The Limits of Authenticity: "Jailhouse Turnouts" and the Depoliticization of Inmate Relationships in the Study of the Women's Prison
This project examines the political limitations of the rhetoric of authenticity in relation to sexual and gender identity. Implementing Foucault's work on the discursive production of sexual identity, the author argues that the rhetoric of authenticity constructs an ahistorical representation of a fixed, innate identity. The author examines two mid-twentieth century studies of homosexual relationships in a women's prison at length to further show how the delineation between authentic and adaptive sexuality serves to stabilize and essentialize heterosexuality, rendering high rates of activity deemed "adaptive homosexuality" politically innocuous to the dominant heterosexist and binary sex/gender ideology.