[Prestidigitweeze]

Yet no one ever responded to my "transition post" by recommending a true crime book with relaxing but well-written episodes of brutal violence and cannibalism -- perfect to enjoy after a stressful day. (I'm only half-kidding about that; my girlfriend sometimes gets in the mood to sleep by watching episodes of Forensic Files.)

Unfortunately, nearly all of the true crime books I've ever read have been excruciatingly written, and that I find disturbing.

I say, don't censor sex or violence in literature, or indeed any subject matter whatsoever. No actual person is harmed because literary characters and conjurations are not real.

The effective banning of subject matter, like decisions about illegality, should be a question of whether literal harm is done, not a litmus test for literary quality. As we've all seen, some of our most highly regarded novels were written in styles so unfamiliar that they were initially dismissed as primitive or crude. And besides that, is it really our business to impose Ms. or Mr. Grundy's standards of literary quality on every reader?

Video pornography, on the nether hind, has always baffled me. If an act (such as prostitution) is literally illegal, and filmed illegal acts send people to jail regularly, then why is filmed prostitution a condoned and billion-dollar industry in a world in which Paypal is about to stop Smashwords from selling books by Dennis Cooper (who is published by Grove, praised regularly in literary and academic circles, and is frequently compared to Genet)?

And why are mere descriptions of bestiality under attack when literal film-documented acts of body-wounding violence against women are permissible -- for the individuals who orchestrate those acts and participate in them on camera, let alone for the person who buys the video? What does that say about Paypal's priorities: Banning subject matter in fiction versus zero concern for the health of actual human beings? It's difficult not to characterize this as a Fahrenheit 451 initiative.