Why we should care: This lyric poet from the Greek Island of Lesbos was so damn good that Plato referred to her as the tenth muse. Take that Feist. Her verses wax poetic upon braiding the ladies of Lesbos’ hair with rosebuds, winding their necks with crocuses and dripping myrrh on their heads. Reading these lines, Victorian Englishmen concluded that, ah ha, the ageold mystery of what female homosexuals do is solved! Henceforth, lesbians have been named after Sappho’s fellow islanders.

For her biopic we’d cast: Leisha Hailey of The L Word

Two traits we admire:
1) Longevity: The woman lived over 2600 years ago and she’s still notorious. I’m lucky if someone remembers me from a party last weekend.
2) Etymological Fertility: not only has her fame given birth to the words lesbian and sapphic, but also to the website www.lesbos.com and the 1971 German horror film Vampiros Lesbos, a touching tale about a vampiress who seduces women to fill her insatiable appetite for female blood.

What high school textbooks didn’t say: That nectar mixed with ethereal perfection poured by a foam-born goddess might be a euphemism

Style best described as: Classical femme. Most depictions of her tend to involve gauzy togas and, oops, I can’t imagine how my nipple got there, peekaboo moments.

How she’s celebrated: Pride Week! She puts the “L” in LGBTQ2