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