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As you probably know, I'm originally publishing some titles in addition to my traditionally published work (under another pen name) and my fanworks. My Stragetic Affair series can be found at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.
I also publish at two romance-centric websites--Bookstrand and All Romance Ebooks.
Last week, Bookstrand released a letter saying that Paypal had frozen their account, on judgment calls on the books they sold and had an objection to, among other things, rape, incest, child sex, bestiality, and pseudo incest.If Bookstrand didn't remove these, Paypal would permanently revoke their vendor account.
Now, most of these things are quite illegal. If I'm getting it on with one of my cats, I can be arrested in all 50 states, not to mention most of the countries in the world. Incest? Child sex? Rape? Yep, all illegal.
Now, what about pseudo incest. What is it? Well, it involves stories where the hero and heroine have a family link, be it adopted child, stepfamily, distant cousins, in-laws, etc. The problem is, this is perfectly *legal* everywhere!
If I wanted to have a relationship with my stepdad, that might be morally squicky, but legally? Nope, there's no law against it. If I wanted to become literal kissing cousins with one of mine? Again, not illegal. In fact, some states allow cousins to marry. Legally. So yeah, in some states cousins have more rights than same/sex couples.
So, Bookstrand issued this edict and told people they either had to remove titles with any objectionable content or their accounts would be closed down. These are publishers here trying to make a living, authors writing FICTIONAL stories.
Tonight, All Romance Ebooks issued the same edict, banning the same sorts of books. But instead of allowing authors and publishers to remove their books, they moved books to an inactive list. There is no exact science to this and one of my books was targeted--Sparking the Fire. STF is a book with two adult heroes, never met, unrelated, who are not animals in any form, who have VERY consensual relations. Yet someone marked it off sale, and though I've marked it to be put back ON sale, who knows what will happen.
This entire situation is downright frightening. A third-party vendor (Paypal) is trying to make moral judgments toward what you and I read and write. Today it is the perfectly legal pseudo incest. Tomorrow will it be BDSM? Read this link and tell me BDSM titles are safe.
How about male/male Daddy!Kink? Will they try to tell us we can't read or write that? How can a third-party vendor have so much control? And where does the censorship stop?
If you're buying my books at Bookstrand or ARE, I encourage you to consider picking them up at Smashwords instead. Smashwords has multiple unlocked formats (PDF, RTF, HTML, etc) and thus far hasn't slapped censorship on authors or readers.
I also publish at two romance-centric websites--Bookstrand and All Romance Ebooks.
Last week, Bookstrand released a letter saying that Paypal had frozen their account, on judgment calls on the books they sold and had an objection to, among other things, rape, incest, child sex, bestiality, and pseudo incest.If Bookstrand didn't remove these, Paypal would permanently revoke their vendor account.
Now, most of these things are quite illegal. If I'm getting it on with one of my cats, I can be arrested in all 50 states, not to mention most of the countries in the world. Incest? Child sex? Rape? Yep, all illegal.
Now, what about pseudo incest. What is it? Well, it involves stories where the hero and heroine have a family link, be it adopted child, stepfamily, distant cousins, in-laws, etc. The problem is, this is perfectly *legal* everywhere!
If I wanted to have a relationship with my stepdad, that might be morally squicky, but legally? Nope, there's no law against it. If I wanted to become literal kissing cousins with one of mine? Again, not illegal. In fact, some states allow cousins to marry. Legally. So yeah, in some states cousins have more rights than same/sex couples.
So, Bookstrand issued this edict and told people they either had to remove titles with any objectionable content or their accounts would be closed down. These are publishers here trying to make a living, authors writing FICTIONAL stories.
Tonight, All Romance Ebooks issued the same edict, banning the same sorts of books. But instead of allowing authors and publishers to remove their books, they moved books to an inactive list. There is no exact science to this and one of my books was targeted--Sparking the Fire. STF is a book with two adult heroes, never met, unrelated, who are not animals in any form, who have VERY consensual relations. Yet someone marked it off sale, and though I've marked it to be put back ON sale, who knows what will happen.
This entire situation is downright frightening. A third-party vendor (Paypal) is trying to make moral judgments toward what you and I read and write. Today it is the perfectly legal pseudo incest. Tomorrow will it be BDSM? Read this link and tell me BDSM titles are safe.
How about male/male Daddy!Kink? Will they try to tell us we can't read or write that? How can a third-party vendor have so much control? And where does the censorship stop?
If you're buying my books at Bookstrand or ARE, I encourage you to consider picking them up at Smashwords instead. Smashwords has multiple unlocked formats (PDF, RTF, HTML, etc) and thus far hasn't slapped censorship on authors or readers.
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AN even Daddy!Kink is outlawed now. If two men want to roleplay...please.