Whether Paypal is imposing its owners' "hard-right Christian beliefs" or not, some of the arguments made against that charge seem breathtakingly far-fetched.
It's a fallacy to suggest that, because Paypal hasn't enforced every kind of far right agenda, they can't be enforcing any.
It's also a fallacy to suggest that, because Paypal is advocating an agenda of conservative censorship now, Smashwords wouldn't have signed on with them
before this agenda became clear.
It's also a fallacy to suggest that, if Paypal owners' politics are to the far right, then
the library systems that use them must be run by members of the far right, too. By that logic, everyone on this thread who uses Paypal is on the far right.
I enjoy debating the niceties of corporate and government censorship, banks versus money transferring services, fictional versus literal illegal acts and the rest of it. But when people ask "who is being being harmed" in a work of fiction and conclude not that no one is (because the characters in the book don't actually exist) but rather that a character may legally be "harmed" as long as it is illegal to "harm" them in real life, and that
aliens and werewolves don't count because they're not real, then I despair of having an intelligent conversation.
And when Mr. Eisenberg creates as many -- they're too flimsy even to be called straw men -- dust eunuchs as enter the playpen of his mind and posts them here as if they were legitimate, then I wonder why we're bothering to have this discussion.
And then I remember:
Because actions like Paypal's have to be countered, and to be countered, they have to be talked about first by people looking for the most effective way to respond.
And if we could return to at least attempting to make valid points, then people on both sides of the debate can actually hone their arguments in the process.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
This is guilt by association, and implausible as well because they haven't the slightest reluctance to facilitate purchases of directly pro-atheist and anti-religion books such as by Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.
If PayPal is so far right, why was Smashwords using it, to the exclusion of MasterCard and VISA, in the first place?
If you check out the selection of books in the public libraries of towns with other-than-conservative reputations, such as Berkeley California and Ann Arbor Michigan, you are are going to find that everything they have can be paid for through PayPal. Does that mean that the acquisitions librarians in these towns are all hard right Christian as well?
It is perfectly fair to criticize PayPal for giving in to the standards of MasterCard and VISA. But I don't think you are doing your POV any favor by bringing religion into this.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yapyap
I think it's the "titillation" part that is being used as justification against allowing such "depraved" kinds of erotica.
And on the one hand, I can see the reasoning behind it: while incest, for example (never mind pseudo-incest), would probably involve adult characters, who are free to consent, other and "more gross" sexual fantasy material - rape, bestiality, paedophilia - involves at least one non-consenting party.
And in reality, involving real people (or animals), that would be illegal.
I'm not entirely sure who exactly is harmed in werewolf erotica, or erotic science fiction (aliens would be out too, yes? even humanoid aliens aren't humans, after all?), etc. And as said above, rape fantasy - and other fantasies - exist, and are probably more common than many people realise. Fiction, in writing, is often even considered a safe way for people to engage in those fantasies, I believe.
Re: underage sex in fiction... one thing I wonder about - what exactly is illegal or immoral about erotica featuring, say, 17-year-old characters having consensual sex (especially if the work has been written by someone in a country where 17-year-olds can legally have sex, featuring fictional characters of that nationality - teenagers doing what's legal for them)? That's hardly paedophilia or illegal, surely?
(Disclaimer: I neither read nor write erotica of any sort. I don't even read romance. It's not my cup of tea. I do, however, read murder mysteries - and I believe that some of them end up showing the killer in a positive, sympathetic light. We can and do end up feeling for the killer. So it's a bit puzzling to me why that is somehow far more acceptable than erotica featuring consenting shapeshifters or werewolves (even if they consent first and turn into animal shape later), consenting step-siblings or consenting 17-year-olds in a country where real 17-year-olds are free to have sex with whomever they want.)
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