Average American Family

I have been an avid book reader for years and recently made the move to reading e-books.  I am really enjoying reading books on my electronic device.  It is very easy to carry with me, no matter how big the book is it still fits in my bag without adding weight. Also when traveling I can “pack” more than one book without taking up valuable room in my suitcase!

 

Recently PayPal contacted Book Strand, All Romance EBooks, and Smash Words, all e-book sellers that cater to the self-published author, requiring them to remove all fiction that contains themes of bestiality, rape and incest or else their PayPal accounts would be closed and the funds in the account would be confiscated.  While these topics may be offensive and disturbing to some people, nobody is forcing them to read books about these topics.

 

By PayPal telling these companies what books they can and can not sell, they are telling you, the buyer, what you can read. Additionally they are taking away the author’s freedom of speech which is guaranteed to every American by the Constitution of the United States.

 

PayPal claims they are compelled to do this to remain compliant with the rules of the banks and credit card companies.  After doing some research into this it appears that PayPal is classifying fiction of these genres as porn when they are really erotica.

 

Charge backs of porn charges are one of the biggest headaches that credit card companies have to deal with.  Someone’s significant other finds out that their “better” half has been purchasing porn.  Rather than owning up to their indecent purchases, they call the credit company “shocked” to find out that someone has been using their card to purchase this type of material and demand that the charges be removed.  Because of these charge backs, many merchant services, the companies that allow you to accept credit card payments,  require a large up front fee and take exorbitant percentages from each transaction, sometimes up to 25%, for any accounts that accept payments for adult products and entertainment.

 

What is the difference between porn and erotica?  For me, when I hear porn, I picture material that is visually sexually explicit, is usually geared towards men and is often demeaning and exploitive to women.  The word porn is derived from the Greek word pornē which means “prostitute”.  Erotica, to me, is more about romance and exploring your full sexuality and celebrating it. The word erotica is derived from the Greek word erōtikós which means “of love”.  I admit that sometimes that line between erotica and porn can get fuzzy as a lot of what is porn and what is not is the perception of each individual.  What you find sexy, I may find to be distasteful, and vice versa.  But that is part of being an American, and having the free will to make your own decisions.

 

If PayPal is allowed to do this, where does the censorship stop?  Will this eventually include other categories of fiction, such as murder mysteries? What about printed works of fiction?  Many of the classics we study in high school and college contain incest and rape.  I do not recall any with bestiality but I am sure they are out there.  The Odyssey, Shakespeare, Lord of the Flies, to Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, The Holy Bible. Should these all be banned so we can not purchase them online with our PayPal accounts?

 

Will this censorship filter down to movies too and will we no longer be able to purchase them with our PayPal funds if they contain “morally questionable” material?  What about “morally questionable” items in the Adult Only category that are being sold on eBay, who now owns PayPal?! Can you use your PayPal account to pay for these eBay purchases or are they putting restrictions on this?

 

The funds in my PayPal account are MINE. If the items in question are not prohibited by law, why should PayPal determine what I can and can not spend my hard earned money on?   And let’s get real, have you ever purchased a book, either a physical book or an e-book, read the book, and then tried to get your money back because you did not like the contents of the book?  I haven’t.  I may not buy any more books written by that author again if I found the book distasteful. How much money do you spend on an e-book?  I usually try new authors when they have free offers and then if I like the free book I will look for other books written by them, but do not usually spend more than $3 on an e-book.

 

If you do not think that PayPal should be allowed to tell a site what they can and can not sell for e-books, please sign one or both of the petitions linked below.  In my opinion PayPal should be targeting the sites that sell true porn and use PayPal as payment option.

 

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/7/stop-internet-censorship/

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-censorship-2