One big story on the intertubes in the last couple of weeks—aside from Rush Limbaugh making an ass of himself—was PayPal's threat to stop processing money for outlets that sell ebooks with what the company considers unacceptable sexual activities: bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest, and underage sex. One of the main targets seems to be Smashwords.
Whatever you personally think about any of those activities in real life, that they be banned in fiction—you know, that stuff that uses what we call imagination?—should make you shake your head. I certainly shook mine. Once more into the breach.
And writers have been reacting exactly the way you would expect them to react. Rather than repeat the arguments, which are the arguments one must always go back to whenever a form of censorship raises its ugly head—I know, this is not actually censorship since it is not state-imposed, but it comes from a monopolistic provider that wields a de facto unique power to curtail access to a service, something that ends up being the equivalent of censorship until we can figure out a way to get multiple on-line payment processors and get some market choice—I will point out to a couple of well-scribed posts on the topic:
- Raymond Frazee over at Wide Awake but Dreaming: Playthings in the Hands of the Arbiters of Decency.
- Remittance Girl over at her blog: Two Legs Bad: An Open Letter to Mark Coker #smashwords #censorship #erotica, and see also First they came for the erotica writers : PayPal as censor.
Eden Connor has an interesting series of posts on her blog where she interviews authors that had their books banned, or might have their books banned. It's all worth reading, if only to get different perspectives on why we write, and why we read, smut. Surprise surprise, oftentimes, it's more than about just getting off, even when we read to get off.
Story-wise, I will leave you with an oldie but goodie mind-control ditty, one that would probably run afoul of PayPal's criteria—because after all, what is less consensual than mind-controlling your way into getting sex from someone? It's by Moliere, and has the amazing title The Effect of DNA Matched Pheromones on Female Sociosexual Behaviors (and also part 2): “Frank Connors synthesizes pheromones that heighten sexual response in women, and tests out his research on unsuspecting lab subjects.” The first chapter is mostly written as letters from lab subjects, which is a nice touch. Overall, a well-developed story, with some hot scenes. The intro text suggests that the story goes on past the second chapter, but I've never been able to find anything else. If you know anything, please post a pointer in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment