Full Description
This original and intriguing collection explores the pressures exerted upon language in the expression of romantic and sexual desire. Simultaneously, it reveals the ways in which language itself exerts its own constraints on the subject's capacity to express desire.
The contributors, while using the approaches and methods of empirical linguistics, engage directly with issues of relevance in gender studies and cultural studies. They examine and probe:
* language used to mediate romantic and sexual desire
* language used by the media to represent intimacy and desire
* attitudes and assumptions about romantic and sexual desire embodied in English
* implications for the construction of romantic and sexual identity
Contents
INTRODUCTION Part I Words 1 METAPHORS OF DESIRE 2 KISSING AND CUDDLING: THE RECIPROCITY OF ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL ACTIVITY 3 'EVERYBODY LOVES A LOVER': GAY MEN, STRAIGHT MEN AND A PROBLEM OF LEXICAL CHOICE Part II Narratives 4 THE ORGANISATION OF NARRATIVES OF DESIRE: A STUDY OF FIRST-PERSON EROTIC FANTASIES 5 'AN EXPLOSION DEEP INSIDE HER': WOMEN'S DESIRE AND POPULAR ROMANCE FICTION 6 'YOU WOULD IF YOU LOVED ME': LANGUAGE AND DESIRE IN THE TEEN NOVEL Part III Voices 7 'I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU': LOVE AND DESIRE ON THE TELEPHONE 8 'BUNNIKINS, I LOVE YOU SNUGLY IN YOUR WARREN': VOICES FROM SUBTERRANEAN CULTURES OF LOVE 9 THAT GREAT SUPERMARKET OF DESIRE: ATTRIBUTES OF THE DESIRED OTHER IN PERSONAL ADVERTISEMENTS 10 SPEAKING ITS NAME: THE POETIC EXPRESSION OF GAY MALE DESIRE 11 DISCURSIVE CATEGORIES AND DESIRE: FEMINISTS NEGOTIATING RELATIONSHIPS
