Dacia Maraini's work has frequently explored and exposed the social proscriptions which regulate adherence to coherent socio-sexual behavior rooted in a naturalized gender identity. Maraini's characters were exploding the limits of a traditional notion of gender roles even before Adrienne Rich published in 1980 her seminal article, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," problematizing the relationship between sexuality and gendered behavior. More than a decade earlier, for example, in Maraini's first play, La famiglia normale (1967), Millo the son enters the set in cross-dress, in his sister's "vestaglia, aperta sul petto e porta in testa un cappellino di velluto marrone" (12). By examining four exemplary moments in Maraini's work from the 1970s to the 1990s, we will highlight Maraini's groundbreaking contributions to the ongoing discourse on the deconstruction of gender identity and sexuality. From this perspective, we will analyze Dialogo di una prostituta con un suo cliente, Donna in guerra, Lettere a Marina and "Chi ha ucciso Paolo Gentile?" from Buio. We will also study the risks inherent in these protagonists' nonconformity. In Maraini's world, subversive behavior usually provokes hostile [End Page 241] and dangerous reactions, a danger that often, but not always, derives from "l'ostile e affascinante mondo dei padri" (72) that the critic M. Grazia Sumeli Weinberg has so eloquently theorized in Maraini's work. 1