hudebnik

Just two more posts from the group of articles on pornography. Then I'll have a fun series on a primary source, which will tie in with a planned podcast. (Got to get working on that podcast script!)

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 336 – Aye, There’s the Rub - transcript

(Originally aired 2026/02/21)

This podcast is going to include discussions of sexual techniques, as well as vocabulary. Just FYI.

Literature about sex between women—both historic texts and academic studies—tend to have a major focus on the sexual activities that caused the greatest amount of anxiety for normative society. This tended to be those techniques that were the closest analogues to heterosexual intercourse, especially the use of dildoes and the mostly-mythical enlarged and penetrating clitoris. This can make it hard to sort out exactly what types of sex actual women might be engaging in together. But there’s one data source that gives us a clear window into the importance of non-penetrative sex in people’s understandings of sex between women: the meaning of some of the words most commonly used to describe it.

When discussing vocabulary, I’ve often focused on terms deriving from Sappho of Lesbos, because they’re not only the most iconic words, but because they’re the ones most common today. But when we look at terms used historically in cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean, there is an obvious theme of the act of “rubbing.” Once these terms became established, they picked up more general meanings—or even might be redefined in entirely different ways—but for those with even a smattering of multi-lingual knowledge, the reference to sexual friction was always available. So let’s take a tour through these words, in various languages and cultures, and see how they developed and evolved.

Descriptions of “Rubbing”

Descriptions of rubbing-based sex can be ambiguous, in part due to the heteronormative assumptions of observers. If a woman is lying on top of another woman and they are rubbing their vulvas together, it may be described as acting “like a man with a woman” leaving it ambiguous whether penetration is involved or even meant to be implied. In many cases, we get this simple version. In other cases it may be more detailed, as in the early 15th century French record of Jehanne and Laurence that describes how Jehanne “mounted her like a man does on a woman.” Or the early 17th century report of Abbess Benedetta’s activities by her partner that includes “Embracing her, she [Benedetta] would put her [partner] under herself and kissing her as if she were a man, she would speak words of love to her. And she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves. [I.e., came to orgasm.]” An 18th century Dutch prosecution record describes two women lifting their skirts and one woman making “movements as if she were a male person having to do with a female.”

In other contexts, this act is described without reference to gender roles and is more specific about the physical actions. The 1st century Latin poet Martial describes—in a satirical epigram—women “joining two cunts” and thus committing adultery without the presence of a man. A 13th century Arabic text by the author Al-Tifashi includes detailed instructions for a technique called “the saffron massage” that involves rubbing the genitals together. In this case, the level of detail in the description makes it clear that there is no penetration. The late 15th century author Bartolommeo della Rocca describes “women [who] come together vulva to vulva and rub one another” referring to them as tribades. Also in the early 17th century, the French writer Brantôme clearly distinguishes women engaging in penetrative sex together (which he considers medically dangerous) and those “joining twin cunts” (quoting the Latin from Martial).

Vocabulary

These are the types of activities that are reflected in labels for such women that are based on the act of rubbing. The majority of this discussion will focus around two word groups: those based on Greek tribas and those based on Latin fricare. Other terms for rubbing will be introduced but not explored as deeply.

Tracing the documentary record of sexual language referring to rubbing is affected by multiple factors. There is the basic question of what words were being used, combined with the question of how they were being used. But our ability to track that data depends on the willingness of writers to record those words and provide candid indications of what they referenced. Turton, in Before the Word was Queer, points out the active censorship that can be traced in English dictionaries as more explicit definitions are repeated across multiple editions with gradual erosion of their specificity (or are eliminated from the listings altogether). Further, the dictionary citations given for such words may distance them from contemporary usage by quoting classical authors, even when the words can be demonstrated to be in current use in less formal documents. There is also the consideration of how the women themselves might describe themselves and their activities versus how others might describe them, which could differ based on language formality, education, and the judgements implied by the words.

Tribas

The earliest word we can identify is the Greek tribas, from a verb meaning “to rub.” Although often used in the original form, which was also borrowed unchanged into Latin, this gave rise later to tribade and the associated terms tribadism, tribadistic, and so forth. The earliest surviving examples are from the beginning of the Common Era and in Latin texts, despite the Greek origin. But the word was clearly in common use prior to that, given the variety of texts it shows up in.

In a fable about the origins of same-sex desire by the 1st century author Phaedrus, the tribade is presented as the result of a drunken Prometheus mixing up genitals when creating human beings out of clay, and thus accidentally putting female genitals on a male body, which therefore would desire sex with women.

Hallett (1997) notes that while Roman authors used the term tribas when describing historic or foreign (i.e., Greek) women, it is less commonly used when discussing the sexual activities of Roman women, even when explicit language for sex is used.

Tribas also occurs in early (and later) astrological literature to indicate a woman whose astrological alignment has influenced her to have male-coded sexual desires, including desiring sex with women. An example comes from Claudius Ptolemy, writing in 2nd century Egypt, about an astral conjunction that makes women “what we call tribades, for they deal with females and perform the functions of males.”

The 5th century medical author Caelius Aurelianus defines tribade as only indicating the “active” partner—indeed, as a woman who sexually desires both men and women, though preferring women—but ascribes that desire to a psychological condition, not to anatomy. (This is relevant in a little bit, because Aurelianus, like several early Roman medical authors, was well aware of the clitoris and its function in sexual pleasure, but makes no connection between it and same-sex desire.)

A 10th century commentary on Clement of Alexandria presents the words tribas, heteiristria, and lesbian as synonymous in referring to women who “act as men against nature.” This is a key text as it provides an early triangulation of words that may have other meanings, but intersect on the point of same-sex desire. Each word may have been used in broader contexts, but the thing they have in common is women loving women.

Later writers sometimes seem to indicate that tribade is an archaic or obsolete term, commenting on its classical usage, but this can also be a form of distancing, where the very phenomenon of female homoeroticism is displaced to earlier ages or distant lands.

For example, tribade appears in both English and French sources by the early 17th century but a French legal discussion in 1618, in discussing the crime of sodomy, cites “women who corrupt each other, whom the ancients called tribades,” though other terms are also mentioned, but without the emphasis on ancient use. Nicholas de Nicolay in his late 16th century description of the Ottoman Empire, describes women who act “as in Times past [did] the Tribades [of ancient Greece.]” Similarly, a late 17th century English source notes of confricatrices that they were “anciently [called] tribades.”

The linguistic origin of tribade in the act of rubbing survives today primarily in the formal term “tribadism” to mean the rubbing of female genitals together as a sex act. I haven’t traced down when this specific word came into use, though it seems to show up in medical terminology by the late 19th century. But that use indicates that, whatever the other applications of the word tribade, it retains some connection with its origins.

Frictrix

A Latin word equivalent in meaning, frictrix and its derivatives, shows up around the 2nd century in the writings of Tertullian. Derived from the verb fricare meaning “to rub” (also the root of “friction”), the verb can apply to a number of different sexual actions. Adams (in The Latin Sexual Vocabulary) questions whether it originated as a calque (that is, a translation) of Greek tribas, but several other verbs about rubbing or grinding also appear in Latin sexual senses, including molo (to grind, as a grain mill), depso (to knead, as in bread), and tero (to rub or grind). Adams doesn’t provide any examples of these used in female same-sex contexts, but then, he works fairly hard to ignore or erase female same-sex references entirely (even suggesting that frictrix refers only to masturbation and failing to discuss tribas at all, despite including it in several quotations). So I have no faith that his failure to identify examples is meaningful. In any case, the Romans seem to have made a general connection between sex acts in general and rubbing, kneading, or grinding.

Forms of fricatrix and its derivatives such as confricatrix appear in English and French by the early 17th century, supplementing late 16th century examples in Latin glossaries, as in a 1593 entry for fricatrix which is coyly glossed as a woman who “useth unlawful venerie.”

Brantôme, writing in the early 17th century about events of the late 16th, is a rich source of French vocabulary for lesbian relations. He describes how women who practice the same love as Sappho are called tribades in Greek, and in Latin or French, fricatrices because they practice “fricarelle.” He says a specific woman mentioned by Junvenal was a tribade because she loved the rubbing (frictum) of another woman. Brantôme’s descriptions distinguish clearly between different types of sex acts, and “fricarelle” is primarily used for non-penetrative acts.

Vocabulary for lesbian sexuality virtually disappears from general English dictionaries in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and may be given a very vague definition of “loose morals” when it does appear, while more explicit meanings were retained in specialized medical glossaries. This is not due to the words not being used, but rather to deliberate bowdlerization of reference works in an era when women were becoming a larger audience for them. During this period there arises a split between the classical vocabulary of tribades and fricatrices, which appears in professional contexts, and everyday colloquial language, which shifts to terms with other origins, such as sapphist or tommy.

Rubster

The English term “rubber” or “rubster” may have originated as a calque on fricatrice, or it may have arisen as a direct description. Whatever the source, it is recorded as early as the early 17th century. It appears in a dictionary entry of 1663 to translate the Latin confricatrix, implying that readers would be familiar with it as an English word. And in 1689 it appears in an anatomy text describing how “female rubbers do not feel less Pleasure in that Coition, that Men in their Copulation.”

It's likely that there are vernacular terms in other languages meaning “one who rubs” used in the same way that I haven’t found references to yet.

Sahq

In medieval Arabic, a variety of words relating to sex between women derive from the root sahq, which also refers to rubbing, pounding, or grinding. (Some authors regularly translate it as “grinding” and the noun as “grinders” both as a literal translation and to avoid the anachronistic implications of translating it as “lesbian.”) In general, saḥq is framed as a rejection of men and of penetration in general. Some words derived from it clearly indicate a mutual activity rather than something one woman does to another. Arabic medical theories attribute female same-sex desire, among other reasons, to a type of itch in the genitals that is satisfied by rubbing.

Sahq refers specifically to sexual activity, with implications of love and affection. Arabic-speaking cultures had other terms to indicate a gender-crossing woman, whether or not she engaged in sex with other women.

When European writers turned their attention to the sexual practices of the Islamicate world, they made the connection between this word and more familiar terminology, as in a 1615 travelogue that described woman-loving women in Morocco called “Sahacut, that is to say, Rubbers or Ticklers, for they…tickle one another like unto Tribades.”

Other Words

Some words that might seem to have the same meaning and application are questionable on closer scrutiny. Spanish tortillera, identical to a word meaning “tortilla maker,” is attested in an 1830 Spanish-French dictionary as equivalent to tribade. It might at first appear to be another slang term referring to grinding or kneading, except for the problem that Spanish “tortilla” didn’t yet refer to the unleavened bread product it’s associated with today. The best guess at the original sense of the slang term is something like “bent” or “twisted,” although a number of folk etymologies have arisen around the hand motions used in patting out a corn tortilla.

Expansion of Meaning

Over time, two phenomena affected the understood meaning of “rubbing” terminology, both driven by changes in the popular image of sex and gender as it relates to women’s same-sex relations. These two processes were intertwined but I’ll discuss them separately. The first is an expansion of terms for rubbing from a specific sexual technique to a general sense of lesbian activity. The second is a contraction of meaning to a specific sexual image unrelated to the original meaning of the terms.

It's clear from the earliest examples in Latin that tribade and fricatrix had already expanded in meaning beyond only referring to rubbing-related activities to indicating any type of sexual activity between women—or sometimes any non-normative sexual activity by women. Tribade and fricatrix retained a strong connection with their linguistic roots, even when used more generally, but they also weren’t the only ways female same-sex activity was described.

Early medieval texts that explicitly discuss sex between women include penitential manuals, but these do not use terms related to tribas or frictrix –or indeed any terms referring to classes of people—but rather discuss specific acts, using words like vice, sodomy, or fornication. In general, penitentials are less concerned with non-penetrative sex, and when it is mentioned, it tends to be labeled masturbation regardless of the number of women involved.

During the medieval period, examples of tribade and fricatrix tend to be found in professional literature deriving from the classical tradition: medical texts, astrology texts, and the like. The few clear references to sex between women in legal contexts and literature are more likely to either refer to sodomy (usually only when an artificial penis was involved) or to use circumlocutions that avoided using any specific terms at all.

The classical language begins appearing more widely again as the Renaissance spread greater familiarity with older literature, but it was clear they had entered everyday language at some point. By the 17th century, both tribade and fricatrice had become something of generic sexual insults in English. In stage drama, a woman might be insulted as both a whore and a tribade without any indication that either was literally true, and the epithet “fricatrice” is even found being applied to men.

The French writer Brantôme uses both tribade and fricatrice when describing women who have sex with women. The way he distinguishes the terms suggests that the two may have been diverging in usage in French at this point. Generally he describes fricatrice and fricarelle as referring to rubbing—including a specific definition of fricarelle as meaning a rubbing technique as contrasted with penetration. In contrast, he uses tribade for women who enjoyed sex with a woman who had an enlarged clitoris. About which, more in a moment.

In the 17th century, the English poet Ben Johnson could accuse a rival (female) poet of being a tribade and “raping” her female muse, which would seem to imply that (metaphorical) penetrative sex was within its scope of meaning. The term “tribadry” also occurs in a similarly metaphorical context.

As we’ll discuss in a moment, the word tribade seems to have become associated with a physiological theory of same-sex desire in the 17th century. but by the later 18th century, this theory is waning with the rise of the “separate species” approach to gender. If men and women didn’t exist on a physical gender continuum, then the argument that desire for women derived from pseudo-masculine anatomy was no longer supportable. On a vocabulary level, this weakened the association of words for such women with abnormal physiology and the activities it supposedly made possible.

Also beginning in the 18th century, we begin to see a new wave of generalization in the meaning of rubbing-related terms, such as a French legal manual of 1715 that defines fricatrices and triballes as “women who corrupt each other,” or the French dictionary of 1765 that defines tribade as “a woman who has a passion for another woman.” It isn’t always clear whether this more general meaning was prevalent in everyday usage or whether it had more to do with a growing squeamish aversion to discussing sex acts in detail.

This shift in definitions begins to be reflected in dictionary entries of “tribade” in the mid 18th century where, in contrast to earlier definitions, the word is defined in vague terms such as the “name given to lascivious women who try to obtain among themselves pleasures they can receive only from the other sex.” (1755). These descriptions present the tribade no longer as behaving “like a man” but there is also an emphasis on the lesser pleasure she enjoys.

In late 19th century dictionary entries, we can trace the erosion of earlier, more specific definitions as fricatrice becomes defined simply as “a lewd woman,” and “frigstress” as a woman who masturbates,

Contraction of Meaning

Circling back to the 16th century, when professional literature on anatomy and sex “rediscovered” the clitoris, with the consequent invention of a physiologically driven cause of female same-sex desire, the ground was ripe for shifting the definition of words from generally indicating same-sex desire to a specific meaning of “a woman who uses an enlarged clitoris to engage in penetrative sex with women.” The function of the clitoris in sexual pleasure had been noted earlier in Roman and early medieval texts, but it wasn’t until the 16th and 17th centuries, when anatomists recognized it both as an analog to the penis and as an organ that had no obvious function other than sexual pleasure, that it became the focus of social anxieties about lesbianism.

These anxieties about the independence of female pleasure from men were made concrete in the image of the macro-clitoral, penetrating woman, which came to dominate that aspect of sexual discourse. In this context, language that had previously indicated any type of female same-sex activity was transferred to this specific sense, erasing the visibility of non-penetrative acts or of same-sex desire among women with ordinary anatomy. Especially in medical contexts, now we consistently find definitions of tribades and tribadism that involve an enlarged, penetrative clitoris—and it seems to have been especially the word tribade that became associated with this image, as noted previously.

“Rubbing” was still a feature of the macro-clitoris theory, but now there was a confused idea that excess rubbing—either manual or by clothing—could cause clitoral enlargement, which in turn could cause lesbian desire. In parallel there was the conflicting theory that an enlarged clitoris was a congenital defect that pre-determined an orientation toward lesbian sex. In either case, it was only the woman with non-normative anatomy who was considered a tribade, rather than applying the term to both partners.

Early 17th century medical texts not only began defining rubbing-related terms as specifically referring to women with enlarged clitorises, but then projected that definition back onto classical uses of the words, as in a 1645 text that claimed that women who used their clitoris for penetrative sex “were for this reason called by the Latines Fricatrices; by the Greekes, tribades; and by the French, Ribaudes.” In France, the macro-clitoral tribade became hopelessly tied up with political discourse, especially in the 18th century, when she became an icon of transgressive, disruptive femininity within what were considered to be “masculine” spheres.

This connection continues in early 18th century dictionary definitions, describing confricatrices as “lustful Women who have learned to titulate one another with their Clitoris,” or alternately, women who use a dildo. Perhaps inspired by the linguistic indication of mutual activity in confricatrice, this word appears describing same-sex activities in mutual terms, but still assuming the presence of non-normative anatomy.

The clitoral fixation persisted in medical contexts through the 19th century, which preferred to use classical language, even as the Greek and Latin terms became less common in everyday usage in any sense.

Even as the Latinate vocabulary was appropriated for this more specific meaning, a separate discourse evolved for female homoeroticism that did not focus on heteronormative roles and activities—a discourse that moved away from existing vocabulary, which was becoming ever more strongly associated with low culture and vulgarity. Instead circumlocutions and euphemism were used, and we see the rise of sapphic and sapphist in circulation. And yet even as late as 1777 we find a bit of journalistic gossip alleging that the Hon. Mrs. John D--r [had held a meeting with like-minded others to "consult relative to a proper, and suitable name for [their] new female Coterie [...] when it was agreed, that sect should be called Tribadarians" followed up by some time later by the newspaper explaining, “'Tribadarian', [as] [m]any of [its] readers [had] expressed a desire to know the meaning of the term [...] it seems they are a set of fashionable ladies, who upon particular occasions prefer the company of their own sex.” (Based on the dates, name, and context, this may well be a reference to sculptor and reputed lesbian Anne Damer.) Tribade thus remains in currency, but the sexual context is entirely by implication.

Mis-Definitions

Although the fixation on the macro-clitoral tribade only began appearing in the 16th century, and took another century to permeate everyday usage, authors of that era projected their definitions back on the classical usage of the words. For example, in the 16th century Rodrigo de Castro misleadingly claims that classical author Caelius Aurelianus calls women with enlarged clitorises tribades. Caelius does discuss the clitoris and does call women who desire women tribades, but makes no connection between the two topics.

Unfortunately some modern scholars have taken such projections at face value, confusing the interpretation of classical texts. For example, Hallett, in “Female Homoeroticism and the Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature,” suggests that despite the linguistic origin of tribas it “typically implied masculine-framed activities such as penetration,” even though the actual examples of sexual reference do not focus specifically on this act. The idea that the word referred exclusively to a penetrating woman is contradicted in a number of contexts, as in Seneca the Elder’s description of a legal case in which two women engaging in sex are both called tribades. It should be noted that Latin had an expansive vocabulary for transgressive sex acts and those who perform them, and these are commonly used in more specific contexts.

Boehringer takes a fairly strong position that no texts of the classical period support the idea that Greek or Roman cultures associated sex between women with a specific physiology, in particular with clitoral enlargement. The interpretation of various of the Roman sources as supporting the “tribade with an enlarged clitoris” is, she asserts, a back-projection based on later material in which that theme is present. Medical texts from Antiquity do not make any connection with atypical anatomy and same-sex desire in women.

The historic record on the meaning of tribade becomes confused when researchers focus only on a narrow timespan and the uses the words had during that period, or when they attribute later definitions to an earlier era when that usage isn’t supported. We see this, for example, in Halberstam’s Female Masculinity which takes the 17-18th century definition of a tribade as “a woman who engages in penetrative sex using an enlarged clitoris” as the basic definition and origin of the word. Similarly, Traub in "The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England,” asserts that before the 17th century the image of the tribade was closely tied to the use of a dildo. But while dildo use certainly appears regularly in same-sex contexts in prior ages, it appears equally commonly in other contexts, and there is no evidence that it was considered a defining feature of lesbian activity before the 17th century, as opposed to one of a variety of options.

Bonnet, in “Sappho, or the Importance of Culture in the Language of Love,” overlooks the shift from Latin to French as a documentary language for the types of texts discussing sexual matters, and therefore asserts that the vernacular term tribade was invented anew in French in the mid-16th century for activities that were previously unknown and unnamed, taking at face value the authors that claimed that lesbianism had only recently been introduced in France from foreign sources. She isn’t the only author that seems to overlook the question of changes in the languages used for official records as opposed to changes in the actual vocabulary being used. Lanser makes a similar claim in The Sexuality of History that vernacular terms for female homoeroticism were being invented in the 16th century, as opposed to first being documented at that time.

Conclusions

As with many aspects of lesbian history, myths and misunderstandings often have more visibility than detailed scholarship. The assertion that words like tribade always and only referred to women with pseudo-masculine anatomy is just as much a myth as the claim that the word lesbian wasn’t used to mean women who loved women until the late 19th century sexologists appropriated it. But it takes careful readings of the original texts and the context of usage in light of other historical developments to identify where that myth came from. And there’s the rub: once a myth is promulgated, it’s very hard to dislodge.

And yet, embedded in vocabulary used to describe sex between women across the ages, we find clear evidence of the importance of genital rubbing as a contrast to the anxieties around penetrative activities and analogs to male-female relationships that tend to get more publicity. When culture after culture names homoerotic women after the same activity, you have to figure it means something.

References

• Adams, J.N. 1982. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. ISBN 0-8018-4106-2
• Amer, Sahar. “Lesbian Sex and the Military: From the Medieval Arabic Tradition to French Literature” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
• Amer, S. 2009. “Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like'” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18(2), 215-236.
• Andreadis, Harriette. 2001. Sappho in Early Modern England: Female Same-Sex Literary Erotics, 1550-1714. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226020099
• Benkov, Edith. “The Erased Lesbian: Sodomy and the Legal Tradition in Medieval Europe” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn. Palgrave, New York, 2001.
• Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
• Bonnet, Marie-Jo. 1997. “Sappho, or the Importance of Culture in the Language of Love” in Queerly Phrased: Language Gender, and Sexuality, ed. Anna Livia & Kira Hall. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510471-4
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• Brantôme (Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme). 1740. Vies des Dames Galantes. Garnier Frères, Libraires-Éditeurs, Paris.
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• Cheek, Pamela. 1998. "The 'Mémoires secrets' and the Actress: Tribadism, Performance, and Property", in Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (eds), The "Mémoires secrets" and the Culture of Publicity in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
• Donoghue, Emma. 1993. “Imagined More than Women: Lesbians as Hermaphrodites” in Women’s History Review 2:2 199-216.
• Fleming, Rebecca. 2022. “The Classical Clitoris: Part I” in Eugesta 12. (Online: http://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/1280)
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• Lanser, Susan. 2001. “’Au sein de vos pareilles’: Sapphic Separatism in Late Eighteenth-Century France” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
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• Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. “Tribadism/Lesbianism and the Sexualized Body in Medieval Arabo-Islamic Narratives” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages. ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn. Palgrave, New York, 2001.
• Merrick, Jeffrey. 1990. “Sexual Politics and Public Order in Late Eighteenth-Century France: the Mémoires secrets and the Correspondance secrète” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, 68-84.
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Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• Vocabulary for women-loving women referring to “rubbing”
• Shifts of meaning and usage
• What too many authors get wrong
• Sources mentioned: see transcript

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