This rich ethnography in a rural village in North Bali illuminates the construction of desire by exploring cultural practices regarding courtship and marriage, motherhood, and connubial fidelity. The way these cornerstones of daily life are played out in the alternative arenas of tourism and illness highlight pervasive gender disparities in the expression of sexuality. By allowing key informants to tell their stories in their own voices and by skillfully interweaving fictionalized interludes, the author gives us not only a rigorously researched ethnography but an intimate and fully realized portrait of Balinese women's innermost desires.