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Smashwords is one of the biggest indie publishers in electronic literature, with over 100,000 books in its catalogue. On 24 Feburary, the Smashwords blog was updated by founder Mark Coker to say:
"We modified our Terms of Service tonight to clarify our policies related to bestiality, rape and incest in erotica. This move was forced by PayPal, the payment processor that drives transactions at Smashwords.com, and that we use to pay our authors/publishers."
The fallout of this is still being negotiated by the two companies, but it's clear that Paypal are threatening to cut off Smashwords' cash flow unless certain titles are removed from sale.
A quick search of the Smashwords catalogue shows about 1,000 titles tagged with the offending terms, but how bad are the actual books? Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to try reading some of them.
Birthday by Allison Heather ($3.60) was first on our list, with glorious tags such as erotica anal sex, watersports and motherdog love. It starts off nicely enough with a pregnant woman at home, relaxing by the TV with her St Bernard. Everything's fine until the dog follows her to the bathroom and then... no. Bad dog.
Next was the By The Pack series. These tales - with charming titles such as Hunted By The Pack, Fucked By The Pack and Forced By The Pack - seem to be the set up for some very bizarre lupine bestiality, but at the very last moment the wolves turn out to be werewolves. Phew. Despite the very graphic sex, it's essentially Twilight.
The next few books are where things start to get really grim. Daddy Collection by Sara Sweet ($2.99) promises hardcore erotic short stories based around incest. On closer inspection, this belongs to the genre known as "Pseudo-incest", where the relations are between stepparents and stepchildren.
The same things occurs In Between My Daughter's Legs (Winning My Daughter's Virginity part 2) by Delilah Diamond ($2.99), which again is about a girl and her stepfather. Thoroughly nasty and pretty much unreadable, the book isn't quite as repulsive as its name, which itself is the least objectionable title credited to Delilah Diamond.
The one book that inspired rage all the way from the title to the final sentence was Humiliated Hotel Maid by Isis Cole. Claiming to be fictional, it's a novella about the French president of an international financial body who rapes his hotel maid. In this retelling of the classic story, not only does the maid really enjoy it but it turns out (after he has thoroughly abused and humiliated her) that she's been planning to blackmail him all along.
This is a small selection of the type of book under threat, with Birthday looking like it has already been withdrawn. The most recent update on the Smashwords blog indicates that they are currently negotiating with Paypal over exactly how much rape, incest and bestiality is permissible in their titles.
These individual books will only be missed by the creepiest of people. But the precedent is concerning. While Paypal have every right to choose how to do business, they are effectively putting themselves in the position of censor. A censor with global reach, an opaque decision-making process and no right of appeal for affected authors. Is this the first real test of the e-publishing revolution?
A longer version of this post originally appeared on http://eldink.co.uk
Follow Bernard O'Leary on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eldink_co_uk
What you don't realize is that the realm of sexuality, and especially sexual fantasy, is not like other realms of human experience. In sexuality, the word "fantasy" doesn't necessarily translate to "something I would like to happen in real life." A great many very ordinary people have some rather un-ordinary sexual fantasies. These people aren't deviates, or sick, or twisted, or dangerous. What they are, first and foremost, is people with a lot more imagination than you, Mr. O'Leary.
Most of the books that seemed to freak out PayPal didn't were Incest and "fantasy" creature fiction. Which happens to be a huge market. The very existence of the rather fanatical "Wincest"slash-fiction community (Google it!) shows that. And how many men (whom you probably know) have fantasized about sex with Twins.. or sisters? Would you call all those guys 'creepy'? And what about women who refer to their lovers as "Daddy". Are they demented sex-creeps too?
The reality is we're talking about fiction. 100% complete fantasy! For example, I write fetish fiction. Much of it BDSM and Crossdressing oriented. I don't consider my readers 'creepy'. Most are just looking for an erotic thrill and there's nothing wrong with that. This all takes place in the mind. As we know from our dreams, the mind can take us to some pretty weird places.
I'm thankful you trying to shed light on this issue but I could do without the "name calling".
Know what's an even MORE common fetish? Rape fantasies. A woman who has rape fantasies DOES NOT want to be raped- the fantasy is nothing like the reality. So the women who have rape fantasies are not sicko pervs to be feared or feared for. They're just women. Studies show that about 30-40% of women have rape fantasies on a regular basis (and are willing to admit to it): http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean
I appreciate that you're opposed to the censorship in general, HuffPo, but your treatment of fetishes leaves a lot to be desired!
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If you are going to write for HuffPo, at least get your facts straight. Smashwords always had a no-pedophilia policy. It's incest, pseudo-incest (ala Woody Allen), rape for titillation and bestiality that are at issue here.
Incest and bestiality are illegal in most U.S. states. Pseudo incest is not. (Just ask Mr. Allen and his young stepdaughter...) Rape for titillation opens a whole other Pandora's box of "dubious consent" in fiction. It's been well-documented that the rape fantasy (and I emphasize the word FANTASY here) is one of the most popular among women. From the bodice rippers of the 1970's to today's BDSM erotic romance novels, there is a plethora of "nonconsent" and "dubious consent" titles available in both the romance and erotic romance markets.
Because there is a demand for them. Incest, as well, is well-documented as a popular sexual FANTASY. It may be deviant behavior, but thoughts are not actions, and fiction is not reality.
Paypal and the CC companies need to learn the difference.
Underage erotica was highlighted as an area for concern by Paypal but it is clearly against the Smashwords TOS. Mark Coker reiterated their position in the email sent to authors informing them of the Paypal situation:
"[Paypal's] hot buttons are bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and underage erotica. The underage erotica is not a problem for us. We already have some of the industry’s strictest policies prohibiting underage characters (we don’t even allow non-participating minors to appear in erotica), and our vetting team is always on the lookout for “barely legal” content where supposed adults are placed in underage situations."
That said, I don't need Paypal - or any other banking/money service - being the great arbitrator of art. I'll be watching this one with interest.
"When Do We Start Calling eBay A Payments Company?"
A tale of two clunky, unscrupulous, unprofessional commercial entities: eBay and PayPal
http://bit.ly/wpl5DT
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
I have had, literally, dozens of conversations with CC processors in the past two weeks and I have a colleague who has talked to at least that many herself and we have both run into the same thing from every single one – NO CC processor will allow anything related to incest, pseudo incest, bestiality or rape for titillation. Period. Including all those processors that normally take extreme adult material like CCBill and Verotel.
My recent foray into high risk and adult merchant processors (including those offshore) has proven even further that this is the CC processors and not just PP who is behind this. I was referred, through several channels, to a guy who could get an account for *anyone.* He told me personally that his company dealt with some of the most “fringe” and risky Internet businesses out there.
He turned my application in to his underwriter who came back with an immediate NO due to “illegal activity.”.
That’s right, apparently writing FICTION about sex between two consenting adults is “illegal” now?
Woody Allen can DO it. But we can't write about it?
That's effectively what Paypal has said with this move.
Yes, some of the books may clearly be illegal and will likely be removed if they have not been removed already, even before this spotlight shone upon them. But, before you judge the writers, or the retailers who sell their books, realize you are also judging the readers who buy these books, and demand more of them. Who knows? You may even be in the same room with one of those readers right now, and you may never know it.
As for the "scale": you say yourself that there are 1,000 books exploring these fetishes on SmashWords, and considerably more is available in other corners of the Internet. Doesn't that say something about how many people really do have fetishes like these? I mentioned above that 30-40% of women say that they have regular rape fantasies, for example. 30-40%! That's enough people that it may not even be called a "deviant" fantasy.
You probably know many people with fetishes like these, or further down on the rarity scale even. And you don't know it, because they're still just normal people otherwise. In other words, they're not "creepy." They just have tastes in erotic literature that differ from what religion and the media have enforced as "the norm" for centuries. :)