The Pastor and the Smut Writers

“First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

I’ve seen a few blog posts using Martin Niemöller’s famous quote in different variations. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a big chilling effect hitting erotica writing right now. PayPal, a payment processor with a highly dominant, almost monopolistic market position, has begun a crackdown on what type of books online retailers can sell. Bookstrand and All Romance went first as mentioned in Selena Kitt’s blog, and now Smashwords has also succumbed to the same pressure.

I’ve also seen some comments expressing outrage over mucky erotica writers using Niemöller’s warning. How dare they compare their inability to foist degenerate smut on the world with the murder of six million people. They’re not. No one’s seriously expecting erotica writers to be dragged out of their homes at midnight. Some are going to have to find another source of income, some hobbyists will lose an outlet for creative expression, and some readers will miss out on works they might enjoy. Small beans compared to one of the worst atrocities in human history, but those small beans still mean something to the people involved.

Niemöller’s “First they came…” refers to a regrettable tendency of people to stick their heads, ostrich-like, into the sand and stand by and let things happen because it’s “Not My Business”. I’ve read lots of head-in-the-sand rationalising over the past few days ranging from the classic “I don’t write that filth so it won’t affect me” to “It’s not censorship; PayPal have the freedom to choose who they do business with.”

The censorship argument is a tricky one. I’ve seen that bend back and forth. Eve McFadden provides a very good counterpoint here. A retailer is not obligated to stock items they don’t wish to sell. While I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of a financial service company determining what their clients can sell, PayPal is also not obligated to provide services to a retailer selling items PayPal doesn’t wish to be associated with. Unfortunately, when a company has the reach and market dominance PayPal has, decisions of this nature can have a stifling effect on what items can be sold.

These books are not illegal. People are happy to write them, people are happy to sell them, and people are happy to buy them. If this is not happening then there are grounds for concern. It might not be censorship according to the classic definition of the word, but when the outcomes start to look the same we should start to get nervous.

I think it’s important to stress again these books are not illegal. While some might find themes of incest (including “pseudo-incest”), rape, barely-legal and bestiality in erotica objectionable, it’s only fiction. Contrary to what some people might think, Erotica writers don’t actually have to carry out these acts in order to write about them. We do have imaginations. And, at the end of the day, no one’s forcing anyone to read these books.

Although I write fairly explicit horror/erotica hybrids, I don’t think I’m affected by this unless PayPal shuts eXcessica down completely. Technically I could fall foul of restrictions on “Rape” and “Snuff”, but part of the nervousness about PayPal’s recent strong-arming is whole swathes of books could be taken off the shelves depending on how those are interpreted. Writing a thriller about a serial killer? No sir, someone could find that chapter where the killer strangles a prostitute during sexual intercourse titillating. This is the slippery slope Selena Kitt referred to. Is it just the nasty gang-bang stuff that’s off limits, or will someone use that as a foothold to start removing chunks of BDSM literature they don’t like?

When that paedophile manual surfaced on Amazon a while back I found myself in a conflicted position. Obviously I found the book repulsive, but I also knew it could be used as a lever to justify taking down other work. Sure enough, some of Selena’s titles featuring incest were taken down next. Now the category of objectionable material has widened to include sex between non-blood relatives and depictions of rape and violence. While the tide hasn’t reached me yet, it’s certainly lapping at my toes. I’m thinking maybe I should have spoke out sooner, even if it meant defending something I found personally objectionable.

Further behind me are the paranormal erotica writers. They don’t have anything to worry about now. It’s not bestiality if the were is in human form. It’s not necrophilia if the vampire is walking around. Then the tide moves further up until it starts lapping at their toes. New emails go around. No more of this yucky non-human erotica. All participants must be 100% human. Then the paranormal writer starts to think, Maybe I should have said something when they were banning all that icky incest and rape stuff.

Behind them is an erotic romance writer. They don’t have anything to worry about. Their stuff is strictly vanilla. Then the next round of emails arrive. There’s too much sex. Tone it down or it gets pulled. And the erotic romance writer starts to think maybe they should have said something.

And beyond them is the edgy thriller writer…

And it’s exactly what Niemöller was warning about, albeit on a considerably smaller scale. Freedoms do get eroded if people don’t speak out, even if speaking out means defending subject matter they might not agree with. Which segues nicely into the other classic quote I used in the last blog post:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Don’t give them an inch and don’t let them get a foothold.

PayPal is a business and is perfectly entitled to choose who they do business with and how…just as we’re perfectly entitled to choose whether or not we do business with them based on their decisions. If you don’t like the idea of PayPal policing what you can or can’t read, now would be a good time to let them know.

A Big Erotica Freeze Is A-Coming...

This isn't the best of news.

In a nutshell, the morality police have deployed the banhammers and no one has the slightest idea where the line of acceptability is anymore. I don’t know where this leaves my publisher, eXcessica, or the status of my own titles. Without Paypal (someone—Google, Bitcoin, anyone not Apple—please put these jokers out of business) I’m probably not going to be able to sell directly through the excessica.com store, as it won’t exist unless Selena Kitt can find another payment processor. On top of that there’s the uncertainty of not knowing what the other book retailers will accept.

Bestiality, Necrophilia and Paedophilia have always been big no-no’s for erotica. Incest was heading there, and now it looks like Pseudo-Incest (where the participants are not blood relations) and Rape are about to join them.

Personally, Incest isn’t something that appeals to me. It’s an enormously popular category on Literotica, but I’ve never felt the desire to write about or read it. Doesn’t matter. If other people want to read or write about it, that’s their business and fine by me.

As for Rape, what the hell does that cover? That can range from ugly stuff where dudes fantasize about gang-banging the uppity cheerleader with their homies, to non-consent fantasies written and enjoyed by women about pure and sexually-frustrated maidens being ravished by hunks of studliness. Where does that leave my stories? Does it count if it’s female-on-male? I have no fucking clue. Selena tried to clarify with Paypal on BDSM—a category with sometimes dubious consent—and was told to yank the lot. Last I heard, BDSM is a hefty chunk of erotica and mostly features consenting adults. How do you stay within a line when there is no fucking line?

You might think this doesn’t matter to you, that it’s only the muckiest of mucky stuff that’s affected. It does. Same for all the paranormal erotica writers that let out a sigh of relief when bestiality was clarified to not include werewolves and other shape-shifters. Don’t get too comfortable. They WILL come for you next. It’s what they do.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" – Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often misattributed to Voltaire)

Maybe we should just ban the people that try to ban things.