“Situational” homosexuality in prison: a category for the benefit of the heterosexual order?

This article seeks to explain the persistence of the notion of “situational” homosexuality, used by both researchers and penitentiary staff to address the issue of sexuality in prison. “Situational” homosexuality is understood as distinct from a supposedly authentic homosexuality and is said to be induced by the non-mixed environment of prison. Fixed in the first important sociological research in the United States of America, this notion was only recently challenged, thanks to feminist and queer theories. This paper critically recounts the history of this concept to show that it has primarily served to consolidate the heterosexual order.