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Amazon pulls yaoi from Kindle store
Robot 6 posts this story:

Amazon pulls yaoi from Kindle store

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Yaoi manga is a niche genre, but like all niche genres, it has a devoted following. Yaoi readers gobble up the books like romance fans read Harlequin novels, which is not surprising as they are basically the same thing, except that yaoi 1) is manga, 2) is a love story between two men, and 3) often includes lots of sex.

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Recently Amazon has become more strict in enforcing their content requirements for ebooks. Several DMP books that have been available online since 2009 are getting the axe, beginning with our 801 Media titles like Weekend Lovers and King of Debt. However, in the last few days the issue has spread to the June imprint by Amazon’s refusal of The Selfish Demon King, and the removal of The Color of Love from the Kindle store.

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....all the reviews I checked described the book as more sweet than sexy, which raises the question: If this story had been about a man and a woman, would it have been removed from the store?

A quick search suggests that the answer is “no.” Titles currently available on Kindle include Christmas Creampie, a graphic novel in which “horny Whoreville hussies show a frustrated dildo shop owner the true meaning of Christmas,” and Little Lorna in Resort Sports (I’m not even going to link to this one), in which Little Lorna, who is spunky, sexy, but “not too bright,” goes on vacation to Mexico with her Uncle Bob; “nudity, spanking, and sexy humor” result.

So apparently a sweet love story between two men is unacceptable, but an orgy in a dildo shop is OK.

Thanks to crabby_lioness for posting this over at noscans_daily

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Re: Kindle store searches

sailorlum
2011-05-09 06:54 am UTC (link)

Another thing that irks me about this is that when we've had Amazon (and other) company wanks before, there's a big outcry at the outset, and then NOTHING when the situation is resolved. Shouldn't we post updates? The deranking thing a few years ago was resolved, the "omg Amazon took 1984 off my Kindle!!" turned out to be a copyright issue (and I'm pretty sure no one has an issue with that, right?). But all that exists in our collective wank memory is "AMAZON SUCKS. Use B&N!"

When the situation is resolved or there's new information, and no one else has posted about it, then why not make a post yourself about it?

I've done some further researching and found this article: http://www.kindleo.com/amazon-pulls-some-explicit-comics-from-kindle-store/

...Many of the now-denied manga offerings are analogous to previously approved titles, according to their publishers, and at least two of the titles in question were previously in the store and only recently received updates that apparently brought them to the attention of whoever happened to make the latest decision. While you cannot fault Amazon for enforcing their own stated rules, the fact that the enforcement is selective and at the discretion of the company without terribly specific guidelines is troublesome.

There is also the fact that one of the Kindle store’s largest sections at present is their erotica section, which contains thousands of depictions of potentially offensive material and remains pretty much untouched. Some have connected the attention received by this particular brand of manga to the fact that it depicts homosexual romance between men. It would not surprise me at all if that fact, highlighted by user complaints from somebody hoping to police the perceived morality of their favorite shopping venue, were what started this whole mess. Since the first I heard of this, however, several heterosexually oriented titles have met with similar complaints.

This definitely leads to the conclusion that no matter how all of this began, Amazon is stepping up its enforcement practices. Will this extend to depictions of possibly offensive content that are not being displayed graphically? It seems unlikely Amazon will be going through the Kindle Store and deleting thousands of selling titles, but to single out one particular area that is no more guilty than the rest is a bit hypocritical.

Now, I would be interested in knowing if there is a common link between both the the homosexual and heterosexual romance/erotica deleted*, but regardless it seems hinky that a bunch of stuff featuring homosexual relationships was targeted first and more often. Perhaps it would behoove Amazon to be more transparent about exactly why these particular titles got the boot (or perhaps the additional information would wind up confirming prejudiced hypocrisy on their part, IDK). I do know that I'm displeased with the hinkyness (I suspect some aversive homophobia may be at play, at least) and I'm displeased with how Amazon has handled the situation, thus far. This is the kind of situation that makes me think twice about shopping with them, for sure.

*BTW: Not all things called "yaoi" in the US are about underage/adult relationships - "Yaoi has become an umbrella term in the West for women's manga or Japanese-influenced comics with male-male relationships, and it is the term preferentially used by American manga publishers." (from Wikipedia).

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	Re: Kindle store searches sailorlum 2011-05-09 07:00 am UTC (link)
	Hm, that should have been "Not all things called "yaoi" in the US are about underage relationships or underage/adult relationships." (Reply to this)(Parent)

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