Love is a curious subject: its importance to cultural and intellectual history cannot be denied, yet it still appears to be taboo for many theorists. As Roland Barthes writes: "Everyone will understand that X has 'huge problems' with his sexuality; but no one will be interested in those Y may have with his sentimentality: love is obscene precisely in that it puts the sentimental in place of the sexual."1 Too much sexual desire can result in rehabilitation...