A rare opinion blog entry from me. Yeah, I know, everything from me has been rare of late. I’m sorry. Thank the gods Will is utterly on fire these last couple months with some truly excellent stuff.
I read with some disheartened interest of Amazon’s recent shit-stirring. They have deleted a slew of erotic books – mostly incest related – from their stores for no apparent reason other than unspecified ‘violation of Amazon’s content guidelines’. Here is an article at the Ars Technica blog that sums up the story far better than I can.
This isn’t the first time Amazon as a corporation has deleted capriciously, or without real explanation, or even hypocritically (delete wikileaks data, but keep hosting the newspapers that also store and serve wikileaks data?), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. In fact, I’m so certain, I believe it’s only a matter of time before some or all of my books get zapped from their rolls. Those of you who own them will easily be able to guess which are the most likely and why.
I have friends who, in the wake of the wikileaks debacle, have deleted accounts and content from Amazon, and I think that stand and action is principled. I did not, at first, though I thought about it. Perhaps as an American, I’m too inured to corporate abuse of internal policy and basic ethics in search of making an extra buck. Now, however, I have a specific reason to keep my books – and one in particular – on Amazon until they boot it. Nightmares and Visions is a series of flash fictions – on average about 500-600 words each, almost every one of which deals with the themes of reluctance to outright nonconsensual sex. On the objectionable obscenity scale, I would think this far outclasses mere incest between consenting, if oversexed relatives (though, to be honest I don’t really know how to grade these things). Every day Amazon keeps N&V for sale after having deleted other, ‘less offensive’ books is a day in which its hypocrisy remains exposed to view. It’s symbolic – it doesn’t affect Amazon’s bottom line any more than any one person deleting their account. Full disclosure, though – it does affect mine. N&V broke 500 total sales over the weekend – about 10 times more than I ever expected, and the vast, vast majority of them were through Amazon. Frankly though, I don’t care if I make not one more sale via Amazon (or anywhere else) – I’ve already been more successful than I’d imagined I would be.
In fact, if you are inclined to buy any of my books, and didn’t have a great love of the kindle or its proprietary format I’d much rather you bought it from Republica Press directly. They sell several Kindle friendly formats regardless. And, if you were ever inclined to review one of my books, doing so on your own blog or sites like Goodreads.com would, in my opinion, be better than Amazon. Of course, there’s the flipside of that as well, the more reviews and exposure a book like N&V gets on Amazon, the more it highlights the double- or non-standard they have. Just be aware that those reviews are unlikely to stand for too very long. It seems like only a matter of time before Amazon does something else to drive authors like me away – if it doesn’t’ kick us off first.
–Monocle
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They took a lot of heat recently because “how to” guides to pedophilia and books on child-sex tourism were being sold through Amazon – apparently without their knowledge. Millions of books are listed there so that’s not so hard to believe.
I think they panicked and I can’t entirely blame them.
And they’re probably still spooked. I removed my stories from the SOL website for two reasons, one of which was all the pedophilia, unmitigated descriptions of rape and violence, and just plain ugly judgment (such as writing fictional stories about true-life sexually abused minors).
At some level it’s just symbolic fantasy, but sometimes what is fact and fiction to the author is hard to discern. There are some folk who should keep their writing to themselves (in my opinion).
So I get Amazon’s reaction (or over reaction).
The world wide web has granted us all a freedom of expression (and an ability to be read and heard) that would have been incomprehensible to even the most successful author of a hundred years ago (and less).
The world has still got to sort this all out. I wouldn’t take it too personally.
It’s sort of true Amazon panicked, but here’s a quite from the Ars article quoting Amazon about that incident:
Amazon defended keeping that book, at least for a time. But unceremoniously removed far less offensive material in nullification of their own statement above.
I would get Amazon’s reaction if it didn’t look utterly capricious and arbitrary.
And you can add the Coming Together books published through eXcessica to the list of Amazon-fanished titles.
What Amazon’s reply tells me is that they were (and are) panicked.
I’m not necessarily defending them.
They’re evidently not sure what their policy should be.
I haven’t checked to see whether my E-Book was deleted. If so, I’m not too bothered by it. Frankly, I was more surprised to see it there at all. Is it censorship? No. They’re a corporation. They don’t have to sell anything they don’t want to.
They do need to change their guidelines though.
If they’re going to pick and choose they ought to clarify – not just to authors but to customers as well. They should stop pretending as though they aren’t applying a selective morality. That’s OK. Just be clear about it.
I agree that if they were clear, there’d be far less of a problem.
There’s the rub, though. They haven’t and they won’t clarify their guidelines. They use the ambiguity as cover for whatever action or inaction they take and refuse to justify. I think they’re perfectly aware that any stink that gets raised is going to have truly minor impact on their business. No one of the marginalized segments has the power to affect them. Even the concerted antagonistic efforts of Anonymous hasn’t dented them.
So they won’t clarify, and they’ll delete incest erotica, but leave N&V and D&D up. They are untrue to their own stated policies. While that may be typical of large corporations, I don’t think it’s ethical, nor should it be acceptable to the consumer. However the vast majority of people in this consumer culture really and truly don’t care about corporate ethics beyond saying “that sucks” and swallowing it.
Fight fight fight!
In all seriousness though, I can’t deny that I take amazon’s side even more so than redbud. In my opinion, the immense variety of, and ever-changing nature of “moral deviance” that amazon chooses to keep or remove is simply too vast for them to clearly say, as monocle would like, “OK, incest is bad but NC is fine!” and so on.
If amazon had been around a few decades ago, when the American Psychological Association considered homosexuality a mental disorder, I suspect that any fiction that strongly gratified that would have been removed then, but now it is of course allowed.
I would further argue that if anyone were to start making waves by getting bloggers to post about how, “this creep monocle has a 100 short story collection of women getting raped by everything from robots to demons!” I suspect that, after a short while of deliberation, your works would also be removed (obviously, I do not hold the opinion contained in the above quotation, just making a point).
I suspect that the less-than-clear nature of their TOS (seriously, did you actually read that anyway?) is simply the safest way to allow for adjustment as our views of right and wrong change (and at the drop of a hat, it seems, on the internet), and as people slowly become aware of the massive content contained on such sights. Indeed, I suspect that material is submitted to places like amazon faster than the “mainstream” can watch it. Which is actually kind of nice because it means there’s more porn out there than we can ever watch.
I appreciate your perspective, Mic. I think you’re absolutely right that having a vague TOS gives them both cover and latitude to do what they will when they will, with no additional explanation. But it’s craven, and fundamentally antagonistic to both writer and reader.
Nightmares and Visions was my introduction to your work, and the single best volume of erotica I’ve ever purchased. The convenience of direct accessibility on Amazon is something I would be loath to see become a casualty of unrelated politics. N+V was my gateway drug to the rest of your work (as well as my introduction to willcrimson as well) and a format that I greatly hope you’ll revisit in volumes to come. So to speak.
-J
I’m truly glad you liked the book. And I too think that convenience and accessibility are advantages Amazon has. But Amazon is not unique in those qualities, and hopefully it is getting less so.
Raz,
With all due respect, which I give with out pause.
Lets not forget that even a fictional story that relays incestual (not sure I spelled that properly) sex is very troubling.
Rape, incest, and pedophilia these are not fodder for erotica, I don’t think.
The depravity that they illicit is just wrong. You have to wonder why a sexual encounter between consensual adults is not enough to evoke passion, lust and ultimately love don’t you?
Perhaps what I am really getting to is- sex shouldn’t just be hedonistic, and filthy.
Before anyone seethes, let me add, lust and fantasy are fine…and healthy.
I guess I just don’t think even an impulse for incest, or rape should really be thought about much less erotically portrayed.
Sex can certainly take many awesome twists of power play, and such…but to allow one’s fantasies to become so corrupted is very troubling to me at least.
Doesn’t such fantasies border, if not completely relate to a mental disorder of criminal intent?
Peeking at your adolescent sister in the shower when your twelve is one thing, wanting to have sex with her is entirely something else.
Lets stick to dominance (between adults characters) shall we…I like that best.
M~
Meme, I value your opinions and have always enjoyed your comments and appreciation of the work we post here. We have a significant disagreement here, however. I think you are making some sweeping, and somewhat absolutist judging statements in these comments. I understand you find incest fundamentally troubling. It has very little appeal to me. But as a fantasy it has a lot of appeal to a lot of people. A fantasy, by definition is not real, and part of the fundamental quality of being a mature adult is being able to distinguish between was is real and what is not. Fantasy – and erotic fiction allow one to experience the fantasy – even the most taboo of them – in the safe environment of one’s mind. Incest fantasies, or a rape fantasies, and many other fringe taboos turn on lots of people, male, female, old, young. And there is nothing wrong with that.
I think that virtually any sentence that starts with “sex shouldn’t be” or “sex should be” is fundamentally wrong. Sex is many different things to many different people. Fantasy is also many different things to many different people to some fantasy is exactly the place to explore unhealthy, immoral, and even illegal things. Some peoples fantasies, including many I have written and some of my favorites to read, are exactly fantasies of corruption. Having the fantasy or the impulse is neither a symptom of mental imbalance nor criminal intent. We have, and are obligated by the society and social structures we agree to live in, to have impulse control. If we ignore or fail in that, that is when we are criminal or unstable. But only then.
To condemn certain fantasies as immoral and unhealthy is to deny parts of the psyche that most of us have, even if they are largely quiet or repressed. But thinking is not doing. The darkest stuff I’ve written about, I’d never ever consider doing, nor would I condone it ever being done by or to anyone real. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t turn me on. That’s what I stick to.
I sympathize with Meme’s comments as well as yours. It’s a hard subject.
Mon,
You are absolutely correct in owning, and having such opinions.
My only concern is, and ever will be…”people in some way become what they think”
When we engage in thoughts and perceptions of as you put it “taboo” we entertain the darkest of human nature, while this in and of itself doesn’t equate to acting upon the thought, it does change our Psyche. People have argued that watching horror films ans such does/does not permeate the mind, or change our behavior. Even if it doesn’t make us worse, it certainly doesn’t make us better either.
So, with that said I will maintain that what we think, what we do, and what we are
Has intrinsic repercussions to us, and the world we inhabit.
Love and light…always the best of human nature changes everything for the better.
Mamby Pamby as I am, I prefer to be as such.
Always,
M~
I understand your concern. In the end I have to trust my readers to be adults and in control of their actions. Someone who isn’t, doesn’t need to read a story to become what they think.