Citation

Kennedy K. Fem. Theor. 2000; 1(2): 151-172.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/14647000022229137

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article focuses on Dorothy Allison’s novel Trashto map how truth functions in the so-called ‘sexual outlaw’s’ efforts to establish a legitimate subject position within lesbian feminism. It suggests that truth is the most valued commodity in establishing that position regardless of one’s position(s) as a sexual outlaw. Sexual outlaws use truth to move from arguing that their sexuality is one of many legitimate expressions of desire to contending that they have developed a more truthful representation of the lesbian than have ‘cultural’ feminists that dominated lesbian feminism in the late 1970s.