Sappho

Title: Sappho	Dates: 1972-1981
Periodicity: monthly	Price: 20p (first issue); 35p (1975); 50p (1980); 60p (1981)
Circulation: c. 900-1,000; by 1979, it had 3,000 subscribers (Turner, 2009)	Place of Publication: London

Description

A lesbian feminist magazine that emerged out of the ashes of Arena Three magazine (the first lesbian magazine in Britain, which ran from 1964-71). Three members of Arena Three‘s board set up Sappho magazine. More explicitly activist than Arena Three, Sappho represented a change in direction propelled by the UK’s newly formed Gay Liberation Front (Turner, 2020: 83). Unlike many feminist magazines, Sappho is strongly associated with a single individual — the trailblazing news reporter, actress and gay rights campaigner Jackie Forster. Notably, each issue of Sappho was accompanied by a monthly meeting at a Chepstow pub, marrying magazine production with the creation of safe queer spaces. As Sappho vol 1.1 puts it: ‘a club to support the magazine. The magazine promotes the club.’ According to Spare Rib, Sappho organised some of the first women’s discos as well as initiating the formation of groups such as Action for Lesbian Parents and the Gay Teachers Group (c.f. Spare Rib 116). Sappho was involved in a number of significant campaigns around issues such as custody for lesbian mothers and IVF, and helped to found the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard in 1974. Its more serious content was spliced with humorous cartoons, quizzes, ‘Sapphoscope’, crosswords, poetry, fiction and film and book reviews. Later Sappho was affiliated to the National Council of Civil Liberties. Sappho closed in 1981 due to financial difficulties.

Sappho‘s Mission Statement

”Published and written by homosexual women for homosexual women, we have the following aims and objects:

Aims.

1. By interchange of information with homophile societies and heterosexual organizations we hope to disperse the isolation of gay ghettos.

2. To support all minority groups regardless of politics, colour or creed, who work to counteract oppression.

3. To encourage social groups everywhere to relieve the loneliness of the lesbian and to publish information about existing groups.

4. To accept articles, stories, and poems etc., of non-pornographic content from all those with an intelligent interest and empathy for homophiles.

Objects.

1. To have our own London-based licensed dining club for women members only.

2. To have our own residential women’s only club. Nothing like this exists anywhere in the UK, let alone in London. The need is crucial […] We dream that London will be a launching base for Sappho clubs all over the country.’

A line of drawn women's heads used as the "hetercetera" header in Sappho — ^{Artist Unknown, ‘Hetercatera’ header graphic, Sappho 7 (1979), p. 9}.

Key Campaigns

IVF, known in the 70s as ‘AID’, Artificial Insemination by Donor (also see Spare Rib 67 on this)
Lesbian parenting, including Action for Lesbian Parents
Discrimination against gay women in the military
Sex worker rights
Trans rights (c.f. ‘Transexual Liberation Manifesto’, Sappho, 3.7)
Lesbianism and disability
Women’s health
The Gay Teachers Group
The Campaign for Homosexual Equality

Magazine Aesthetic

Early Sappho was a very distinctive and self-contained publication, smaller in size than most feminist periodicals. Until 1975, its glossy front covers were very simple: vivid primary colours with little text other than the magazine’s title (in a rather futuristic font), volume and issue numbers, price and a discreet lesbian symbol. The magazine’s fairly text-heavy contents were typewritten and printed in black and white, in neat and regular columns, accompanied by black and white photographs and the ‘Mabel and Mildred’ cartoon. From volume 4 onwards, Sappho adopted an instantly recognisable cover image: three naked Botticelli Venuses, each with a feminist symbol (a fist punching through the astrological symbol for Venus) stamped on her right hand shoulder, against a yellow background.

The cover of Sappho volume 4 — The cover of *Sappho* 4

From 1979, Sappho underwent another redesign and became bigger in size but its cover was no longer printed on glossy paper. Each cover now featured a customised cartoon or black and white photograph or artwork, still with a yellow background, a list of contents, and the subtitle ‘Lesbian Feminist Voice’. Issue 7.6 featured an image of Queen Victoria clutching a copy of Sappho; another featured Margaret Thatcher and the Queen; issue 7.11 featured a painting by Tamara de Lempicka, ‘La Ducesse de la Salle’ on the front cover. Sappho‘s visual identity became more prominent over time and this heightened visual awareness is woven into the magazine’s content. Elegant handwritten headers (‘editorial’, ‘Sapphoscene’ etc) ran throughout, and Art Nouveau-style erotic drawings intersperse Sappho’s signature cartoons. Issue 8.2 includes a cartoon titled ‘What Ever Happened to the Sappho Cover Trio?’. The tongue-in-cheek answer is ‘Two lesbians living together is difficult enough, but a menage a trois is utter madness!’ (p. 13). The final issue of Sappho reprises the three Venuses with a early twentieth-century photograph of three women by Belle Johnson.

the cover of Sappho Volume 7 issue 2 — The cover of *Sappho* 7.2. ‘Let’s go to the Gates’ refers to The Gateways, a London lesbian club much beloved of Jackie Forster, *Sappho*’s editor

Historical Contexts

Sappho came into being the year after The Nullity of Marriage Act 1971, which explicitly banned same-sex marriage in England and Wales. 1971 was also the year of the first British Gay Pride March. Repression and liberation were the cross currents in which Sappho swam. Gay sex had been decriminalised in Britain in 1968; the Stonewall riots in the US had inspired the UK’s own Gay Liberation Front; and the 1970s were a decade in which the gay press grew and thrived. In 1974, Maureen Colquhoun came out as the first openly gay woman Labour MP but Labour refused to support her and she was later deselected. Then there was the Artificial Insemination by Donor scandal of 1977 in which Sappho became swept up, making national headlines (see Jennings and Close for more detailed discussion of this episode). By the early 1980s, the emergence of HIV/AIDs, the sex wars and renewed waves of political repression including Section 28 created a much darker and more difficult decade for lesbian and gay activists.

An extract from a letter published in the very last issue of Sappho:

‘Dear Sappho, The day that Sapphoffice shuts its doors for the last time, we are going to lose something infinitely more precious than a magazine.

Artist unknown, A cartoon of two young women holding hands in a prison cell with Sappho, She is saying "they pulled me in for the same thing" — Artist unknown, *Sappho* 4.1, p. 19

From the time that my first copy arrived, I was conscious of a sense of belonging and a lightness of heart that hadn’t been there before…. My thanks and love, Olive [Dolling], Beds.’

Editors

Jackie Forster remained editor or ‘co-ordinating editor’ for most of Sappho‘s run. In early issues, there were separate roles for ‘artwork’, ‘circulation’, ‘overseas editor’, ‘secretary’, ‘PR’, ‘Girl Fri-Mon’, ‘Pub Relations’, etc. In later issues, around 8 women (only first names given) made up the Sappho editorial collective, plus 5 volunteers. In 1978, the collective received £1 an hour plus expenses. There was only one full-time paid worker.