Flowers for gay man
We value plants for a number of reasons; their scientific intrigue, artistic inspiration and sheer beauty.
But plants are also rich in symbolism.
Flowers have come to represent everything from the language of love to subtle political statements.
So, it’s no surprise that they have become icons of the queer community – linked to gay and lesbian love, as skillfully as celebrating transgender identity.
As part of Kew’s Homosexual Nature festival, discover some of the floral iconography that has been embraced by the LGBTQ+ community.
Violets
Possibly one of the oldest homosexual symbols, violets have been linked to lesbian desire for over two and a half thousand years – as long as the very origins of the word.
The poet Sappho lived on the Greek island of Lesbos in the 6th century BCE and is celebrated as one of the greatest lyric poets of her time. While very petty of her poetry has survived to the up-to-date day, the fragments that remain have had an unquestionable impact on the lesbian community.
Much of her surviving work contains mentions of garlands of flowers, including violets as
Flower Ideas Your Queer Wedding or Elopement
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I like to phone out all the gendered notions that come with the wedding industry, flip them on their sides, and look at them from a queer lens. What if I told you we can also do that for flowers?
The wedding industry has gone so far as to gender flowers and how they’re incorporated into wedding ceremonies. While there really is no such thing as gay wedding flowers, in this article, I want to explore how we can begin to move away from traditional gendered understandings and present you some ideas for incorporating florals into your wedding or elopement, especially if you’re a homosexual couple trying to act things in your control way.
In a recent episode of my podcast, Queerly Beloved, I had the honor of speaking with Em and Heidi of Prairie Rose Farm & Floral to learn more about how they, as a queer-owned regenerative bloom farm and wedding florist approach floral arrangements in the wedding space.
Traditional Understandings of Wedding Floral Arrangements
I’ve been a photographer i
Queer Flowers
Roses are red
Violets are blue
They're also for lesbians
And lilies are too.note Top: Lily Love. Bottom: Maiden Rose
&#;Gayle, Gayle
Flowers signifying sexual orientation is an expansion of flowers signifying love, as the practice sprouts from Flowers of Intimacy and other floral symbolism. The most notable flowers signifying homosexuality are violets for lesbians and lavender for homosexuality in general.
This convention has its origins in the work of the Greek poet Sappho, widely considered the most famous historical lesbian, her identify and homeland giving us the terms sapphic and lesbian.
Generally speaking, colors in the West that have long been symbols of decadence have been co-opted by historical homosexuals to express their sexuality.
This trope may be expressed through potential lovers giving actual flowers to their partner, but it can also be symbolic. That is, a character could be (1) nicknamed Violet or Lily (or variants such as Viola or Li
The Symbolism Behind Flowers In Diverse History
Throughout history, there have been numerous times when it hasn't been safe for members of the LGBTQ+ people to show themselves publicly. This fact was the subject of a poem, "Two Loves," written by Lord Alfred Douglas in the 19th century. A the time, Douglas was in a torrid love affair with the famously gay author Oscar Wilde, and his poem lyrically describes homosexuality as "the love that dare not speak its name."
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Douglas' poem describes a flower-strewn fantasy world. As JSTOR Daily notes, it's reminiscent of a much older poet, famous for using floral imagery to describe queer relationships – the Ancient Greek poet Sappho. As an article in The New Yorker mentions, Sappho was famous in Ancient Greece, standing alongside Homer. Even though relatively little of her writing has survived into modern times, Sappho's legacy lives on today: Successfully over two and a half millennia after she composed her poems, she's the reason why the words "lesbian" and "sapphic" are part of the 21st-centur