This whole Amazon thing has made me overwhelmingly sad. That it might come down to some poor bastard not understanding the difference between “erotica” and “sexuality” is not helping much. At the bookstore, a couple of years ago, the managers got into an argument about whether or not the GQ and Vanity Fair magazines were inappropriate. One thought they should be covered with one of those plastic guards, along with Maxim. When I told her that was censorious, she nearly exploded. Her position was that as long as we carried the magazines, where we displayed them didn’t matter.
I have trouble with that position. Of course display matters. Sales are influenced by how hard someone has to search for something. The more readily available, and visible you make something, the easier it is to buy.
Even within the queer community, a debate about tags and categories rages. Do you want your novels in the Gay & Lesbian section, or in General Fiction? Ellen Hart answered this question by saying, “I want my books on the table by the cash register.”
Or, looked at another way: my son has recently begun to say grace before meals. “Now we got to say prawr everybody.” And he reaches out to take our hands. I felt uncomfortable during these first prayers, and each time he suggests it, I fight my own hesitation. He deserves his opportunity to seek god. He deserves his opportunity to believe. That is all. I do not get to dictate, as his mother, simply because I do not believe.
In the end, this is all I want: the same rights and opportunities for myself and my work as everyone else has.
Amazon’s emailed response to the AmazonFail fiasco:
“This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.
It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.
Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.”
So, while this Amazon business was blowing up, I went through a range of emotions, and teetered on closing my well-used account. But I did refrain from commenting about it here, and on the many other websites reporting it because, frankly, I wasn’t sure I believed the accusations of intentionality.
I’m incredibly relieved to see that it was, in fact, a “glitch.”
The libertarian in me wants to scream bloody murder at the first sign of any censorship. But then, I think, life is just a series of grey areas. There are exceptions to every rule.
I like what you said about holding yourself back, and allowing your son to make his own decisions. And yet, surely there will times when this is impossible, no?
No question those times will come. Do you remember your story about your friend and Santa Claus? That’s sort of how I feel about this. It’s all part of the magic for me; part of the mythology of childhood. Like scary stories and monsters and the easter bunny and the tooth fairy.
Of course, at present the prayers are incomprehensible, except for his final, “The End.” That makes it easier too….