ABSTRACT
At Abu Ghraib, the imploded and deconstructed meanings surrounding gender are functional in terms of describing gendered understandings of the events at the prison, and the US military in general, and specifically for understanding the consequences of gender. The metrosexual soldier, that all soldiers wear the drag of military uniforms, the idea that "drag-techniques" were used to torture, and that gender simulacra and seduction played a role in the courtroom, among other examples. For Baudrillard, this gendering of reality serves as reality itself, a hyperreality indeed, simulations and free floating imaginary. It is this hyperreality that comes to function as the "real", or a simulacrum of reality, as signs have been substituted for the real itself, and gender identity in this case. The social construction of gender has historically equated both femininity and masculinity with heterosexuality in that femininity and masculinity are seen as opposite binaries, thereby mimicking assumed heterosexual lived-relations.
