I'm a prude? What's your opinion

[vxf]

Enabling people to not view certain comments through categorization of filters - yes.
Censorship - no. It's a slippery slope.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

People had sexual fantasies long before Penthouse letters came along. How were their minds changed by reading written fantasies? The idea that you could have sex with someone is an idea that no one has to implant in you. Does anyone pick up Penthouse letters and think "What? I could have sex with someone? That never occurred to me?" A book like "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Uncle Tom's Cabin" present people with perspectives they didn't have before. Written erotica just presents them with fantasies they already had. People already want to have sex, erotica doesn't create the desire to have sex.

But what is dehumanizing about sex? I "use" my baker as a means to get my bread, is that dehumanizing? If someone reads some written erotica and says "That looks like fun! Maybe I can find someone who would like to do that too," what is dehumanizing about that? Throughout history, people have been persecuted, imprisoned or killed because their sex life didn't meet someone else's standards. That judgment seems pretty dehumanizing.

Sure--they had fantasies, and I don't think the Penthouse Letters created all of these new paraphilias or anything. Erotic literature is not to blame for what people do--people are to blame for what they do, though I think their choices in what they consume can affect what they choose to do.

People have always been inclined to dehumanize or sexualize others, but I think literature (and other art as well) has the ability to influence folks towards a sexual mindset that sees other people not as objects but as people with intrinsic value--as valuable and worthy of consideration because they are people. It also has the ability to do the opposite.

Sex is not dehumanizing at all. I love sex. It's awesome, and I think that it can be incredibly humanizing. And I agree--it is dehumanizing to kill or harm or persecute someone who holds a different sexual standard. It turns the person that is being killed into an object as well--reducing them to their sexual activities or proclivities and ignoring the rest of who they are as a person.

But while a lot of sexual activity can be humanizing, a lot of sexual activity can also center on degrading another person, harming another person, using another person only for one's own ends, and that is dehumanizing. Dehumanizing sexual activity is about turning the sexual partner into an object. Rape and child abuse are dehumanizing sexual activities, in which the victim is only used for the gratification of the offender. Some people use positions of authority to pressure a person into an uncomfortable sexual relationship, and this can also be very dehumanizing.

So, using rape as an example: If a book glorifies rape--it presents it as titillating, it eroticizes rape, it shows rape as ultimately satisfying for the offender, it presents no negative consequences, it even shows the victim coming to the conclusion that such an encounter was mutually pleasurable--then the reader has a choice. Do they respond with, "Rape=good" or "Rape=bad"? Some people, unfortunately, will respond with the former rather than the latter. This remains their fault, of course, but without the author presenting a case for rape as a good thing, they may have remained firmly opposed to it as a means for sexual gratification. They may not have picked up the book already fantasizing about raping their neighbor, but they may put down the book doing so.

I'll add this and be done--I don't think any one book is going to cause a person to become a rapist (or any other kind of sexual offender). I do think a steady diet of pornography can incline a person towards a dehumanized/dehumanizing sexual mindset. This is, of course, an opinion.

I'm happy to give you the last word in the discussion if you want it. Thank you for your civility!

[HansTWN]

You can't outsource parenting. The internet is no place to let small children roam unsupervised. I think children running into a few erotic books on Amazon should be the least of your worries.

[Rizla]

Lolita by Nabakov. Where do you draw the line? Lolita didn't deserve all the press it got.

Me, I say no censorship for fiction, but categories should be clear with clear warnings attached, and lots of parental control.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by djulian

I'll add this and be done--I don't think any one book is going to cause a person to become a rapist (or any other kind of sexual offender). I do think a steady diet of pornography can incline a person towards a dehumanized/dehumanizing sexual mindset. This is, of course, an opinion.

I'd disagree about this, in the same way I'd disagree that a steady diet of cop shows and books would incline the reader/viewer towards buying a gun and chasing down criminals.

Entertainment is exactly that, and nothing more. Your average intelligent human being knows the difference between entertainment and reality, and knows that regardless of how an act is depicted in a book or on a TV show, doing it in reality isn't necessarily the same and isn't necessarily right. Excitement and titillation doesn't automatically translate into action.

Doesn't matter if you watch rape or bondage or snuff films every single day; it means you probably enjoy watching them, but it doesn't mean you're going to do them, or even seriously consider them.

[aecardenas]

Originally Posted by kidslumber

I understand that Amazon has to cater to all tastes, within reason, but there should be some separation of the 'adult' material from the rest of the catalog.

My beef is that I write bedtime stories. A search of 'bedtime stories' at Amazon will throw up children's bedtime stories and a awful lot of erotica, including s/m (by which time I feel like throwing up). n:

In a nutshell, I think that customers should have to explicitly enable adult material in their search preferences.

That type of scenario is really embarrassing and unnecessary, i agree. Amazon should have a better search criteria protocol or something. I do feel that a rating system like on movies, TV and comic books would at the very least categorize books so that they are more searchable and filterable. No censorship, but definitely more categorization to help with organizing everything and getting the right book to the right audience.

[VydorScope]

Here is a thought for you... if TV an READING does NOT impact behavior, why do advertisers spend BILLIONS using them to do just that?

[DiapDealer]

The problem with a filterable "ratings" system is who's on the committee who makes the decision? Who ultimately pays for the lawsuit when an author whose work gets mistakenly (or over-zealously) rated/categorized loses sales because his/her work has been made less visible to otherwise potential customers? Who makes the decision that borderline material is going to get less exposure than it might otherwise deserve?

A rating system works for movies because there's not thousands of different movies coming out or playing in every single theater on any given day. The MPAA's job would be a cakewalk compared to the daunting task any sort of generic (or even proprietary) literary rating committee/system would face.

A customer-based rating/tagging system might work better, but even then, the potential for perfectly innocent (or vendetta-tagged) content not showing up under an otherwise potential customer's search is not a situation that I think Amazon is ever going to want to deal with. The whole scifi/fantasy/romance/mystery/etc search criteria is already flaky enough—with complete misses and bleed-over happening. The more complicated the algorithm gets, the more titles that are going to start falling through the cracks. Finding an audience is hard enough without giving perfect strangers the ability to spot-judge your work and take it right out from under the nose of other customers that might have been perfectly willing to try it otherwise. There are no age-appropriate and/or morality-based content criteria that can be delineated cleanly enough to be assigned check-boxes that will work for everyone's searches.

And to be completely honest, I don't think there's any inherent right that people should never have to experience "unintended content" showing up in an internet search. Between descriptions, customer reviews and free samples, I think it's fairly easy to determine if it's something little Johnny (or yourself) needs to be reading.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Here is a thought for you... if TV an READING does NOT impact behavior, why do advertisers spend BILLIONS using them to do just that?

Advertisers are trying to influence behavior that is not considered bad or wrong (by most people), or at least not antisocial or illegal, example: Buy a truck. They are appealing to those who want to fit in, to look good, to have a good time, to get laid... all considered pro-social desires accepted by society.

Even those are suggestions only, and it is easy enough to decide not to buy their products: I don't care how sexy is the blonde in a beer commercial, I can easily resist buying that beer. But even if I do succumb, buying the beer isn't illegal, and won't hurt anyone (besides, possibly, my own taste buds).

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Advertisers are trying to influence behavior that is not considered bad or wrong (by most people), or at least not antisocial or illegal, example: Buy a truck. They are appealing to those who want to fit in, to look good, to have a good time, to get laid... all considered pro-social desires accepted by society.

Even those are suggestions only, and it is easy enough to decide not to buy their products: I don't care how sexy is the blonde in a beer commercial, I can easily resist buying that beer. But even if I do succumb, buying the beer isn't illegal, and won't hurt anyone (besides, possibly, my own taste buds).

The point is, it does work. It does influence behavior or they would spend billions to do it. Does it work on you specifically? Maybe not... but it does work on the general population.

The same argument can be played out with propaganda.

Hence what you read and see does influence you.

[QuantumIguana]

People are going to buy a car, beer or a toaster whether or not there is advertising. What commercials attempt to do is nudge you over to get you to buy their product instead of the competitor's. If people see a car commercial, they don't assume that people are going to start running down people on the sidewalk.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Advertisers are trying to influence behavior that is not considered bad or wrong (by most people), or at least not antisocial or illegal, example: Buy a truck. They are appealing to those who want to fit in, to look good, to have a good time, to get laid... all considered pro-social desires accepted by society.

Even those are suggestions only, and it is easy enough to decide not to buy their products: I don't care how sexy is the blonde in a beer commercial, I can easily resist buying that beer. But even if I do succumb, buying the beer isn't illegal, and won't hurt anyone (besides, possibly, my own taste buds).

This is the argument, though--that people are influenced by what they read and/or watch. Not that they are always influenced to do things that are negative or illegal, but that they are influenced. You argue that this influence happens, but that it only happens in a positive sense.

And we have laws against false advertising for a reason--so people aren't led to believe things that are wrong. If advertising didn't affect people's beliefs, it wouldn't matter. People would see the false ad and say, "That ain't true," and go about their day remaining blissfully unaffected by everything they read and watched.

[QuantumIguana]

I'm not saying there is no effect. But when an effect is asserted, there needs to be evidence for that effect. Advertisers don't operate on assumptions, they place their ads based on evidence. They advertise, and they see increased sales. They tailor their messages to certain groups based on the evidence. I'm open to evidence on the claimed negative effects.

We can sue for false advertising, because an ad is a promise. If an ad says that hot dogs are $1.00 each, and I show up and they are $5.00 each, I've been lied to. Fiction is different. A book of fiction can feature people living on Venus, and the fact that Venus is too hot for life doesn't matter, it's fiction.

[VydorScope]

The gist of this thread as been that print/tv does not influence people. The advertising industry is proof that they do influence people. Whether it is negative (i.e. girls going anorexic, see the studies out of Japan that force them to change advertising laws) or positive (saving money on car insurance), they do influence the population in general.

If advertisements effect the general population, why would nothing else influence the general population.

I am against censorship, because it is a dangerous and slippery slope, but I do believe that books and tv influences people and their behavior.

[Fluribus]

I wish that Amazon would add a filter to the account settings. Each person would be able to block specific categories from showing up. This would apply to searches, browsing, and recommendations.

I have largely stopped browsing for books on Amazon. The massive influx of romance into other genres makes browsing a hassle. I have a similar problem with historical-fiction intruding into the history section. It became a huge waste of time. If Amazon would allow me to filter those out, then I would browse more. If I browsed more, then I would probably buy more. Instead, Amazon wastes resources showing me books that I will never buy.

Amazon may not care about my sensibilities or my time, but Amazon should care about making it easier for me to buy stuff. I pointed this out to Amazon's customer service. They didn't seem to grasp the concept.