Writing trash: Truth and the sexual outlaw's reinvention of lesbian identity

Kathleen Kennedy’s 2000 article in Feminist Theory analyzes Dorothy Allison’s groundbreaking short story collection Trash (1988) to explore how “sexual outlaws” challenged and reshaped normative definitions of lesbian identity during the 1980s Feminist Sex Wars. The article reveals complex intersections of sexuality, class, truth, and identity formation.

Background of the Feminist Sex Wars

Kennedy’s analysis must be understood in the context of the 1980s Feminist Sex Wars:

The Sex Wars Split

In the early 1980s, the American feminist movement severely split over sexuality:

Anti-Pornography Feminist Camp:

• Key figures: Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon
• Claims: Pornography is violence against women, reinforces patriarchy
• Sex is a site of male domination over women
• BDSM, sex work, etc. are exploitation of women
• “Correct” female sexuality is equal, non-violent, tender

Sex Radical/Sex-Positive Feminist Camp:

• Key figures: Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, Dorothy Allison
• Claims: Women have the right to explore diverse sexual practices
• Sexuality is complex, cannot be simply reduced to power relations
• BDSM, sex work can be agentic choices
• Oppose moralization and normalization of sex

The 1982 Barnard Conference Incident

A symbolic event:

• Barnard College hosted “Towards a Politics of Sexuality” conference
• Women Against Pornography protested and boycotted
• Tried to get conference organizers and participants fired from jobs
• Dorothy Allison and Lesbian Sex Mafia became targets of attack
• This event deepened Sex Wars divisions

Splits Within Lesbian Feminism

The lesbian community was particularly divided:

• Cultural feminists argued lesbian sexuality should be tender, non-penetrative, equal
• Criticized butch/femme roles as replicating heterosexual patriarchy
• Opposed BDSM as internalized patriarchal violence
• Sexual outlaws resisted these norms, advocating for sexual diversity and complexity

Dorothy Allison and Trash

Understanding Allison’s background is crucial to understanding Trash:

Allison’s Life

• Born in South Carolina working-class family, experiencing extreme poverty
• Childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence
• First family member to attend college
• Out lesbian and sex radical activist
• Co-founded Lesbian Sex Mafia in 1981

Themes of Trash

The short story collection explores:

• Working-class Southern white life
• Childhood sexual abuse trauma and survival
• Lesbian desire and identity
• Class shame and class crossing
• “Inappropriate” sex (BDSM, promiscuity, cross-class sexual relationships)
• Domestic violence and alcoholism

Multiple Meanings of “Trash”

The title “Trash” itself is multi-layered:

• Class insult: “White trash” is a derogatory term for poor Southern whites
• Sexual stigma: Sexual outlaws viewed as “trash” by mainstream society and lesbian feminists
• Literary genre: Pulp fiction, popular literature
• Reclamation and revaluation: Allison re-embraces this identity, transforming “trash” into resistance and pride

”Truth” as Contested Terrain

Kennedy’s core argument is how sexual outlaws use “truth” discourse:

Evolution of Truth Claims

Kennedy identifies two phases:

Phase One: Pluralist Truth Early on, sexual outlaws argued:

• Our sexuality is also a legitimate expression of lesbian desire
• Sexual diversity should be accepted
• No single “correct” lesbian way
• Oppose normalization and moralization

This is a pluralist position: many truths coexist.

Phase Two: Truer Truth Later, sexual outlaws more radically claimed:

• Our representation of lesbian sexuality is more truthful
• Cultural feminists’ understanding of sex is false, idealized
• Their “politically correct” sexuality denies sex’s complex reality
• We acknowledge desire’s darkness, contradictions, and complexity

This isn’t just requesting recognition but claiming epistemological superiority.

Working-Class Truth

Allison particularly links truth with class:

• Working-class experience provides different truth perspectives
• Middle-class feminism masks class privilege
• Poverty and violence experiences cannot be idealized or romanticized
• Working-class lesbian sexual practices stem from different lifeworlds

Class becomes basis for truth claims.

Bodily and Experiential Truth

Allison’s writing emphasizes:

• Undeniability of embodied experience
• Desire doesn’t follow political correctness
• Body memory and trauma
• Complexity of sexual pleasure

Bodily truth challenges abstract theory.

Sexual Outlaws’ Subject Positions

Kennedy analyzes how sexual outlaws establish legitimacy:

From Margin to Center

Sexual outlaws’ strategies:

• Not just requesting toleration
• But claiming to represent more authentic lesbian sexuality
• Repositioning cultural feminism as repressive mainstream
• Occupying the position of truth and authenticity themselves

This is radical reconfiguration of subject positions.

Anti-Normativity

Challenging multiple norms of lesbian feminism:

• Sexual norms: Tender, equal, non-penetrative
• Class norms: Middle-class values and behaviors
• Racial norms: White middle-class feminism
• Political norms: “Politically correct” speech and action

Embracing Stigma

Rather than trying to be “good” lesbians:

• Embrace “bad girl” identity
• Revalue devalued traits and practices
• Transform shame into pride
• Build community based on stigma

This is radical identity politics.

Intersections of Class, Sex, and Identity

Allison’s work particularly reveals class-sexuality intersections:

Class and Sexual Practices

Allison shows:

• Working-class lesbian sexual practices differ from middle-class
• Butch/femme roles have different meanings in working-class communities
• Complex relationship between violence and sexuality
• How economic instability affects sexual relationships

Class isn’t just background but constitutes sexual experience itself.

Costs of Class Crossing

Allison writes about class crossing’s pain:

• Leaving working-class community to enter middle-class lesbian feminism
• Lack of cultural capital and class shame
• Being required to abandon working-class identity and experience
• Middle-class feminism’s exclusivity

Complexity of “White Trash” Identity

Allison handles difficult race-class intersections:

• “White trash” is racialized class identity
• Poor whites’ racial privilege and class oppression
• Southern white working-class relationship with racism
• Refusing simple identity politics

This demonstrates intersectionality’s complexity.

”Trash” Aesthetics

Allison’s writing style itself is political:

Low/High Subversion

Allison adopts “trash” aesthetics:

• Elements of pulp fiction (sex scenes, violence, melodrama)
• Refusing high literature’s elitism
• Working-class narrative traditions
• Making “indecent” content literary

This challenges literary hierarchies.

Testimony and Authenticity

Allison’s writing strategies:

• Autobiographical elements (though fictional)
• First-person narration
• Concrete, embodied details
• Emotional intensity

These create authenticity and truth effects.

Discomfort and Provocation

Deliberately making readers uncomfortable:

• Graphic depictions of sexual violence and incest
• Contradictory desires (victim becoming perpetrator)
• Unforgivable characters
• Refusing redemption narratives

This challenges readers’ moral certainties.

Critique of Lesbian Feminism

Allison’s work implies critique of mainstream lesbian feminism:

Paradox of Sexual Depoliticization

Allison reveals:

• Cultural feminism claims to politicize sex
• But actually moralizes and normalizes sex
• Stigmatizes certain sexual practices
• Creates new hierarchies and exclusions

“Politically correct” sexuality may be new repression.

Class Blindness

Critiquing lesbian feminism:

• Assumes middle-class norms are universal
• Pathologizes working-class sexual practices
• Demands class assimilation as price of acceptance
• Lacks class self-reflection

Instrumentalization of Trauma

Exploitation of sexual abuse survivors:

• Survivor narratives used to support anti-porn positions
• But only “correctly” told narratives accepted
• Complex, contradictory experiences marginalized
• Survivors required to be witnesses for specific politics

Allison refuses this instrumentalization.

Presaging Queer Theory

Allison’s work anticipates 1990s queer theory:

Anti-Essentialism

Allison demonstrates:

• Diversity and internal differences of lesbian identity
• Identity isn’t fixed essence
• Sexual practices cannot be simply derived from identity
• Desire’s complexity and fluidity

Anti-Normativity

Core concern of queer theory:

• Challenge all norms, including those within LGBT communities
• Refuse assimilation and respectability politics
• Embrace margins and transgression
• Oppose identity solidification

Sexual Radicalism

Sex radical position of Gayle Rubin and others:

• Sexual diversity and complexity
• Oppose sexual hierarchies
• Defend “bad” sex
• Sexual freedom as political goal

Allison’s work is literary expression of this tradition.

Contemporary Relevance

Allison’s work remains significant today:

LGBT Rights Assimilation Politics

Contemporary debates:

• Assimilation pressures from same-sex marriage legalization
• “Good gays” vs. “bad queers” split
• Respectability politics and desexualization
• Continued relevance of Allison’s sex radical position

Intersectionality and Complex Identity

Allison early explored:

• Multiple marginalization (sexuality, class, gender, region)
• Identity contradictions and complexity
• Refusing simplified identity politics
• Acknowledging coexistence of privilege and oppression

Limits of Trauma-Informed

About trauma narratives:

• Trauma doesn’t always produce “correct” politics
• Survivors have right to complex, contradictory experiences
• Refusing therapeutic discourse hegemony
• Allison’s “difficult” survivor narratives

Continued Marginalization of Class in Feminism

Allison’s class critique still relevant:

• Middle-class dominance of feminist movements
• Marginalization of working-class women
• Neoliberal feminism’s class blindness
• Need to re-center class analysis

Relationship Between Literature and Theory

Kennedy’s essay also explores literature’s role in feminist theory:

Literature as Theory

Allison’s fiction:

• Not just “illustration” of theory
• Is itself theory production
• Argues through narrative and metaphor
• Touches dimensions theoretical essays cannot

Emotional and Embodied Knowledge

Literature provides:

• Emotional complexity and intensity
• Richness of embodied experience
• Possibilities of identification and resonance
• Knowledge irreducible to propositions

Amplifying Marginal Voices

Literature can:

• Give voice to marginalized people
• Convey experiences excluded by theoretical language
• Create counterpublics
• Challenge academic elitism

Possible Critiques

Allison’s work also faces criticisms:

Individualism?

Possible critique:

• Too focused on personal experience and identity
• Lacks systematic structural analysis
• Can personal narrative produce collective politics?

Masculinism?

Some cultural feminists critique:

• Butch/femme and BDSM replicate male domination
• Internalize patriarchal violence
• Harmful to female sexuality

Allison would counter this is normative assumption.

Race Issues

Allison as white person:

• How to handle white working-class relationship with racism
• Racial dimensions of “white trash” identity
• Needs more dialogue with women of color feminism

Conclusion

Kathleen Kennedy’s analysis of Dorothy Allison’s Trash reveals lesbian identity politics’ complexity and “truth’s” role in identity struggles. Allison and other sexual outlaws didn’t just request acceptance by mainstream lesbian feminism but challenged mainstream understandings of lesbian sexuality, identity, and politics themselves.

By embracing “trash” identity—whether class, sexual, or literary—Allison created a radical resistance aesthetic. Her work reveals complex intersections of class, sexuality, and truth, critiqued lesbian feminism’s middle-class norms and sexual moralization, and paved the way for later queer theory.

In the contemporary moment, when LGBT rights movements face tensions between assimilation and radicalism, when intersectionality becomes mainstream while class analysis remains marginalized, when trauma narratives are over-managed and normalized, Allison’s “trash” aesthetic and sexual outlaws’ struggles still provide important critical resources.

She reminds us that liberation politics cannot be built on new norms and exclusions, that genuine inclusion must include “indecent,” “politically incorrect,” “uncomfortable” voices and experiences. Only by acknowledging and embracing the “trash” within our movements can we build truly democratic and liberatory feminist politics.

This article was written by AI assistant based on Kathleen Kennedy’s 2000 essay in Feminist Theory, analyzing how Dorothy Allison’s ‘Trash’ redefines lesbian identity and sexual outlaws’ truth claims in the context of the Feminist Sex Wars.