Linguistically Speaking

Kulick argues that in sexual contexts, 'no' produces a feminine or subordinate subject position for the person who utters it. That is why 'no' may be construed (in the case of sadomasochism, must be) as submission rather than refusal; it is also why men who claim 'homosexual panic' are not necessarily asked whether, instead of physically attacking the man who approached them, they could not simply have said no. [...] [Thus], the utterance or non-utterance of 'no' in response to another's desire is performative of gender.

Cameron, Deborah and Don Kulick. 2003. "Introduction: Language and Desire in Theory and Practice." In: Language & Communication 23, 93-105.

Say what the original sentence could have been, and explain the circumstances of the situation:
a) They said that they love each other.

Answer:

They said: "We love each other."
Some time ago they told me that they love each other.
I believe it.
And they are still doing it.

(good on them, I say)

They were tough.
They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.
Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture.
They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing.
Men killed and died, because they were embarassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment

.

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried, p. 21

From: The New York Times, Randy Siegel, October 10, 2005

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediment; Love is not Love,
Which alters when it alteration find
Or bends with the remover to remove

Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
Which looks on tempests, but is never shaken
It is the star to ev'ry wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be take

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom

If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

(D & C asked me to read this during the church service, which I loved. I'd almost forgotten how much I love to read English aloud).