ABSTRACT

This chapter critically reviews and interprets the existing literature, but focuses on literature surrounding sexualities and love. I also evaluate case studies in this chapter, notably films such as Fifty Shades of Grey and The Girl on the Train, to discuss and make sense of how sexuality and love are expressed and portrayed through film. Drawing on discourse analysis, I provide a nuanced account of how difficult it is to enact love and romance depicted through these films. The chapter is about men more generally. I am bringing in these films because they are needed to allow the author to analyze the ways in which love and romance are constructed in film, which then the author can relate this to the lives of how gay and bisexual men construct love in later chapters. Making links in this way will provide some nuanced analysis of the different ways in which love is constructed.