Sexed Texts explores the complex role that language plays in the construction of sexuality and gender, two concepts often discussed separately but, in practice, closely intertwined. It locates sexuality and gender as socially constructed, and examines language use in terms of socio-historical factors, linking changing conceptualisations of identity, discourse and desire to theories surrounding regulation, globalisation, new technologies, marketisation and consumerism. This book draws on a range of theoretical perspectives and published research, and takes examples from written, spoken, internet, non-verbal, visual, mediascripted and naturally occurring texts. Some of the questions addressed in the book include: how do people construct their own and other's gendered or sexual identities through the use of language? What is the relationship between language and desire? In what ways do language practices help to reflect and shape different gendered/sexed discourses as 'normal', problematic or contested? Taking a broadly deconstructionist perspective, the book progresses from examining what are seen as preferable or acceptable ways to express gender and sexuality, moving towards more 'tolerated' identities, practices and desires, and finally arriving at marginalized and tabooed forms. The book locates sexuality and gender as socially constructed, and therefore examines language use in terms of socio-historical factors, linking changing conceptualisations of identity, discourse and desire to theories surrounding regulation, globalisation, new technologies, marketisation and consumerism.The early seventeenth century, when the first operas were written and technical advances with far-reaching consequences--such as tonal music--began to develop, is also notable for another shift: the displacement of aristocratic music-makers by a new professional class of performers. In this book, Andrew Dell'Antonio looks at a related phenomenon: the rise of a cultivated audience whose skill involved listening rather than playing or singing. Drawing from contemporaneous discourses and other commentaries on music, the visual arts, and Church doctrine, Dell'Antonio links the new ideas about cultivated listening with other intellectual trends of the period: humanistic learning, contemplative listening (or watching) as an active spiritual practice, and musical mysticism as an ideal promoted by the Church as part of the Catholic Reformation.