“I [am] a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong and compassionate.”
Rita Mae Brown
The term tribadism derives from the Greek words tribadé, meaning “she who rubs”, and tribein, meaning “to rub”. For this reason, women who used this sexual practice were called tribes.
It is true that in ancient Greece female homosexuality was not well seen, so the term tribadism was born with pejorative nuances. However, over time lesbian women have positively reconceptualized many of the terms and sexual practices with which our erotic experience is designated.
It consists of rubbing the clitoris with any of the body parts of the sexual partner, giving rise to many possibilities of rubbing: with the clitoris of the lover, with the leg, arm, breasts, buttocks, or any part of the body that produces pleasure to those who perform this practice.
The rubbing of these erogenous zones can be practiced with or without clothes, since the clitoris is characterized by its great sensitivity and its simple continuous rubbing can produce sexual pleasure.
The best known tribadism position is the so-called “scissors position“. In it, the lovers are facing each other, producing the friction of both clitoris, one against the other. The legs are intertwined as if two open scissors (which would be the legs) were joined face to face at the point where their openings begin (which would be the two clitorises joined together).
It is also very common the practice of tribadism making them join face to face each of the similar parts of the two bodies: pubis with pubis, mouth with mouth, legs with legs, hands with hands, rocking all at the same time. It is as if both lovers melt together, confusing their bodies between so much union and movement: four hands, two mouths, four feet, two clitorises and hundreds of rubbing. Mathematics in its purest state.
There is a false belief related to the attempt to imitate heterosexual intercourse through this posture because in it the genital organs are joined frontally, as happens in intercourse.
First of all, it makes no sense to seek the equivalence of a sexual practice in which the protagonists are two clitorises with any of the heterosexual sexual practices, since none of them involve two clitorises that give pleasure to each other.
Secondly, there is certainly a common misguided tendency to associate particular sexual orientations with particular sexual practices, rather than seeing people with the capacity to experience pleasure with myriad parts of their bodies.
It is not exclusive to heterosexual sexual practice to join genital areas in order to offer mutual pleasure. By affirming that it is exclusive, once again, we are placing heterosexuality at the center of the multiple erotic options of people and, within it, the sexual practice of intercourse. In this way, lesbian sexuality would be in a position of subordination and dependence with respect to heterosexuality, which acquires a model function of the different sexual practices.
Until we break with the idea that heterosexuality is the only possible, perfect, centralized, and normalized sexual option, we will continue to hold myths and harmful ideas about lesbian sexuality.
It is important to realize that our sexuality does not follow a particular model: it is based on our own desires and our united bodies.
[*Text from the book “TU DEDO CORAZÓN. LA SEXUALIDAD LESBIANA: IMÁGENES Y PALABRAS“, from Paloma Ruiz y Esperanza Moreno. Editorial Egales, 2008]
