Introduction

Abstract

Language and sexuality is a relatively new and burgeoning field which has now started to receive much academic attention. Some of the most recent work in this field has highlighted the need for a greater focus upon examining how sexualities are enacted in situated and localised contexts of interaction (Sauntson & Kyratzis, 2007; Bucholtz and Hall, 2004; Leap and Boellstorff, 2004). Amidst lively and thought-provoking debates about the roles that desire and identity might play in the study of sexuality and language, key researchers such as Bucholtz and Hall have called for the ‘politically responsible’ study of language and sexuality which does not ‘marginalise issues of gender, power and agency’ (2004: 485). This is precisely the aim of this book.