Sex and the Semicolon (x-posted)

Are semicolons "transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing"? Kurt Vonnegut thought so. Yet masculine wordsmith Herman Melville embraced the semicolon. The semicolon facilitates lengthy, sinuous sentences, such as those constructed by practitioners of romanticism. Jan Freeman recently mused about the allegedly epicene semicolon's adherents and detractors for the Boston Globe. Is the semicolon distaff?