INTRODUCTION
At an earlier point in this book, it was established that cultural studies, and in particular debates around representation, provided a focal point for the coalescing of a number of debates including feminism, poststructuralism, postmodernism and post-colonialism. Popular cultural forms especially were identified as useful for framing debates around identity, sexuality, ethnicity and image. In this sense popular cultural forms can be seen as ‘sites of opposition’ and ‘sites of resistance’ for a range of groups who wish to open up the possibilities for the creation of new sites of meaning and knowledge. Thus representational issues emerging from popular cultural forms can be seen as actively involved in different subaltern or subcultural groups’ attempts to establish new identities. In this context both postmodernist and postfeminist theoretical debates encourage an approach to identity where both meanings and identities are fluid, not fixed. Two bodies of theory intersect around these debates: one emerging from feminist debates concerned with gender and sexuality which coalesce around gay and lesbian politics, and the other from cultural studies, concerned with debates linking representations and identities within newly defined cultural spaces. This final chapter is concerned to investigate the possibilities and potential for the emergence of new identities and coalitions, and examines debates in the area of sexuality, pornography and representational politics.