As promised, today's blog is about my ongoing boycott of amazon.com. And no, it's not because I don't like buying things tax-free and at a cheaper price than I find in the store. It's because of the content that Amazon has chosen to sell on their site in the past--things like a guide to pedophilia and a video game where raping women is the main objective. You know, things like that.
*Note: Links for all of the news articles that I reference in this post can be found at the bottom of the page.*
If you're as shocked as I was at finding out this news for the first time, don't be ashamed that you didn't know about it before. It wasn't exactly breaking news. I first came across it while I was reading the news headlines on google while on a break at my office. The first article was from msnbc.com, and the headline "'Pedophile's Guide' gone from Amazon" caught my eye. According to the article, amazon.com had been offering a book entitled The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct. In case you aren't already aware, Amazon will sell self-published books on its website and provide the author with a portion of the proceeds. This guide to pedophilia was one of those self-published books. Obviously there was an uproar. This isn't an informational book about what pedophilia is or how to avoid it--it's a book actually giving pedophiles "tips for 'safe sex' with a child". To me, the fact that amazon even considered selling this book is awful enough, but the fact that they actually provided it to their customers, on the website as well as the Kindle, is outrageous.
I haven't been able to find out if the book was removed by Amazon or by the author himself, Philip Greaves, but the defense that Amazon provided was as follows: "Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."
Let me tell you a story. As someone with a degree in English Literature, I am usually against censorship of books, but that's in the case of books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter, not in the case of instruction manuals for people who sexually victimize children. A guide to pedophilia is more than just "objectionable", it's disgusting. Granted, due to the first amendment, writing about pedophilia isn't illegal, but this book clearly promotes a criminal act, which Amazon claims is something it doesn't support. Well, maybe they should have their spokesperson read their website's content guidelines before speaking out on their behalf. Under the pornography headline is the stipulation that materials "that depict graphic sexual acts" are prohibited on their website.
Now, most people would say that because Greaves' guide does not contain actual pictures, that it does not qualify as pornography. Well, breaking news, folks. The word "depict" doesn't just mean illustrating something visually; it also means "to represent or characterize in words; describe." Since Greaves' book actually describes sexual encounters with children (unbelievable, isn't it?), it can be defined as "depicting" graphic sexual acts. So technically, by having the book available for purchase on their website, Amazon was violating their own legal guidelines. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Amazon.
The book has since been removed from the website, which of course brought on a firestorm of criticism about the other products they had for sale on their site. Sex toys and books about cockfighting are now the subject of great debate in terms of whether or not they should be available on amazon.com. But I have bigger things to worry about. While reading another article about Amazon's sale of the guide to pedophiles, I found that in 2009, they were selling a video game called Rapelay. After finding out what the game entailed, I was outraged. The objective of the game is to rape a family of women in a crowded train station. Amazon no longer sells the game, but they do sell some sort of book that describes a series of games created by the Japanese creator of Rapelay. The following is a description of the game that I found on amazon.com. Warning: It's very graphic, so keep that in mind before you read the next paragraph.
"RapeLay is played from the perspective of a chikan named Kimura Masaya, who stalks and subsequently rapes the Kiryuu family (a mother and her two young daughters). The player can choose from a variety of sexual positions, and controls the action by making movements with the mouse or by scrolling the mouse wheel. It features a realistic sexual simulator which allows the player to grope and undress the characters on a crowded train. Later, the player may have forced intercourse with all three women at his leisure. The player has a variety of sexual positions to choose from such as reverse cowgirl, forced blowjobs (irrumatio), and threesomes. RapeLay also has a "nakadashi" (internal ejaculation) counter, which carries a danger of pregnancy. After completing the storyline and "breaking" the girls, there are six modes of gameplay."
That Amazon would even consider selling a game like this is appalling. I don't even want to get started on the idea of people actually wanting to play this game. Amazon did remove it from their site in 2009, but for me, that's not enough. A game where you sexually force yourself on women? How is that entertaining? It pains me to think that there are people out there who actually have fun playing these games, and that there are people who feel the desire to design such a game. Imagine young boys who have never experienced real female interaction playing this game and thinking that these actions they are performing are what sex actually is. There's already enough controversy about games where people kill each other, but a game where a man victimizes unsuspecting women? To me, that is much more realistic and sickeningly violent than a game like Halo or Call of Duty. But that's another conversation. The point is, after finding out the type of content that amazon.com has sold on their website in the past, I decided that I could no longer patronize a site like that.
I'm not trying to promote a boycott of amazon.com with this blog post. As someone who once turned to Amazon for pretty much every item I didn't want to pay full price for, I know how hard it is to give up on a website that offers such awesome bargains. But the fact that they even considered selling these products and then actually offered them for purchase is something I can't accept. So I wrote them an e-mail, stating that I could no longer patronize their site. Their response? "The items you referenced in your e-mail are no longer for sale on our site."
That's not what it's about, Amazon.
As for tomorrow' post, it will contain some much lighter reading: Have you ever noticed that Lil' Wayne's best raps are also really bad puns?
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/40129858/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=15015801
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/depict
http://www.amazon.com/3d-Eroge-Rapelay-Requiem-Reversible/dp/1156975859/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1291854433&sr=8-2
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/4611161/Rapelay-virtual-rape-game-banned-by-Amazon.html
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