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If you've been on Facebook or Twitter today, you've probably heard the news about Amazon: A few days ago, according to author Mark Probst, the company began removing the sales rankings from many gay- and lesbian-themed books, making it slightly harder to find them on the site. When Probst wrote to Amazon to ask what was up, the company replied that it had a policy of monitoring "adult" content on the site. Here's the letter he reprinted on his blog (which you can find here):
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.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
Now, to my mind, any censorship is bad censorship, so even if this action were limited to gay porn I'd be deeply bothered by it. But to make matters even more complicated, so far Amazon's little project has affected not only books that might be deemed to have full-on "adult" content but also literary novels, memoirs and books of poetry that portray gay sex. Among them? Paul Monette's Becoming a Man, Mark Wunderlich's Voluntary Servitude, and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room.
The very problem with this enterprise is implicit in the quotes that Ashlyn D puts around "adult." Amazon gets to define it however it pleases, and in that definition takes away the act of choice from its consumers. One wonders, too: Why is it so bad for books to be "adult" when the company still sells plenty of sex toys over in its marketplace sub-section? Also: Why bother doing this when it's still pretty easy to find most of these books on the site? (If you have more info about the Amazon decision, email me at morourkexx@gmail.com.)