Quote:
Originally Posted by GlennD
This seems to be much ado about nothing. Gay and lesbian books are being taken off the sales rankings along with other adult material. So what? The only complain I can see is that the standards aren't evenly applied amongst adult books.
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Yes, that's exactly the problem. "Gay/lesbian" as a category or metatag does not automatically = "adult" content. There are gay/lesbian themed books aimed toward young adults, there are non-fiction gay/lesbian books which have no explicit content, and there are even gay/lesbian fiction books which have nothing more than a kiss in them. It's a pretty sad comment when a classic, threshold work of gay fiction like Patricia Nell Warren's "The Front Runner" is stripped of its ranking, yet equally (if not more) explicit hetero trash like Jackie Collins rolls merrily along.
The same standards need to be applied to books about/with gays and lesbians as straight people. If a Nora Roberts romance with a fade-to-black scene between a man and a woman in it isn't "adult" then neither is the equivalent gay romance.
Amazon could solve any (perceived) problem with an opt-IN filter that would filter for honest-to-god erotica (the equivalent of NC-17 films), whether straight or gay/lesbian. It might also filter they, oh, 20,000+ sex toys that Amazon sells.