Talk:Sapphic
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What precisely is meant by "woman or non-man" in the noun sense? Can people who are not women be lesbians? I suspect many lesbians might disagree. Equinox ◑ 02:11, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).
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Noun sense: "A lesbian, or any woman or non-man who is attracted (not necessarily exclusively) to women." I think it just means lesbian. If we are going to have the co-opting "non-man" stuff then let's cite it pretty thoroughly. Equinox ◑ 08:50, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
- Well, we certainly have plenty of citations, but I am not sure that they support the use of "non-man" in the definition. I assume that it was included to allow for transgendered or gender-queer individuals, but it casts too wide a net, because a boy is also a "non-man", but would never be considered a Sapphic. Kiwima (talk) 21:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
- And my dog is also a non-man. The primary meaning as a noun in relation to individuals who are attracted to women is, surely, “a person who is considered to be sapphic”, where the last word is an adjective. --Lambiam 23:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
- Redefining the noun that way (except, as Equinox might chide, drop "considered to be") would help us only have to determine the scope in one place, since sapphic#Adjective has a corresponding definition.
It seems to be mere chance that the small number of durable cites of the noun are often capitalized while cites of the (sexuality-related) adjective, while sometimes capitalized, are often lowercase. It's also hard to find cites that make clear whether they mean exclusively women's attraction exclusively to women, or any nonmale human attraction to women. However, in the less-durable places I've seen the word used with more context, where the scope is clearer, it's often lowercase (hence I would've put it at sapphic if I'd found three lowercase cites) and broader than "lesbian" (hence the def I added). (Of course, "lesbian" itself is sometimes narrow and sometimes broad; see Ruby Rose as a nonbinary lesbian, EJ Levy identifying as a lesbian while marrying a man, early citations that didn't distinguish exclusive from nonexclusive attention, some of the citations of "bisexual lesbians", etc.)
One of the cites of sapphic uses it of a pansexual, another uses it of women who were attracted to men, so those show the scope of the "attracted to ___" half of the definition. Hits for phrases like "non-binary sapphics" suggest the scope of the "a ___ who is attracted..." half of the definition, which the durable citations (including such gems as "Sapphics!" used like a complete sentence) are often too short to be guided by. That said, I've not averse to dropping "or non-man". - -sche (discuss) 02:59, 9 December 2019 (UTC)- Citations inherently look backward. If we look over the history of the usage of the word, aren't the citable possibilities relatively limited? Perhaps we can have a usage note that discusses the range of possible extensions of meaning from the unambiguously citable ones. — This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs).
- Redefining the noun that way (except, as Equinox might chide, drop "considered to be") would help us only have to determine the scope in one place, since sapphic#Adjective has a corresponding definition.
- And my dog is also a non-man. The primary meaning as a noun in relation to individuals who are attracted to women is, surely, “a person who is considered to be sapphic”, where the last word is an adjective. --Lambiam 23:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
- Well, we certainly have plenty of citations, but I am not sure that they support the use of "non-man" in the definition. I assume that it was included to allow for transgendered or gender-queer individuals, but it casts too wide a net, because a boy is also a "non-man", but would never be considered a Sapphic. Kiwima (talk) 21:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
- My impulse is to change the definition to someone who is sapphic, and let the definition of "sapphic" be the location for any broadening. Kiwima (talk) 21:01, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
- Yeah. I've reduced the noun definition to "a person who is sapphic" (and, as an aside, would make the lowercase entry the lemma noun if I could find another citation or two). The adjective sapphic is, in turn, defined as "Lesbian, relating to lesbianism, or (broadly) to women who are attracted (not necessarily exclusively) to women." That doesn't mention non-men at this time. It does mention that the attraction needn't be exclusive, which is attested by the citations using it of e.g. pansexual women like Janelle Monae. RFV-resolved? - -sche (discuss) 00:21, 20 December 2019 (UTC)