Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love

　　直到1857年，同性戀才被視為一種違背倫常的罪惡，也在這年，才有「猥褻」這個概念出現。紐約時報暢銷作家Naomi Wolf在本書中告訴我們，何以同性戀一直為人所厭惡、甚至禁止，又為何同性戀總和猥褻難以脫鉤。

　　雖說在1857年之前，同性戀不被視為為犯罪，而是男性與男性之間的性行為才會被當成犯罪，但在立下新法之後，不只兩個男性談戀愛是犯罪，任何與此相關的行為都被污名化不宜談論的猥褻行為。

　　在1895年時，Oscar Wilde因為被懷疑為同性戀者而被審判，而早在那幾十年前，一些有同性取向者，如美國作家Walt Whitman及同性戀英國文學評論家John Addington Symonds（鎖在深櫃且深深喜愛Whitman所著、大膽闡述同性戀的《草葉集》）便極力試圖將同性戀行為免於牢獄之災，而僅以罰款取代。

　　Symonds在垂死之際，依舊協助撰寫反性別行為書籍，讓當代對同性戀者有更深的認識。而Symonds的私密筆記也在本書首次完整呈現，Wolf深信其為西方第一個為同志權益發聲的宣言。為讀者帶來一段鮮為所知的歷史，向過往人物致敬（文/博客來編譯）

　　The best-selling author of Vagina, Give Me Liberty, and The End of America illuminates a dramatic buried story of gay history—how a single English law in 1857 led to a maelstrom, with reverberations lasting down to our day

　　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 simply the act of sodomy. But in a single stroke, not only was love between men illegal, but anything referring to this love became obscene, unprintable, unspeakable. Wolf paints the dramatic ways this played out among a bohemian group of sexual dissidents, including Walt Whitman in America and the closeted homosexual English critic John Addington Symonds—in love with Whitman’s homoerotic voice in Leaves of Grass—as, decades before the infamous 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde, dire prison terms became the State’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 convinces that his secret memoir, mined here fully for the first time, stands as the first gay rights manifesto in the west.

　　Review

　　“A remarkable and moving work of creative scholarship”—Larry Kramer, author of Faggots and The Normal Heart
 
　　“With precision and sensitivity, Naomi Wolf traces how the state came to police the private sphere; she brings into the light the lives of those whose resistance to this brutality was a beacon for the future.  Outrages is a remarkable, revelatory book.”—Erica Wagner, author of Chief Engineer:  The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
 
　　“In Outrages, Naomi Wolf reveals a largely forgotten history of how science, law, and culture have intersected to suppress and silence sexual expression. As expanding acceptance threatens to erase a history of LGBTQ marginalization and struggle—and as we descend into authoritarian rule across so many countries—this is an important, powerful tale.”—Shahid Buttar, marriage equality activist and attorney

　　“Outrages is a fascinating history book with a cast of characters and an epic sweep that make it read like a novel Charles Dickens could have written, if he had ever written one about queers.” —New York Journal of Books

　　"[This] remarkable book is a tour de force of research and insight into Symonds’ life and work and the related evolution of public and state attitudes toward homosexuality. [Wolf's] is an essential contribution not only to queer history but also to studies of nineteenth-century culture. It is not to be missed."—Booklist, STARRED review

　　"Wolf provides engrossing accounts of Whitman and Symonds, yet her story is even more compelling in its wider portrait of the societies and institutions in America as well as England that served to shape the fears and prejudices that have lingered into our modern age. An absorbing and thoughtfully researched must-read for anyone interested in the history of censorship and issues relating to gay male sexuality."—Kirkus

　　"This ambitious literary, biographical, and historical treatise from Wolf (The Beauty Myth) examines both 19th-century Britain’s persecution of gay men and the work and life of the relatively obscure gay writer John Addington Symonds (1840–1893)...a fascinating look at this period and these writers."—Publishers Weekly

　　"This book harnesses the electric power of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the righteous energy of first-wave feminism and the terror of criminalized identities, in a style accessible to general readers. As the fight for LGBTQ rights continues, this book is as relevant as it is compelling." --Shelf Awareness

作者簡介

　　NAOMI WOLF is the author most recently of Vagina, Give Me Liberty, and The End of America, all New York Times bestsellers, and of the landmark international bestseller The Beauty Myth.