Amazon Defends Pedophile Book

[Mare of Earth]

Oddly enough, out of all the books I have ever read, the only one I ever flung across the room and tried not to barf from was Piers Anthony's "The Caterpillars Question". That book, which has gone to print at least twice that I know of, has a underage, handicapped character that the main character has sex with. I may have been mistaken - after all, I never opened the book again, and come very close to destroying it instead of returning it to the library - but I found it deeply offensive.

I do not, however, deny the author's right to have written it and his right to publish it.

For that matter, I remember another book that had male nurses renting out the unresponsive body of a female coma patient. She comes out of her years long coma to the actions of the current renter. I find this also to be deeply offensive, but I don't advocate banning the book.

Banning a book just makes it more enticing for people who enjoy "forbidden" things.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by tiniree

Are you saying that pedophiles are not considered a "real problem" in the world? Because that is the only type of person that the book in question is written for. Considering ALL jails have special sections for these criminals because criminals even consider these people as "sub-human" should tell you its a REAL PROBLEM!

So please, I know there are a lot of problems in the world, but don't tell us this is not a "real problem!"

Marie

That is not what we are talking about. Yes Pedophilia is a problem, (but not even close to the problem of world hunger and 3 million Female Genital Mutilations every year) and there are laws to deal with it.

What we are discussing here is freedom of speech and whether it is a right or not. If all the vitrol all the anger that this has brought out could be applied to the Taliban the war would have ended today.

[rogue_red]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Don't you dare compare me to a clueless save the world teenager. I'm much older and better looking.

That is not even close to what I said. I'm saying -- quite clearly I think -- that the outrage over this book is nothing NOTHING compared to the real problems in the world and if people would pay attention and get fired up like this over the REAL PROBLEMS in the world we would all be better off.

I'm telling my daughter you called her clueless

I understand what you are saying but for me, this book is a real problem. As lovely as your idea is it's a bit Kum bay ya.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by rogue_red

I'm telling my daughter you called her clueless

I'm going to go hide now. At least I got a poem out of it.

[tiniree]

I understand it comes down to freedom of speech. I just think we are quickly becoming a society that "in the name of the law" allows any and all....................and that is the way to ruin. Time and time again history has proven that.

[Catlady]

I'm sick of all the hyperbole and nonsense in this thread. Some people idiotically persist in saying that they are somehow fighting against the evils of censorship, when CENSORSHIP IS NOT THE ISSUE HERE. No law prevents this book from existing, no one has thrown the author in jail for his writings, no government bureaucrat or legislator has suggested new regulations or introduced a law, no one but the consumers have pressured Amazon. There is no censorship issue here.

There is a stupid book that is offensive to common sense and common decency. Amazon allowed some admitted nutcase to foist it on the public, tried to defend the indefensible by hiding behind the First Amendment, and when that didn't work, Amazon pulled the book.

And this is a problem for some people? This is a descent down a slippery slope to book burnings and witch hunts? What nonsense.

I'm outta here. This is too much farce for me.

[rogue_red]

Originally Posted by abookreader

But the problem is rogue_red - even if it were technically feasible to slap Net Nanny down over the entire internet and make the cyberworld a happy child friendly place, you will never get a consensus from the world on what a happy child friendly place would even look like. Please remember that Amazon is not just middle America US. It is the world.

Any parent or person responsible for a child who is overly worried about them being exposed to objectionable material has no business putting a Kindle with a live internet connection into their hands. Because even if you were to convince Amazon to lock down adult orientated material - there is still a live web browser.

Please go back and re-read the posts and you will see how you missed the boat.

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by rogue_red

Please go back and re-read the posts and you will see how you missed the boat.

All 217 of them?????!!!!!!!!

[rogue_red]

Originally Posted by abookreader

All 217 of them?????!!!!!!!!

Yes.

And then write down 217 times "I must not miss the boat"

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

"I am so glad I fought this and I'd do it again in a heart beat. "

I don't think anyone here has a problem with people asking that Amazon remove the book. What people are saying is that it is not the governments job to prevent the book from being written or attempt to publish the book.

I would be outraged if the government told the person that they cannot write the book or if the government told Amazon they could not sell the book.

I am fine with Amazon making a business decision to not sell the book. I applaud their decision.

I share your position, and I thought your first post today was great.

I disagree with the bolded part, though. I see a lot of criticism even of just asking for Amazon to remove the book.

In general, though, there's a lot of talking past each other, because without keeping the distinctions consistent and clear, we have muddiness.

Someone comments about apples, someone responds about oranges... Add a few nuts, and it's a fruit salad.

[abookreader]

okay - I see here in post #25 where you speak of Amazon's responsibility to help parent the internet

Yes I agree but I'm not discussing parental responsibilities. I'm discussing Amazon's responsibility as a retailer to and for children. Not all parents are diligent and Amazon do not provide any means of restricting access to adult or offensive material.

I see here in post #51, where you want Amazon to share the responsibility in keeping objectionable material out of the hands of kids by making sure they aren't able to download free samples.

BUT

I do agree that the ultimate responsibility is the parents but parents are not perfect nor are they able to keep tabs on everything all the time. That's why Amazon need to share the responsibility.

and I see here in post #201 where you ask for a safe environment for children

To protect children we need to create an environment that is safe and nurturing. Now the internet is never going to be 'safe' but we can, and should, work to make it safer. Material that promotes, condones and even encourages sex crimes against children should not be allowed to be publicly advertised or sold.
Porno magazines are sold in sealed plastic bags with modesty stickers on the cover. This is to prevent a child accidently seeing something intended for adults. Amazon needs to employ the same due care. I dont care if Mr Greaves writes a hundred pedo hand books, I dont care if he creates a pedo blog to sell his book. I do care that Amazon promoted material that encouraged sex crimes against children. I do care that this ebook offered a free sample that could have been accessed by a child.(and yes I've already gone a few rounds regarding parental responsibility)
I understand the value of freedom but I am less concerned about my rights than I am concerned about the welbeing and safety of children.

So I again have to ask - who is going to dictate the confines of your safe environment that Amazon needs to apply to help co-parent our children.

Will your proposed ratings system be like our current Movie ratings system, where a human body can be mutilated and murdered 6 ways from Sunday and still earn nothing more than a PG 13..... but show a man's you know what and its an automatic NC-17?

As a parent, I find it a totally un-tenable proposition and rather unreasonable to expect Amazon to implement. Because again - they are not just selling to me with my white bread middle America Protestant values. They're selling to Japan for goodness sake! Have you ever seen the types of things Japanese men carry onto mass transit to read during their commute? I can pretty well guarantee that if Amazon were to try and impose my values on that they'd be laughed away.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by rogue_red

I do care that this ebook offered a free sample that could have been accessed by a child.

Heck, I'd say something like that should be required reading for children-- show them the tactics of the predators. Just like there are effort to tell children not to help strange adults look for their lost puppies, give them rides, etc.

Ignorance has never saved a single life.

I understand the value of freedom but I am less concerned about my rights than I am concerned about the welbeing and safety of children.

Won't someone please think of the children?!

[Piper_]

Originally Posted by tammycravit

OK, but here's the thing. I would absolutely agree that children need to be protected from sexual abuse by pedophiles. I doubt you'd get much disagreement there, at least among the members of this board. But, the piece you've left out of your analysis is how banning this book will actually make children any safer.

Do you honestly think there are people out there who feel like they might want to have sex with a child, who say to themselves, "Hmm, I wonder if I can find a book about having sex with children…nope, I didn't find this one book, so never mind."? Do you really, truly, believe that?

Do you seriously think this is the only piece of information out there that advocates sex with children? Do you honestly think that, in the absence of THIS SPECIFIC book, the pedophile will simply give up, instead of looking elsewhere to validate his feelings? For that matter, do you honestly think most pedophiles look for external validation in a society that almost universally condemns them? They abuse children despite a vocal and consistent message that their behavior is immoral and criminal.

So, I guess my question is this: Assuming that you're absolutely correct that children need to be protected from pedophiles, how is banning this book going to do that?

Books and sites like this absolutely increase victimization as their message mitigates the power of one of the most important, yet tenuous, considerations a pedophile uses to keep a check on acting out his impulses - their desire not to do real harm.

Having said that, no, I agree that we can't stop that message from getting out.

To me, the point to the public's convincing Amazon to remove the book is taking a stand.

It's a matter of showing that

-No - there is no grey area here.

- We see that this is not your ordinary controversial material.

- We are not afraid to make the value judgment that says we recognize that advocating pedophilia is uniquely indefensible, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever,
thus we are not afraid to draw the line there.


And that is disturbingly necessary. It sounds like you've been out there like I have, and I'm sure you've also seen how many people, including parents and people in authority, just don't .

If you look around here even, you see a sad number of people demonstrating that they don't think pedophilia is really that big a deal.
People at Amazon call others prudes, laugh about them being too uptight, and cut sickening jokes, rooting the sicko on.

Someone even said here that a book advocating pedophilia was no worse than a book about hunting pets.

This is why I am so glad the country took such an overwhelming stand yesterday to make the statement that obviously needs to be made.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by Mare of Earth

Oddly enough, out of all the books I have ever read, the only one I ever flung across the room and tried not to barf from was Piers Anthony's "The Caterpillars Question".

There are two books I've felt that way about.

One was by Steve Perry, it was just poorly written. But the other was by Piers Anthony, it was a horror novel, Firefly I think it was called. I was in college, I guess 20 when I read it (or started to).

It featured a character who at 10 years old or so, was a nymphomaniac. She apparently "seduced" some guy and a large part of it seemed to be about how awful it was and how sorry the Judge felt sending that guy to jail.

Ick. I stopped reading and threw it away. Have not read a Piers Anthony novel since, especially since after thinking about it, it's a somewhat common theme in a lot of his books.

[Piper_]

One more thought, in answer to all the worries about the slippery slope:

I do not worry about Amazon's removal of this book causing a slippery slide into removing books like all those posters say they fear for as being "next", because "who decides where to draw the line?"

People yesterday gave me hope for this country. They demonstrated their ability to recognize a difference between those books and books advocating something as indefensible as sexually molesting children.

They have shown that they accept the need for tolerance for selling books like Mein Kampf and other offensive material that offends them.

They understand that there is a constitutional right to freedom of religion. They know our founders forcefully emphasized the importance of freedom of political expression, including rebellion.

Other books some groups would like to quash are protected by the greatly larger number of people who require hard convincing to quash anything that has even minor redeeming qualities vis-à-vis important lessons, literary value, or even entertainment value.

They showed that they see that books published to advocate pedophilia are a whole other breed of animal - something that legitimately deserves overwhelming scorn, as it is utterly indefensible by anyone other than sick minds.

Since the masses have no trouble seeing that line, I trust that it is bold enough for Amazon to avoid crossing over it and removing something that deserves more consideration.

If we ever get to the point where the majority of us truly cannot see the line between advocating pedophila and The Diary of Anne Frank, then we will have completely forfeited our claim to be higher intelligence and traded our ability to make contextual judgment calls for such weak and broken crutches of aids like zero tolerance laws in schools.