This is the reason why the Greeks apply the expression “Lesbianize” or “Lesbize” to those who imitated the Lesbian usages, either as irrumants, or as fellators. Suidas: “Lesbianize—to defile the mouth; the Lesbians are in fact believed to give themselves to these shameful acts.” The same author says under the word, “Siphnianize,—to Lesbianize, that is to use the mouth abominably.”[[61]] Aristophanes has employed the word in the sense of sucking (Wasps, 1337).
“Look, how cleverly I kept you away, when you wanted to Lesbianize the guests.”
And again in the Frogs 1343:
“Has this Muse never used the Lesbian mode?”[[62]]
But Hesychius has employed it for irrumate: “Lesbianize, to defile a man’s mouth.”
Lesbianize and Phœnicianize are generally used conjointly, as though this practice had been equally common among the Phœnicians. Lucian says in his Apophras (ch. 26):
“In the name of the Gods tell me what you are thinking of, when it is bruited about publicly that you Lesbianize and Phœnicianize?”
What the difference between the two may be is not known. At any rate Timarchus, who is so bitterly attacked by Lucian, was a fellator, as may be readily gathered from the following. Timarchus, having arrived at Cyzicus to be present at a wedding feast, was turned out of doors (ibid., ch. 26), the mistress of the house upbraiding him in these words for the impurity of his mouth: “I would not have in my house a man who must have a man himself!” The passage preceding the above is still plainer and more to the point: What does the man reproach Timarchus with, who has surprised him kneeling before a young lad (ibid., ch. 21), and who says farther on, “that he had seen him at work”, if this does not apply to a fellator? Besides, what is the meaning of that sore throat contracted by him in Egypt (ibid., ch. 27), where according to rumour, he had been nearly suffocated by a sailor, who fell upon him and stopped his mouth? Whence that nickname of the Cyclops (ibid., ch. 28), which was given to him, because one day, when he was lying drunk on the ground, a young man, “with an upstanding stake exceeding well sharpened”, threw himself upon him, to force it into his mouth, as Ulysses did with the eye of the Cyclops, “A new Cyclops, with the mouth open at full stretch, you let him burst your cheeks.” It is useless to add to this the passages with respect to those who repel his kisses (ch. 23), or as to the use to which he puts his tongue (ch. 25), for it is doubtful whether they are addressed to a fellator or a cunnilingue (a licker of the vulva). That Timarchus was no stranger to irrumation, seems implied (ch. 17) by the apostrophe, “Are you not all that?” the more so as previously Lucian’s saying: “If any one sees a cinede do or suffer the shameful act...” makes it apparent that the active part was also one of the vices of Timarchus. Lucian could therefore justly say of this Timarchus, that he Lesbianized and Phœnicianized, if he wanted to imply by one of these words, “sucking”, and by the other, “irrumating.” But it is uncertain which of these words means “to suck”, and which “to irrumate.” But what does this matter? There is no doubt that Lucian intended to make this distinction. Phœnicianize might even be applied to a cunnilingue[[63]], an expression which we shall dilate upon presently. Needless therefore in this place to give examples of women who allowed their vulvas to be licked.
Very remarkable is a passage of Galen in book X., De vi simplicium, in which he makes a distinction between Lesbianize and Phœnicianize, demonstrating that the one is more shameful than the other:
“It is worse for an honest man to be spoken of as an eater of excrements than as being a defiler or a cinede; and amongst the defilers we execrate such as Phœnicianize more than those who Lesbianize. The latter I consider to be doing what is as bad as the habit of drinking menstrual discharge.[[64]]”