Launch for Dr. Naomi Wolf / Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love

Booksmith hosts a special event to launch Dr. Naomi Wolf‘s new book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love. More information to be announced soon, but please save the date and join us!

Please note: This is a ticketed event — tickets can be purchased in advance here. The price of admission is equal to the cost of Outrages, which is included with each ticket.

Until 1857, the State did not link the idea of homosexuality to deviancy. In the same year, the concept of the obscene was coined. New York Times best-selling author Naomi Wolf’s Outrages is the story, brilliantly told, of why this two-pronged State repression took hold — first in England and spreading quickly to America — and why it was attached so dramatically, for the first time, to homosexual men. Before 1857, it wasn’t homosexuality that was a crime, but the act of sodomy. But in a single stroke, not only did love between men become illegal, but anything referring to this love alsowas ruled obscene, unprintable, unspeakable. Wolf paints the dramatic ways this played out among a bohemian group of sexual dissidents, including American poet Walt Whitman and closeted English critic John Addington Symonds, as, decades before the infamous 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde, dire prison terms became the government’s penalty for homosexuality. Most powerfully, Wolf recounts how a dying Symonds helped write the book on sexual inversion that created our modern understanding of homosexuality. And she argues that his secret memoir, mined here fully for the first time, stands as the first gay rights manifesto in the West.

Naomi Wolf‘s most recent books include Vagina, Give Me Liberty, and The End of America, all New York Times best-sellers, and of the landmark international bestseller, The Beauty Myth. She lives in New York City.

** Please note **

– This is an all-ages event.

– The duration of this event is up to the author.

– Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.

– 1 ticket = 1 book, no exceptions. The book must be purchased from Booksmith. If you already have a copy of Outrages, remember that books make great gifts! If you’ve already gifted Outrages to all of your friends, it’s ok to buy a different book from Booksmith instead — in that case, please write events AT booksmith DOT com.

– If you’d like a signed copy of any of Naomi’s books but are unable to attend the event,order here and be sure to include your request in the special field.

– RSVP appreciated but not required.