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Books With "Questionable Content" Being Deleted From ebookstores In Sweeping Ban
Nate the greatest writes "The Kernel started an uproar last week when they 'discovered' that the Kindle Store and other ebookstores sell adult content in the erotica category. None of the content is actually illegal, but it is icky enough that the major ebookstores decided to respond by removing anything even vaguely questionable. Unfortunately, they went too far, resulting in an act of censorship the likes of which we haven't seen since Paypal went after the indie ebook distributor Smashwords. The Daily Mail reports that WH Smith went so far as to shut down their website with the promise that it won't reopen until all self-published titles have been removed, and according to BBC News, B&N is also deleting content. Numerous authors have reported on KBoards that Amazon and B&N have removed far more than just the titles that feature questionable content like pseudo-incest; they appear to be running keyword searches and removing any title that mentions innocuous words like babysitter, sister, or teenager. And they're not the only ones; there's a new report that Kobo has jumped on the ban wagon as well."
Who decides? Isn't this a Shade of Grey here? Think that book will get banned as well, as popular as it is? (never read it and never will, but am aware of its cultural significance)
Fahrenheit 451?
Every time we complete some sort of cycle, discover a new tribe, a new people, new nation or continent, new media, new format, new distribution whatever, there's always this stupid witch hunt. -Oh no a person is saying/writing/portraying things I don't agree with, this must stop right now. Democracy is bad. Censor that shit right away! -burn all those books.
To make it worse there's this pseudo fanatical craze to get rid of nudity with a passion but violence? not so much. somehow nudity is worse...reminds me of the MPAA rating system. Sure you can show blood, but the naked human body? are you out of your mind?!
This is always the problem with controlled distribution, formats and media. Someone decides what's best for you.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
I assume. I can't actually read it, it's banned because Wiston and Julia have sex while Big Brother is watching and that's incest or something.
This is what digital books are going to get you , censorship, on the fly redactions and corrections to appeal to current political climates, and a simple refusal to sell anything that in anyway displeases the power elite.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Because that's chock full of incest, and we wouldn't want to apply our arbitrary rules inconsistently, would we?
I myself like Japanese anime and culture, and have read a few doujinshi which feature young anime characters in sexual situations, but...
>The National Crime Agency warned on Sunday that books appearing to legitimise child abuse "might feed the fantasies of paedophiles and in some cases encourage child sexual abusers to commit contact offences".
I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit.
Maybe we should ban first person shooters too because it might legitimize murder and encourage people to commit actual offences...
Anyone who can't tell the difference between an actual, human person and fictional character(s) are no different than the ones who abuse children, or murder, or rape women...
Rape, incest, bestiality are some of the things being targeted. That isn't exactly just bare breasts. Although you raise an issue noted in this bit from the BBC story:
"We outlaw snuff films, child porn and, increasingly, revenge porn, because actual people are harmed during their production," wrote PJ Vogt on OnTheMedia.org.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Well, not that i am into erotica, but I dislike being told what I am being allowed to read by private company.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Tomorrow dissident materials, then anything that anyone doesn't like. And don't forget they know who bought these e-books, that might be grounds for a search warrant.
Now, it is their right as a business not to carry anything they don't personally approve of, but it is a bad path we are heading down.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Erotica and romance novels are two completely different categories. Romance novels usually have some sort of plot or story that would function just fine without the smut. Erotica (aka plot? what plot?) would suffer as a story with the smut stripped out because it takes up the bulk of the content.
Romance is what women use to masturbate whereas erotica is what men use. That's been my experience of what the definition of the two are when it comes to policy.
When having to choose between siding with a pedophile and siding with a politician, the choice is easy: Side with the pedo.
Simple self interest. The chance that the pedo might do something that harms me is zero. I'm too old for that. No such luck with the politician, though.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
have you actually READ any of the "romance" novels? romanticizing adultery? yeah that's there. lewd descriptions of sex? yeah that's there. just general descriptions about hot nights? yeah most definitely there.
ladies magazines and mens xxx mags stories are pretty much the same. what's the difference otherwise? well, the pictures of course. and that in the womens magazines half the articles are about how to get laid(the rest of the articles are just indirectly about it).
oh and they would NOT function without the smut. not by a long shot. how the fuck do you make a story about being an (american)indian in 16th century raped(romantically-consensually) by a sensuel colonist function without the smut about fondling breasts and being fucked while tied up?? turn a 4 page novellette into one paragraph??
lady of camellias is something that sort of works without the smut, by just implying the smut. the cheap stuff on womens magazines.. not so much.
oh and the only way to enjoy those stories is to get some hot chicks to read them whilst sipping wine(in university, IT guild ftw). it's better if you get some late victorian style smut though..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Haha. You're retarded. Erotica means whatever the person using the word wants it to mean. That's everything from straight up fapfiction to extremely well written stories that happen to have explicit sex.
Women want more (about 200 pages) foreplay than men, what else is new?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Example #4: Also read the well written BBC article as well.
Sure, I got sucked into the thought that this was about censorship. Then I did the opposite of /., I read the articles and discovered that instead of this being Bad Amazon, Bad B&N, it was more along the lines of Bad Authors who snuck their works in under the self-publishing loop hole.
Had a smut author walked in the front door of Amazon or B&N and said "hey, will you sell my ... works ... centered around incest, rape, and pedophilia" they would be handed a copy of those store's book offering policy and shown the door. Instead, the authors use the self-publishing (and not well policed) approach to get into Amazon's store.
In the end I did not see this a censorship. Amazon and B&N are not pulling an ebook from a reader, they are removing content that violates their business model. That is their right. As others stated, authors can find other means to promote and sell their work other then through Amazon. I am sure one can still go out there and find such literary works like "I raped my drunk little girl", download them to their Kindle/Nook and ... "enjoy them?" That is not censorship. Now if a Government makes broad sweep removals requirement for all businesses...then we can debate censorship.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Please ban the following books as a threat to an Orderly Society. Also, the children. KThxBye!
* The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
* The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
* The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
* The Color Purple by Alice Walker
* Ulysses by James Joyce
* Beloved by Toni Morrison
* The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
* 1984 by George Orwell
* The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
* Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
* Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
* Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
* A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
* Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
* Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
* Animal Farm by George Orwell
* The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
* As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
* A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
* Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
* Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
* Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
* Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
* Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
* Native Son by Richard Wright
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
* Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
* For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
* On the Road by Jack Kerouac
* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
* The Call of the Wild by Jack London
* To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
* Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
* Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
* The World According to Garp by John Irving
* All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
* A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
* The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Romance novels usually contain erotica.
As for government, a wise man (don't make me slap you) once said, "Poor is the man whose pleasure depends on the permission of another."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
> Rape, incest ...
So... no more bibles then.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
At one point I wanted to self-republish the Old Testament, but with a cover which made it look like a filthy, violent hardcore porn novel, spattered with choice quotes about rape, incest, torture, etc.
I quite like the idea of being thrown in jail for sex offences for merely distributing a copy of the well-known book which can now be judged by its cover.
Before anyone mods parent as trollbait, here are indisputable examples of Incest in the Bible:
1) And Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth, at the east side of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city, and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. - Genesis 4:16-17
2) Howbeit, otherwise also she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, and not the daughter of my mother, and I took her to wife. And after God brought me out of my father’s house, I said to her: Thou shalt do me this kindness: In every place, to which we shall come, thou shalt say that I am thy brother. - Genesis 20:12-13
3) And Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. And these are the generations of Thare: Thare begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begot Lot. And Aran died before Thare his father, in the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nachor married wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai: and the name of Nachor’s wife, Melcha, the daughter of Aran, father of Melcha, and father of Jescha. - Genesis 11:26-29
4) And the elder said to the younger Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in and lay with her father: but he perceived not neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up. And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father. They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up. So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father. - Genesis 19:31-36
5) The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi. These are the kindreds of Levi by their families. 20 And Amram took to wife Jochabed his aunt by the father’s side: and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of Amram’s life were a hundred and thirty-seven. - Exodus 6:19-20
And finally the best one combines incest and rape:
6) And Thamar came to the house of Amnon her brother: but he was laid down: and she took meal and tempered it: and dissolving it in his sight she made little messes. And taking what she had boiled, she poured it out, and set it before him, but he would not eat: and Amnon said: Put out all persons from me. And when they had put all persons out, Amnon said to Thamar: Bring the mess into the chamber, that I may eat at thy hand. And when she had presented him the meat, he took hold of her, and said: Come lie with me, my sister. She answered him: Do not so, my brother, do not force me: for no such thing must be done in Israel. Do not thou this folly. But he would not hearken to her prayers, but being stronger overpowered her and lay with her. [II Kings 13:12-14]
I think you're over playing the difference.
Erotica: Introductory paragraph -> Sex.
Romance: Introductory paragraph -> Foreplay -> Sex.
I wouldn't make much of it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Before your politically correct obtusery is modded too far up, might I just draw your attention to the context we're discussing within here. "Pleasure" might frequently be a euphemism for sex, but sex is not the only pleasure, and indeed while the main subject of discussion is 'erotica' which is sexual in nature, it takes the form of inanimate objects which people relate to each in their own way. The quote then is not referring to rape, but the ability to access and consume pleasurable things, literal inanimate objects.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Erotica is when you use a feather. Pornography is when you use the whole chicken.
IIRC, this is from Terry Pratchett
I remember Barnes & Noble making a big thing about how it supported banned books like Huckleberry Finn and The Lorax. They had signs and buttons reading "I read banned books!" all over the store.
I guess now its "I only read the books I'm allowed to read!"
Already done.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Someone was clearly brain damaged by high school. MOST literature contains sex. Certainly nearly all of the good stuff. This is because most humans have sex in their lives. It makes it important in narratives about humans. Joyce's Ulysses includes a guy masturbating in the bushes while perving on a cripple and a vivid description of a rimjob. Gravity's Rainbow is basically a 760 page dick joke. The Sound and the Fury is all about how women's liberation (promiscuity in Faulkner's mind) affected Southern men. McCarthy's Child of God has graphic descriptions of necrophilia. Very few major novels since the 1950s have been vague about sex. Even before then it was almost always there (what did you think the entire conflict of The Sun Also Rises was, or Dorian Gray, or Whitman's poetry?), it just wasn't as explicit or graphic.
"Conservative" does not mean "favoring smaller government and more liberty"; that's "libertarian".
"Conservative" means "favoring things as they once were; opposing change".*
It's a mere historical coincidence that in recent history, change has been away from smaller government, and so libertarianism became conservative.
In older eras, change was toward smaller government, and conservatives were in favor of preserving the authority of the church and state. The Christian nutjobs still pine for those "good old days", and that makes them even more conservative than the libertarian type of conservative.
*(Strictly speaking "conservative" should be distinguished from "reactionary" in that the former favors preserving things as they are now, and the latter favors bringing back things that used to be, in which case all of the aforementioned "conservatives" are really "reactionaries" since society has already changed away from the way they wish it still was).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."