Porn Redux

Here we go.  This train wreck involves UK store WHSmith and the UK branch of Kobo.  I'm linking to the Daily Mail article on the subject because its a more colorful read than some of the other news sources, and it will best help you muster up proper indignation. (Side note: how can they be "Porn is bad!" and yet go all "Hey look! Celebrity boobs!) Also, Kobo's statement is here. Basically, WHSmith has pulled down its entire website and Kobo UK has pulled all of its self-published titles because of the porn I was complaining about a few months back. They are specifically concerned about the "disgusting porn" like incest, rape, and bestiality. My concern earlier was that the badly written trash was "drowning out" my proper erotica.  Now my "proper erotica" is getting taken out of stores because people are offended by the badly written trash.

I'm on the side of the badly written trash here.

As you know I've recently decided to try my hand at some bestiality erotica of my own. (Out now! Buy it here!)  It isn't porn. There is a plot, a love story, and the good guys win.  I have also written a brother/brother incest piece called "Depression, Love, and Swimming Pools".  It is a drama about family and mental illness and it does indeed have graphic incest sex. So even though my work is well written and well plotted, does my subject matter mean my work will not be reinstated?  Will they decide other, more benign erotica or porn pieces fall into the same category simply because it's graphic sex?

I am not a bad person. I'm a very good person. I don't break the law, I don't hurt people, I donate to charities and I pay my taxes.  Yet I kinda like the idea of some incest and there are instances where bestiality and rape can be a turn on. Are these things wrong in real life? Absolutely. But this is fantasy here.

There is concern that reading or looking at sexual violence will make people go out and start raping babies, but that is not the case. Even if you like to read about it, you're not going to do it unless the inclination was already there. And as for pornography warping the minds of children and teenagers, a child that has been raised up properly will not grow up to be a rapist, no matter what kind of porn it happens to stumble onto.

You cannot punish or hold the creators of these works responsible for what the readers do.  Wanna prevent violent perverts from seeing images that might provoke them to attack? You'll have to remove 95% of entertainment--books, movies, video games, television, music, classic works of art, advertisements, fashion, sports--from society. We can watch Sesame Street or stare at paintings of fruit all fucking day long because those are the only things that will be left.

If it's not offensive it isn't art. And that is the bottom line. If a work of art isn't provoking some sort of emotional response from the reader/viewer/listener is doesn't mean a damn thing. It might as well not exist.  You can't keep us safe from art.  It's supposed to be dangerous.

It's supposed to be dangerous.

Now put my books back on the shelf, because I really need the 70 cents I'm probably going to lose over this fiasco.  I'm poor over here people!