One of the great things about self-publishing it that it allows authors to get their works out to the masses without the hassle of going through publishers who might not understand the, er, niche appeal of what they write. Like, for example, erotica where ladies get down and dirty with mythological creatures like minotaurs, boar gods, cthulhu, and mermen. And hey, I may not agree with the Bigfoot porn you read, but I’ll defend to the death your right to read it.
The same is not true of Amazon, which has been yanking “cryptozoological erotica” from their digital shelves. For shame, Amazon. For shame.
The story comes from none other than the venerable Business Insider, which has an interesting piece on how monster porn writers have started seeing their books—popular works that in some cases have been up on the site for years with nary a problem—removed from publication with no advance notice and no word on why, exactly, the books are being pulled.
One such writer is Virginia Wade, whose works include the monster porn bestseller (“I was putting my daughter through college with the profits. I used to joke with her, ‘Bigfoot smut is paying for your school.’”) Cum for Bigfoot:
“They started sending my books randomly back to draft mode, and I’d get an email from them saying, ‘We found the following books in violation of our content guidelines.’ But they wouldn’t tell me why. There were no specifics. It was a huge guessing game trying to figure out what the issue was.”
Changing the title from Cum for Bigfoot to Moan to Bigfoot got some versions of the books reinstated, though they still only show up if you’re searching for them directly, making it more difficult for amateur monster porn enthusiasts to find their new favorite book.
Amazon’s content guidelines prohibit “offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts,” but that A) is really vague, and B) describes a lot of books that Amazon happily sells (looking at you, Marquis de Sade). This whole thing started when some people in the UK got upset about rape, incest, and bestiality porn books, and in their quest to get rid of that Amazon extended their ire to monster porn (a lot of which still features non-consensual sex between women and monsters, but hell, if someone wants to read that then more power to ’em).
I recommend reading the whole piece on BI, because it’s deeply fascinating and reading some of these book titles is effing hilarious (Boffing Bigfoot, The Horny Leprechaun, Sex With My Husband’s Anatomically Correct Robot, etc.). There’s also a discussion on whether sex with mythological creatures counts as bestiality, a decision the California legal system totally punked out on making back when they ruled on the hot button issue of whether prisoners should be allowed to read werewolf erotica.
I’m still waiting for official word.
(via: io9)
- California Court Finally Decides It’s OK for Prisoners to Read Werewolf Erotica
- There’s a Whole Series of Dinosaur Erotica. Isn’t the World a Wonderful Place?
- Game of Thrones Porn Parody Teaser
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