What is Dyke Drama?
"Any lesbian relationship that lasts longer than one night. No, wait...any lesbian relationship that lasts long enough to require communication. No...actually, you could blindfold two dykes and put them in separate, sound-proof booths in separate states and still, somehow, the vibe of drama would be sparked. It's unstoppable."--Michelle Sawyer
Who knows how the first dyke drama came about? Did God make it, or was there just a Big Bang?
A Brief Angry History: From Sappho to The L Word
Think back. Way back. To a time when there was neither
L-word, nor
Showtime, when there was neither Holly Near, nor the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. To a time when there wasn’t even Michigan. Think back to ancient Greece. You see, the Greeks had no television, radio, or high speed chases--that’s why they invented drama. Or at least Greek drama, which is unsurprisingly the earliest precursor to what we know now in modern times as "dyke drama." Then, as now, it was used as a form of entertainment.
Given this fact, there’s a good chance Sappho invented dyke drama. That’s right, she started it. Not only was she responsible for the term "lesbians," (Hence "isle of Lesbos")but that special form of drama that surrounds wimmin lovin' wimmin.
The legendary poetess (circa 590 BC) probably committed the first known dyke faux pas by presenting the same love poem to several different women in the same week, singing it as she strummed her lyre in front of an outdoor festival crowd that sweltering-hot summer weekend, and causing a great big fat Greek fracas. The chaos on Lesbos reached epic proportions. Feelings were only made worse as Greek lesbians swilled goblet after goblet of retsina, a powerful Greek wine that tastes like floor cleaner, but makes up for it by offering 100 times the buzz. Chambermaids and noblewomen alike downed 30 ounce convenience-size jugs of the stuff to quell the pain of their heartsickness and to wash down their pita bread. Soon they were so drunk they couldn’t spell; they started spelling the word “women” in such crazy forms as: womon, wimmin, wymyn, womb-on, etc...
