Stupid, disguisting and unfair

[fpb]

Right. Amazon have just lost a customer.
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html
This may surprise you, but I am appalled and disgusted. So far as I can see, this attacks anything with homosexual content, including plenty of non-explicit material, and plenty of major literature. As a fan of Mary Renault, I regard the whole thing as an insult. And why, for Heaven's sake, single out homosexual material? Why not Histoire d'O? Why not Burton's version of the Arabian Nights? There is an awful lot of stuff here I would neither buy nor recommend, but it is impossible to see this as anything but a burst of irrational homophobia. And when you hear that from me, you know that there is something seriously wrong.

EDITED IN: I have signed an online petition on the matter (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/119673661), with the following comment:
For the record, I am a conservative, straight, Catholic male and my opinions on pornography are not favourable. I however find your policy demeaning, insulting, illiterate (if you ban homosexual content from your sales figures, where will you place Plato, Virgil and Leonardo da Vinci?) and hypocritical (straight pornography seems to be acceptable). I warmly suggest you forget it, because if you hope to get points from conservatives for this kind of behaviour, you have my assurance that you won't.

EDITED IN:
...According to the most recent press release, Amazon "does not have a family-friendly policy" (I'll grant them that!) and it is all due to a glitch. I wonder whether such a glitch would have elimitated items to do with, say, chess, toponomastics, or platelminths.

Comments

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

I am disgusted but also (perhaps naively?) quite surprised. I always saw Amazon.com as a rather benign business. Is there a history of some sort of moral-political agenda that I am not aware of??

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

It's quite bizarre. I did a brief search out of curiosity and their sweep also censors books about "curing homosexuality" etc. So if "homosexual, lesbian, gay" etc appears in the title or summary or keywords, Amazon removed it from rankings. The only explanation I can think of is a US military style "Don't ask don't tell"--ie, that this topic is verboten, pro or con.

Meanwhile, the Illustrated Story of O retains its Amazon sales rank.

I agree with fpb. Disgusting.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I happen to know Doris Kloster's work. It has no aesthetic value (unlike, say, Robert Mapplethorpe or Bob Carlos Clarke or David Hamilton). No doubt her version of Histoire d'O will not add anything to whatever literary value the novel has. And why does someone not point out that both O and Alan Moore's Lost Girls (which is probably the worst thing he ever did), which both apparently have the Amazon seal of approval, are full of explicit lesbian content? These people condemn Radclyffe Hall and retain full-frontal explicit scenes.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I've never really thought of them as benign -- certainly not since the whole One Click patent fiasco -- but, before this, they never struck me as a company which was particularly anti-homosexual. I really wonder what prompted this.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I thought of them as some kind of hippy outfit. That is not necessarily benign from my point of view, but it certainly astonishes me that they should take this position.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Here's part of Amazon's response:

"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

But looking at what has and has not been de-ranked, they look inconsistent in what they call "adult materials".

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-censors-its-rankings-search-results-to-protect-us-against-glbt-books/

They are having an on-going discussion with Amazon on there.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Considering that Amazon continues to actively sell "adult novelties" without masking them from "all products" searches (from which modern editions of books like Giovanni's Room are now hidden), inconsistent might be too mild a word for their behavior.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think the prejudice against homosexuality is patent and obvious. That was what angered me. To exclude Maurice and not, say, Lady Chatterley's Lover or Ulysses, is nonsense; it is not even a bad principle. And if you carry on with this kind of attitude, you will end up banning Plato and Virgil.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Very much so. My point is just that for Amazon to claim special concern for customer sensibilities regarding "adult" material in general is far more of a stretch than it would be for the other major booksellers.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

(And to clarify: I mention Giovanni's Room since it is a book I have read, not because I thought to equate it with Amazon's other product offerings.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Quite. My original reaction of disbelieving disgust came at seeing the great Mary Renault's name on the ban list.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I just don't see how this could benefit Amazon in any way to do this. It can only hurt them. It doesn't make good business sense.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The prime instinct of corporations is cowardice. My guess is that someone got one or two irate letters from people who did not like the availability of homosexual-themed material, and, as a reaction, handed down a memo. Someone else then decided that to remove the homosexual-themed material from the sales ratings would diminish its exposure and minimize negative publicity. And to do it quickly, he or she just decided to place on the list any book that had "homosexual" or "gay" or "GLBT" or the like in its keywords. Thus marches bureaucratic folly, impelled by cowardice.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

You know, this is very plausible. And sad. *sigh*

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Very strange. I still can't fathom what all that is about.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think dustthouart (who is another Catholic) has it right: treat the word "homosexual" as if it were a live rail. Which is fuckin' pathetic, if you'll pardon the expression. Mind you, I have just lost yet another friend because of the obsessive idiocy currently haunting the concept, so perhaps their way is safer after all.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

If their "policy" or whatever it is they are calling it, at least were consistent - but it's not. From what I've heard (and mind you, I am not very well informed on this matter) it seems they are choosing books pretty randomly, censoring some that whose homosexual or even sexual content is minimal, and leaving others where it's comparatively obvious?

On an almost unrelated note, this reminds me of the famous Star Trek interracial kiss thing: there was a minor uproar around a scene where Kirk kisses Uhura, because it was apparently the first interracial kiss on television. What they forgot was that in the same scene, a human female was kissing an alien (Spock) - but that was ok, because he was white. I don't know why, but this kinda reminds me.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Check my answer to marielapin, above. It is just a matter of the way the corporate/bureaucratic mind works. It always produces this sort of results.