Abstract

Feminist theory and feminist ethics of sexuality have reached a significant and controversial point in their development, one centered around the conception of the subject upon which these theories have been based. The past several decades have seen second wave American and Continental feminists approaching their work in ways that some have viewed as incommensurate. Whereas American feminists have generally posited a modern, essential self as fundamental to feminist theory and activism, Continental feminists have challenged these notions of the subject by introducing a self that is discursively constructed. ;Through an exploration of the ways in which one group of Generation X subculturalists, "the goths," are confronting and dealing with issues of identity and sexuality, this dissertation reflects upon the sufficiency of both American and Continental feminist ethical theories---and their understandings of the self---for interpreting and addressing the experiences and needs of contemporary persons. Following goths' refusal to limit themselves to dualistic categories of gender and sexual identity, this work discusses the possibilities for developing a feminist ethics of liberation based on a fluidic notion of the self, a concept that seeks to transcend the limitations of second wave feminism's essential-discursive divide