For lesbians, “coming out” or disclosing one’s sexual orientation has come to be seen as a marker of self-acceptance, actualization, and the imperative first step in the authentication of a liberated subjectivity and social identity. However, other critical schools of thought, largely informed by Foucault’s middle writings, have argued that “coming out” is merely a confessional response to an incitement to discourse about sex. This study explored con- structions of coming out by a group of self-identified lesbians in South Africa. Data were collected via eight semistructured inter- views and subjected to discourse analysis. Although the coming- out stories appear to conform to some discursive practices char- acterizing confessional modes of response to incitements to speak, they are also de-emphasized as central to the constitution of selfhood. The changing conditions of possibility for the pro- duction of sexual subjectivity in contemporary South Africa seem to disrupt understandings of coming out as either solely a con- fessional or liberatory practice. RETRIEVED FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE.