For I have committed the cardinal sin.
It's been uh... several years, *cough*, since my last confession. My sins are as follows:
- Writing stories about hoo has and wee wees connecting, and sometimes... about butts.
- Writing about consenting adults who happen to be 18, 19, or "in college" having sex.
- Writing about consenting adults who happen to be related through marriage or adoption, but aren't actual family and haven't grown up with one another, having sex.
- For daring to write about a werewolf having sex with a lady in a scary, funny story about monster sex.
- For being a dirty indie writer.
Also, just in case this counts against me, I'm also contrite over being a woman who thinks about and enjoys sex. I'm sure that's probably against the rules now, too.
You guys may have heard about a little thing going on where PayPal has forced several e-book sites, including www.AllRomanceEbooks.com, www. Bookstrand.com, and now www.Smashwords.com in banning indie authors' books that do not match PayPal's moral standards.
These subjects include the following legal acts or acts allowed in traditionally published books carried on the same site:
"Beastiality" with shifted werewolves or any other shifter. This includes books about having sex with Bigfoot, because Virginia Wade's bestselling (and hilarious) series "Cum for Bigfoot" was banned.
"Barely legal" or "teens" that are 18 or over. Yes, 18 year olds (although of the legal age of consent) are now off limits for fictional sex. Also, sophmores in college--NO GOOD! No fictional sex for you!
Rape, including those pirate-king-captures-and-roughly-seduces-maiden stories that have been labeled as "dubious consent" for ages in the romance world.
PayPal gets to determine which LEGAL, CONSENTING, FICTIONAL ACTS you can and cannot read about. So do the credit card companies, who PayPal says are pressuring them.
Here's a list of my Banned Titles for your enjoyment. They are still available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon :):
I have to admit, though.... it DOES feel good being bad ;).
If you feel that credit card companies and PayPal shouldn't choose YOUR morality for you, please Write Your Congressperson, Boycott Paypal, or Hell, just support your favorite Indie Author.
This affects every single one of us, from readers to authors, to consumers. If you don't want your choices made for you... if you enjoy freedom, and abhor censorship, especially of the written word, then please tweet this.
Pass on the info, and say "Fuck Off" to censorship!
The idea that CC companies are against porn is a canard.
ReplyDeleteDo a Google on the subject.
You can use a credit card to call a phone sex operator and have her pretend she's a goat. They don't care.
If they did care why not offer writers the option of giving their stories away for free if they want to keep them available?
Or why not just take a bigger cut of the royalties for smut if it because of excessive charge-backs?
Credit card companies are no part of this no matter what MC tells us.
I'm not so sure about that, only because "adult" products have always been seen as "higher risk" for cc companies because of more chargebacks. They've always had more restrictions, and some banks straight up won't work with adult stores.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen anything from Visa/MC on this, but both Bookstrand and PayPal themselves have said that they were getting pressure from the cc companies during this whole debacle.
It adds another layer to think about.