Abstract:This paper explores representations of sexuality in a popular British television drama. The author argues that the program in question, Bad Girls, a drama set in a women's prison, conveys a set of values that are homonormative. In other words, unlike other mainstream television products that may have lesbian or gay characters within a prevailing context of heteronormativity, BG represents lesbian sexuality as normal, desirable, and possible. At the same time, BG reproduces dominant understandings of social relations in other areas, particularly around race. The broader significance of the series lies in its impact on viewers' lives, its nonconformity with dominant "gay market" images, and its significance as a space within popular culture from which meanings of gender and sexuality can be contested.

Discourses of ‘coming out’ play a significant role in the construction of lesbian and gay sexualities, and in the politics of lesbian and gay movements. Although the critique of ‘identity claiming’ has been well established in the literature, popular culture representations of coming out have only recently begun to proliferate. My focus here is on prime-time television; I explore two lesbian coming out texts in some detail in order to consider how different forms of coming out have different meanings and effects. I argue this is due to the two competing discourses at work: identity versus desire. I also explore what these two seemingly different coming out moments share, how, at the end of the day, they may be more similar than it appears at first. And while much scholarship in the field prefers transgressive acts to identity declarations, I use these case studies to suggest that this critique may be misplaced.

ITHIN SOCIO-LEGAL theory, much has been written about the 'politics of rights', legal academics lining up to either defend or attack VV the struggle for rights in liberal democracies. Most progressive legal theorists agree that 'rights' (as objectives and rhetoric) are potentially problematic, for a variety of reasons. The main point of disagreement, as I read it, is between those who characterize 'rights' as abstract, individualistic, disempowering and obfuscatory (Freeman

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