The collection was co-edited by London Met's Dr Piero Toto and examines how sexuality and its expressions move across languages, bodies and borders through translation and ethnography
Date: 23 September 2026
Dr Piero Toto, Senior Lecturer in translation at London Metropolitan University, celebrated the launch of his new book, ‘Carnal Languages: Interdisciplinary Issues in Sexual Communication’.
Piero co-edited the book with Mirco Costacurta, Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Psychology at Università degli Studi “Guglielmo Marconi” in Milan. The pair hosted the launch of the book online.
The edited collection, published as part of the Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality book series, explores how sexuality and its expressions move across languages, bodies, and borders through translation and ethnography.
Piero's work sits at the intersection of translation studies, queer theory, and sexual communication. Mirco has expertise in carnal sociology and LGBTQ+ activism and has carried out research in sexuality, health communication, and social movements.
“Together, we have assembled a book that refuses easy answers about how we talk – and don't talk – about sex across linguistic and cultural boundaries,” said Piero.
On the collection, Piero added: “The collection explores multiple dimensions of sexuality through an interdisciplinary study of different social contexts, investigating how language and bodies function as research tools, and how communication shapes understanding of sexual narratives and identity.
“Rather than imposing censorship, it asks harder questions about translation ethics, institutional power, and whose voices get amplified or silenced.”
During the launch event, four contributing authors discussed how these questions play out in practice.
Alexandra Sanchez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at Ghent University (Belgium), explored audio description as an ethically charged form of mediation. Alexandra argued that when platforms like Netflix describe sexual scenes in different languages and across accessibility tracks, it reveals underlying assumptions about censorship, accessibility, and how we frame intimate violence for different audiences.
Lucia La Causa, Adjunct Professor of English Language, Translation and Linguistics at the University of Catania (Italy), then asked: how do translators handle sexually explicit language in cultures where sex and sexuality remain taboo topics?
Raffaele Pizzo, Adjunct Professor of English, Political Science, and International Relations at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” in Italy, examined how queer sexual vocabularies persist in contemporary media, tracing historical parallels between Polari (a language variety historically used by gay men in the UK) and modern slang as tools of visibility and identification.
Aurélie Aromatario and Pierre de Thier, Postdoctoral Researchers at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), spoke about embodied research and how their own bodies, transformed through bodybuilding and roller derby, became part of their research methodology, bridging fieldwork experience and academic knowledge.
The discussion explored how carnal languages are not just about vocabulary but about the gap between what bodies know, what words can say, and what different cultures permit to be spoken aloud.
“The book suggests that when translation and ethnography take sexuality seriously, they expose not just linguistic difference but political difference,” said Piero.
Dr Piero Toto is a Senior Lecturer in Translation.
London Met's Translation BA degree explores aspects of technical translation as well as literary translation, focussing on practical work and the professional skills needed for a successful career in translation.