In the eyes of popular fiction writers, the lesbian became the epitome of the woman possessed by the devil. She was regularly associated with drug use and addiction to sexual excesses. Ultimately, the lesbian was depicted as a tragic character destined sooner or later for self-destruction, crime, and dissipation, which were, of course, suitable for such a great sinner. Driven by overwhelming desire and the awfulness of that passion, she rarely enjoyed sapphic love in peace, and even less did she find any joy in life.

Thus, turn-of-the-century authors ritually condemned sapphism in order to express and to legitimize their own fascination with this difficult topic. They popularized the image of a disturbing figure who is open to all kinds of blasphemous behavior, a depraved woman who was initiated into these guilty pleasures in boarding schools under the nuns’ teachings. By tracking the manifestations of sapphism to the inner sanctum of the convent school, writers tried to tarnish the image of the virgin that mingled mystical and physical love, as well as Holy Communion and Marriage.

Lesbians, “women lovers without a man, wives without a husband,” brought the exclusivity of one sex, the female, into the core of marriage. Thus, sapphic marriage situates itself as the ultimate contradiction of the laws on sexuality but also those of social conventions and divine commandments. By “marrying” her female partner, the lesbian yields to irrational and satanic forces that would seal her damnation.