Gay Romance

Erotic Censorship and a Home for the Homeless Books

2012-02-25T16:27:00.001-08:00

Most of you have probably heard about what's happening with Bookstrand*, ARe*, and Smashwords* (who are likely the first of many to come). They're being bullied and threatened by PayPal to remove "incest, bestiality, rape, and underage erotica" from their lists or their accounts with PayPal will be frozen and their money confiscated (!!). Admittedly, I would never read three of those four subjects, but I have been known to enjoy brotherly love (Lee Brazil's excellent Telling the Truth, for one). I have spent the entire day reading up on this and weeding out fact from fiction.

PayPal is using their market dominance to push distributors (and probably publishers soon - they use PayPal to pay their authors) to censor out material that "could be considered obscene". I ask, who decides what is obscene and what isn't? Is bestiality, rape, incest, and underage erotica obscene? Yes, I'd say so, but this isn't about what's obscene and what isn't. A guy running naked through a park can also be considered obscene, but that's not even an issue here. Neither is Lolita, a classic book about a relationship between a pedophile and a child (tell me if that's going to be pulled off shelves? I think not). This is about censorship.

But it's not only PayPal. In a way I feel sorry for the distributors who have had to react without notice to PayPal's brutal demands. They've had to make snap decisions and there's been no time to find an alternate way of payments, because PayPal basically says "do this or you won't get the money in your accounts". However, the distributors mentioned above are taking things further for various and unnecessary reasons. They're also pulling down titles with "barely legal" content and "pseudo incest". What the hell??

-- Barely legal means 18 and 19 years old. People that age are legally allowed to have sex, so why would anyone restrict that? So far these distributors are only focusing on "barely legal" girls, so I'm safe (because mine are guys), but they're knocking on the door right next to mine and I don't like it.

-- "Pseudo incest" means sexual relations between (in this case) grown step/foster children and step/foster fathers/mothers or step/foster siblings (this last one is popular). Again, "pseudo incest" isn't illegal - Woody Allen anyone? Besides, if we're going for things that are illegal but still written in books, then how about murder, theft, and plots to distribute a virus? If PayPal believes that writing about incest will encourage incest, then shouldn't writing about murder (like the Dexter books) also encourage murder? That would pull off a whole lot of books and make a mass of people angry.

In short, distributors are pulling off their shelves perfectly "legal" material!

I think it's right to mention here that the only fiction that has ever been judged as illegal is erotic content that depicts children in a sexual manner for titillation. None - and I mean NONE - other illegal content has or can be judged illegal because it's fiction (killing a man in a book can not land you in jail). Why the pedophile fiction? Because when children are involved, it's a whole different ballgame.

Content that "can be considered obscene" is a very broad term. What's next? Well these things are considered obscene by a lot of people: GLBT literature, gay marriage, BDSM, public display of affection between same-sex couples, trinogamy's (mmm), strip clubs, sex in public bathrooms, sex outside of wedlock, prostitution, anal play/sex. Those are just a few examples of many. Those are things I read and write. Do you?

There's a petition running to appeal to Paypal. Please, please sign this if you value freedom of speech, press, and personal choice. Banks and other financial institutions shouldn't dictate what we choose to write and read (or even buy, as long as it's legal). Where do they even come off trying to? It may not affect your genre NOW, but if we let this go, your content might be next. This also affects readers because PayPal is telling them what they can an cannot read (yes, "can" - not "may" - because people will have a harder time getting access to what they want to read).

Although Bookstrand, ARe and Smashwords have - at least for the moment - caved under pressure, others are fighting. No Boundaries Press is working on offering these new homeless books with "questionable" content a home on their sale site. The authors won't have to sign a publishing deal with them. They won't have to drop their current publisher and they won't have to stop self-publishing these specific titles. NBP's just offering a way to sell these books that are under attack and will charge no more sales fee than any of the above distributors. They're very adamant about fighting this censorship and they've found a different way to handle payments. They're not just offering this to authors, but publishers as well (and self-publishers, in case I didn't make that clear). Check out their blog if you're interested and please spread the word if you know someone who's been a victim of this witch hunt.

Lastly, if you're interested in reading more about this subject, I recommend Selena Kitt's blog. It's very thorough but in no way a dry read on the matter. According to her, she'll have to remove said subjects from her store AND any book that contains BDSM (and most of her books do). I haven't heard BDSM content mentioned by anyone else, but she was told she had to when she asked PayPal directly.

Here are more links on this topic:

Two Legs Bad: An Open Letter to Mark Coker (owner of Smashwords) - Mark himself even replied to this one.

Putting the World According to PayPal In Perspective - This is just hilarious. A fun way to learn about what's happening.

Erotica Book Banning Round Up - with more links!

Censorship and Paypal: UnConstitutional and WRONG - Wayne has listed emails to where people can send their complaints to PayPal. I'm quoting a bit from his blog:

"A while back, I spoke on this blog about my frustration and anger with PayPal. The issue at the time was that they unilaterally froze my account because I bought $6 worth of novellas from Astraea Press in aid of a charity drive. I later reviewed these books, only to learn to my chagrin that PayPal had denied the payment and frozen my account.

After this disagreeable incident, I finally decided I’d had quite enough of PayPal and their unreasonably restrictive clauses. After all, no one has the right to view my purchases and tell me which ones are acceptable and which are not. I’m an adult male in the United States of America, and as such I enjoy all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Or do I?

PayPal doesn’t seem to think so." (Author J.S. Wayne)

* These are links to where you can see the letters from these distributors. Here are the credits: Author Cat Johnson has Bookstrand letter, The Self Publishing Revolution has the All Romance eBooks letter, The Digital Reader has the Smashwords letter.

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PayPal's Censorship - Petition

2012-02-25T04:59:00.005-08:00

I'm a little over a week late on the uptake, but PayPal is now censoring erotic fiction content! I'll write a more elaborate post on this very soon - for now I'd just like to link to the petition. This is very important , because if they're threatening sites that sell "barely legal" content (sex with 18 and 19 year olds - how is that not legal??) and pseudo incest (pseudo as in fake, not related by blood), what will be next? They say this content is "items that are considered obscene"*. Well if that's the case, what's next? GLBT literature? Anal play/sex? Prostitution? A lot of people find these "obscene". Do we really want to go down this path?

Here's the petition:

Earlier this week, PayPal told Bookstrand, a major distributor of erotic romance and other erotic content on the Internet, that if certain titles containing "objectionable" material were not pulled from Bookstrand's shelves, Bookstrand's PayPal account would be shut down and the funds within confiscated.
PayPal has a long track record of suspending, freezing, and terminating customer accounts on the thinnest of justifications, but this is going too far. By telling Bookstrand what books they can and cannot sell using PayPal services, they are also telling readers they don't have the right to read what they wish and telling authors that PayPal has the right to take away their freedom of speech and the press.
If you use the Internet to find new reading material, if you use PayPal, and/or if you support the rights of authors and readers to have the widest possible selection of topics to read and write about, please sign this petition and let PayPal know that censorship, no matter what form it takes or how it is implemented, is not acceptable. Readers, publishers, storefronts and authors have the right to choose what books are sold and bought.
Don't leave it up to PayPal to choose how you spend your money or where.

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*From PayPal's ToS.

Men With Emotions

2012-02-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

I'm guest-blogging at Randy's Book Bag Reviews Today :) The topic is Men With Emotions. I actually have follow up blogs written about this topic that have to do with emotional men in books, but they will be posted sometime in the future on my blog (probably).

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Work Work

2012-02-21T02:02:00.000-08:00

I've been relatively quiet for the past few days, because I'm doing the final edits for Absolutely Eric! It's going to line-edits very soon. I cannot express how much I'm looking forward to sharing this story with the world. I love in ways I've never loved anything else I've ever written.

Things have been going well:

A Life Without You:

5 stars @ Randy Book Bag Reviews

4.5 pants @ Pants Off Reviews

4 stars @ Manic Readers

Hot Hands:

4 stars @ Brief Encounters

4 pants @ Pants Off Reviews

4 stars @ Manic Readers
4 stars @ MM Romance Reviews and Tana Rae Reads

4 hearts @ Hearts On Fire Reviews

4 stars @ My Book Boyfriend

Grade-A-Sex Deal:

4 hearts @ MM Romance Reviews (Tana Rae Reads - only on Goodreads for now)

4 stars @ My Book Boyfriend (and OMG the picture she chose!)

I got the cover for The Walls Have Ears (looove the color!). It'll be out in March, but I still have to work on the edits:

Blurb:

Short andscrawny college student Harley Santos has a strange relationship with the guyon the other side of his bedroom wall. For weeks, the two have beenmasturbating to each other’s voices, but they have never met in person. Infact, Harley doesn’t know which one of the two roommates next door is hiswall-mate. What he does know is that he’s in love – at least with the wall-makein his fantasies.

WhenHarley’s roommate (Ryan) is asked on a date by one of his neighbors, Harley isdevastated that his wall-mate mistook not-hot Harley for super-hot Ryan. Helping Harleythrough his heartache is Tasha Novokov, the other neighbor, who is tall, dark,and impossibly handsome.

When Harley’saffections shift to Tasha, his heartache hits an all time high because with allthe girls hanging around, Tasha has to be straight.

Anyway, in the words of the poor, over-worked Orc peons: work work.

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Grade-A-Sex Deal Excerpt

2012-02-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a little excerpt from yesterday's release of Grade-A-Sex Deal:

A light knock on the door brings me out of my misery. The only perk of this job is about to enter, and perky he is indeed.

Troy Anderson pokes his beautiful face into my office, swings his slim, athletic body inside and locks the door behind him.

“Come in,” I say calmly to the young kid who only ever wears skin-tight jeans and sleeveless tops. My guess is that he does it just to tease me. I can’t take my eyes off his thin waist and nicely toned biceps and whenever he catches me ogling, he shoots me a smirk.

“What can I do for you, Troy?”

“You can give me an A on that exam you’re making,” Troy replies in his low, seductive voice. His blue eyes scan the table in front of me. Out of habit I pull a folder over my notes.

“And why would I do that?” I ask in my monotone teaching voice.

Troy’s full lips quirk into a smirk. “Because we have a deal.”

He walks to my desk and traces the edge with a long finger. My eyes follow that finger where it slides off the wood and lands on his growing bulge.

“The deal’s off,” I state matter-of-factly.

An old magazine lies on top of my screen. I grab it and pretend to sink my consciousness in the wonders of the South-American rainforests while everything within me is fantasizing about what he keeps hidden in those jeans.

“No way,” Troy says with a confident smile in his voice. “I haven’t been coming to see you every week for you to bail out now. The exam is next week.”

I count down a full minute before I lower the magazine to answer. “I’m very well aware of that, Mr. Anderson, but you didn’t show up last Monday night. You broke the deal.”

“Oh come on, I was studying,” he says and for the first time I hear a crack in his resolve. It surprises me so much that my eyes fly up to meet his. That gorgeous, sandy-blond hair half covers one of his blue eyes and sweeps the curve of his neck. His slender jaw flexes on his tanned face as he swallows.

“What do you propose?” I ask calmly, trying hard not to reveal how much he affects me. His mere presence is enough to have me jumping hoops. Yes, we do have a grade-A-sex deal, but the more we meet the more I like having him around.

He resumes his calm nature, leaning over the end of the desk with his perky little ass in the air. “Well, I’m here now. You can do me twice.”

He has my undivided attention for a few seconds before I toss away the magazine, grab a pen and start flicking through the Webster’s.

“Oh come on,” he murmurs, edging himself a little farther towards me. “I know you have other guys knocking on your door every night. It’s not like you didn’t have anyone to play with. How many guys have you fucked this week?”

“Several,” I reply with a shrug. “How many teachers have fucked you this week?”

“Several,” he echoes with a carefree grin and adjusts his perfectly shaped elbows on my desk.

New Release!

2012-02-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce that Grade-A-Sex Deal was released by No Boundaries Press today! I'm doing a pretty funky office-chair wiggle. So glad I have a tiny heart shaped sticker over my webcam ^.^

Blurb:

When College professor Daniel Corrigan was brutally kicked out of his home after revealing his true sexuality to his wife, he had to make a whole new life for himself. For the first time in two years Daniel’s main heartache isn't the none-existent relationship with his two kids, but the fact that the grade-A-sex deal with his student Troy Anderson is about to expire. After a whole semester of office fun, Troy has managed to squeeze his way into the core of Daniel’s soul. Daniel, however, is positive he’s nothing more to Troy than a teacher who can modify a grade.

A Grade-A-Sex Deal is the second of five in a series of short stories, College Fun and Gays.

I've set it up on Goodreads.

It's $2.99 and available from these sellers (will add links as they pop up):

No Boundaries Press Store (to buy directly from the publisher)

All Romance eBooks

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Barnes & Noble

Bookstrand

Hop Winners and a Word on Homophobia

2012-02-15T04:01:00.000-08:00

There were 40 entries to my giveaway this time, which is more than last time and absolutely fantastic. It still indicates that I have a lot of work to do for the m/m-only blog hop in May. We'll want greater numbers than 40 with 130 m/m authors, publishers and reviewers already signed up (and more coming). If you're an m/m author, publisher or reviewer (don't have to be m/m-exclusive publisher or reviewer) and want to take part in the Hop Against Homophobia, sign-ups will be open until May 16th. The more the merrier.

If you're a reader, we'd love it if you could mark down this event and tell your m/m-reading friend about it. This is for a good cause: to help create awareness against homophobia and to stand together as an m/m genre (authors, publishers, reviewers AND readers) to try to help the world see gay fiction as first class literature, not second class. I'm sure many of you caught the RWA's stint of excluding same-sex romance stories from entering their More than Magic contest. RWA cancelled the contest after an uproar from the GLBT community and supporters, but they followed the cancellation up with a lame excuse that shows that the m/m genre still has a lot of work ahead of itself to be considered normal. We hope that Hop Against Homophobia will be a step toward making that happen.

But you probably came here to see if you won! The plan was to draw three winners, one for each prize offered, but since I have two kids I decided to draw four winners. What I did was print out the entrants' names, cut it down in strips, fold the whole lot up and let them draw two each.

The winners are:

Valerie - A Life Without You

PD Singer - Hot Hands

Lisa - Hot Hands

Valentina - Grade-A-Sex Deal (it will be out very soon!)

Congrats guys :) I'll send out the emails later today. For the rest of you, I'm so sorry you didn't win this time, but I'm taking part in the Easter hop where you'll get another chance :) Then, of course, there's the May 17th Hop Against Homophobia where my prizes will be a bit more extravagant and in greater numbers.

Until then, you're welcome to download my very short but very sweet free story, In His Pocket. If you get warning messages, just continue to click "continue" until you get the file to download (I hear this can be a problem for international people).

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Giveaway Errors

2012-02-12T16:23:00.000-08:00

Gay Romance

Erotic Censorship and a Home for the Homeless Books

PayPal's Censorship - Petition

Men With Emotions

Work Work

Grade-A-Sex Deal Excerpt

New Release!

Hop Winners and a Word on Homophobia

Giveaway Errors

Valentine's Blog Hop!

The Valentine's M/M Short-List

Pubs/Review sites/Blogs that are offering M/M books (or have m/m sections):

Misc. Tidbits

M/M-Only Blog Hop

18% Gray Review

Author Chat, Giveaways and More

February Reading

February Battle Plan

10 Facts About NJ Nielsen

Fun Facts About Erica Pike

Yar!

Beginner's Mistake in Marketing

'A Life Without You' Out Now!

Hot Hands Purchase Links

Hot Hands Out Now!

FREE: In His Pocket

Happy New Year

Stuff Your Stockings Winners!

Only want the M/M Authors?

Stuff Your Stockings Christmas Blog Hop!

Christmas Prizes

Official Cover for 'A Life Without You'!

Inspiration in the Strangest Places

Answer to Pastor Tom Vineyard's Anti-Human Rights Letter

First Cover!

Signed with No Boundaries Press

My First Book Deal!

Photos by Dan Skinner!

Gay Lit Galore

Royal Research

First Novel Manuscript Completed!

New Short Story