (reference, for example, "amab [woman]" versus "trans woman"). Regarding sapphic, I don't really know, other than it just being a little less common in public discussion and therefore maybe a bit more open for claiming. (Similarly, "dyke" in some circles.)
Apr 17, 2018 at 12:08pmWeb
Show threadaschmitzApr 17, 2018
@srn @kibi (Though I don't think "sapphic" has the same reclaimed history that "dyke" does, so it's a limited comparison.)