The Audacity of a Kiss: Love, Art, and Liberation

Rendered in bronze, covered in white lacquer, two women sit together on a park bench in Greenwich Village. One of the women touches the thigh of her partner as they gaze into each other's eyes. The two women are part of George Segal's iconic sculpture "Gay Liberation," but these powerful symbols were modeled on real people: Leslie Cohen and her partner (now wife) Beth Suskin.

In this evocative memoir, Cohen tells the story of a love that has lasted for over fifty years. Transporting the reader to the pivotal time when brave gay women and men carved out spaces where they could live and love freely, she recounts both her personal struggles and the accomplishments she achieved as part of New York's gay and feminist communities. Foremost among these was her 1976 cofounding of the groundbreaking women's nightclub Sahara, which played host to such luminaries as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Pat Benatar, Ntozake Shange, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich, Patti Smith, Bella Abzug, and Jane Fonda. The Audacity of a Kiss is a moving and inspiring tale of how love, art, and solidarity can overcome oppression.

Author: Leslie Cohen
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 09/17/2021
Pages: 265
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.40w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9781978825116
ISBN10: 1978825110
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | LGBTQ+
- Social Science | LGBTQ+ Studies | Lesbian Studies
- Social Science | Women's Studies

About the Author
LESLIE COHEN has been a museum curator, a nightclub owner and promoter, a limousine driver, and a lawyer, as well as a writer whose work has appeared in such publications as Curve and The New York Times Style Magazine. Now retired, she and her wife Beth live in Miami, Florida with their cat, Birdie.