Sappho & Her Friend play rulepermarket sweeps (90s socially acceptable edition)
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A social post and a follow up. The post shows a screengrab from the show, and the follow up shows the happy couple featured in it taking a selfie.
Tom Zohar @TomZohar • 2h
I love watching old episodes of Supermarket Sweep because these two just said they're "business partners" who "design sets for plays" and I'm like oh I'm sure
Tim Leach
Here we are! Just celebrated our 41st anniversary. Married in 2008 on our 25th anniversary as soon as it was legal in California. We ran a business together designing and painting backdrops and sets for 27 years.
Since when do we use Sappho to refer to all things queer and not Lesbian specific?
Sappho was the OG lesbian (as far as history remembers) from the island of lesbos. That's why we call lesbians lesbians. And the whole "Sappho and her friend" thing comes from centuries of historians calling her love poems to be about "friendship".
I know there is gay erasure too, but why do we have to make everything about men?
"Sappho and her friend" is used as an ironic term by queer people, specifically to make fun of cishet people calling an Obviously queer couple friends. There was/is a subreddit called that.
As well, Sappho does not mean "Lesbian-specific", it just means between two women. That definition is pretty important to people like myself and other bi/pan women, as we already get marginalised enough by people like "gold-star" lesbians.
Sorry, thought it was an (or the) appropriate umbrella.
You got me curious -
Had to see if I was the only one and see the top two posts of all time on the original sub are about men. Second top post from this week is the OP. Saying this to share a tidbit of perhaps how widespread this misconception of mine is, certainly not to take away from your point.
Now I went and had a look at reddit too and I must say that r/SapphoAndHerFriend has become a lot more "male" since I left reddit. I'm quite sure that back when reddit was still fun and somewhat authentic, this sub was mostly female.
Maybe I missed some development here and the meaning did change. I'm far from being an authority on this.
It just rubs me the wrong way, that a tool to point out female queer erasure now puts women to the back again in favor of queer men.
i recall following a sub called r/AchillesAndHisPal; if the other person is really trying to gatekeep homosexual lingo for lesbians only, i suppose you can use this instead.
I'm struggling to understand this. Two characters in a show, obviously gay but telling people otherwise. Then two other blokes who are married IRL saying they had the same jobs as those characters? Or are they the actors of those characters? And what's going on with the 27 years and 41st anniversary? Did they change business? Are they trying to say this is how they met before they married? Sorry I'm just generally lost here.
Met at least 41 years ago somewhere & somehow, started a relationship 41 years ago in 1983, couldn’t get married while it was illegal, painted backdrops for 27 years together, got married in 2008.
I'm also an aussie and never seen the show, but I'm assuming the show is/was a reality TV show so they came on during the 90's and the couple gave their backstory as just business partners.
Someone recently watched re-runs and made a post commenting that they're clearly were actually a couple, That post went "viral" the couple saw it and commented with proof that yeah they were gay all along.
First picture is of two men appearing on a game show -- they're not characters, they're real people. Second picture is those same two men years later. The gameshow was filmed at a time when rampent cultural homophobia prevented these men from presenting themselves as a couple.