“A Grecian beauty reveals her most secret thoughts and
passions as she describes her many sensual nights of Lesbian love. Her budding
desires awaken on the isle of Lesbos. Voluptuous pleasures she had never known
transform her young body into trembling submission.”
So started out the LP liner notes on this 1962 recording,
with the subtitle: “A Frankly Intimate Description of a Sensuous Young Girl’s
Lesbian Desires.” It’s hard to tell what market the label was really after,
perhaps whatever market would buy it, though the other albums listed on the
back jacket cover certainly could not be confused with scholarly and refined.
Still, the poetry, voiced by “Ilona,” is well done and indeed sensuous.
The reading is from “Songs of Bilitis,” (1894) by French
poet Pierre Louys. His Wiki bio indicates he was in elite circles, counting
among his friends Andre Gide, Oscar Wilde, and Claude Debussy. Debussy composed
a musical adaptation “Chansons de Bilitis” in 1897. The influence of his work lived well
beyond his death, in 1925, as in 1955 the first lesbian organization in
America, called itself Daughters of Bilitis.
Miscellaneous Lesbos:
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