Nanny State Gone Wild in the UK

Well it's happened to our friends across the pond. The Prime Minister has made it official - pornography will be blocked by default on the Internet in the UK unless you choose to "opt in" to receive it. (And of course, if you do "opt in," your name will be forwarded to a UK government agency in charge of overseeing citizens who are seeking out banned material. Isn't that special?)

I'm absolutely horrified by this development and the attitude of a government who believes it needs to step in and regulate adults and adult behavior. The prime minister claims this is about children having access to pornography on the internet - but it isn't the role of any government to step in and regulate what goes on in people's homes. Pornography isn't illegal (yet) so why is it being denied to adults by default? I understand having a filter that can be turned on and off, although it is a bit of a slippery slope to have government supplying that filter. However, having that filter set to "OFF" by default makes it a much slipperier one.

When you have a child, do you expect the government to raise it? Do you expect them to feed it, care for it, change its diapers, keep it safe? I certainly hope not. It's not the government's responsibility, it's the parents' responsibility. As a parent, you're in charge of keeping that child safe until it's old enough to do so. If you have bleach, you keep it in a locked cupboard under the sink. If you own a gun, you keep it unloaded in a locked cabinet. If you possess pornography, you keep it locked away and out of a child's sight. That's a parent's responsibility. Not the government's.

A computer and the internet are no different. I'm a parent--I don't let my children have access to the internet without my direct supervision. But as an adult, I don't want my government making those choices for ME. I'm not a child and I don't need a nanny. A government that steps in and makes those kinds of decisions for parents by default is effectively saying to adults, "You can't parent. I must do it for you."

Is this the level the UK has sunk to?

And how long will it be before politicians on this side of the pond start making these kinds of decisions for us?

We've gone down this road already in the realm of erotic ebooks with corporate censorship. Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Paypal--the list of companies who have attempted to or continue to deny adults access to adult materials while claiming they're doing so to "protect the children" (never mind that they're still selling sex toys, porn DVDs, torture-porn movies like "Hostel" and books like Jack Ketchum's The Woman)--have all participated in some form of corporate censorship. Right now, the American government can get away with using corporations to do their dirty work--mostly because America itself is in the pocket of corporations, and government motivations are in line with the corporate bottom line.

But whistleblower Eric Snowden has given us a glimpse into just how much information the NSA is gathering about average American citizens while at the same time using the media to whip people into a frenzy with fear-mongering about vague threat of terrorists. What's happening in the UK just may be a portent, a keyhole peek into the future of government control and the ever-growing nanny state in our own country.

For example, Tumblr has always had anti-censorship beliefs and policies in the past, so well known for their stance they inspired articles like this one in Salon about the best adult porn Tumblr blogs. But recently, Yahoo purchased Tumblr. Soon after that purchase was announced, users started to return "no search results" for certain terms relating to sex and pornography. Yahoo effectively made adult blogs invisible, in the same way Amazon's ADULT filter makes adult ebooks invisible. Another example of corporate censorship? Yep.

Where does it end?

Right now, Americans are being offered a censored version of the world, and many don't even know it. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than the UK government stepping in and forcing ISPs to block pornography by default. The former is an insidious form of censorship, a creeping, crawling, sprawling sort of censorship that most won't even acknowledge IS a form of censorship. At least the latter is more direct. As we've learned with the "war on terror," or the "war on drugs," the enemies you can't see, the ones that come at you from behind or underneath, the ephemeral sort, are a lot harder to fight then those who attack directly.

This is a direct attack on personal freedom and liberty. It's shocking and appalling, and if you're not shocked and appalled, you should be. This is government censorship being wrapped up in a nice "protect the children" wrapping paper with a big fat bow on it. It's a slippery slope that should not only horrify and frighten you, it should motivate you to act. At least I hope so. You can protest. You can sign this petition. If you're in the US, you can write to your congressmen protesting legislation like the proposed SOPA. You can support the Office for Intellectual Freedom, Banned Book Week, the Open Net Initiative and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange or even just go and like our Facebook page - Banned Erotic Books, where I will post everything I hear about banned books or censorship - in all forms.

And if you're thinking, "Well isn't this a good thing? Aren't they protecting the children?"--think again. This isn't about protecting children, it's about control. Control of consenting adults that should be free to watch what they like. Maybe you think I'm alarmist, just being a Chicken Little, and you don't believe in slippery slopes. If that's the case, consider this - Scotland and Wales banned "pornography depicting rape" back in 2008. Now the UK has followed suit. This law now also makes it illegal to possess any sort of pornography depicting rape. So what does that mean? Is BDSM pornography illegal now? Even if it's between consenting adults? Even if there's a "safe word?" Who makes the decision about what is or isn't rape, exactly?

By effectively "banning" pornography by forcing ISPs to filter it by default, politicians aren't really solving any problems. It's an easy fix. They haven't done anything to keep actual children from being harmed in the making of pornography. They haven't helped any actual rape victims by making stricter rape laws. They haven't done anything to teach real children about real sex--its dangers and pitfalls, as well as its true nature, meaning, and significance in life. They haven't done anything to help actual sex workers who endanger their lives in order to make more money than they could working at the local Wal-Mart. They haven't helped the actual harmful practice of women being sold as slaves in human trafficking. They haven't done anything about curbing the mainstream media's portrayal of women as sexual objects. Pornography has nothing on Cosmo, folks. They've gone after pornography, but they haven't gone after the "torture porn" in movies. It's okay to watch someone's head severed, to see a woman's nipples cut off, her labia flayed in a horror film, but it's not okay to watch two consenting adults with nipple clamps and hot wax?

They have gone after what they see as an easy target, something that can be perceived as "action," but is, in fact, a non-action. It's not a step forward, it's a step backward. This law creates a false sense of security for parents. Worse than that, it encourages parents to take less parental responsibility when they should be taking more, and it sets up both parents and children (who will, in another generation, become parents themselves) to rely on the government to control them. If that isn't the scariest slippery slope of them all, I don't know what is.

So before you start cheering because you feel children are being "protected" by the law just passed in the UK, imagine a world where everything you read, watch or do is restricted by government control. Imagine China. Imagine 1984. It's really not as far away as it seems. As Chicken Little as it sounds... sometimes the sky really is falling. Sometimes a slippery slope turns out to be far slipperier than you imagined.

Sometimes you wake up in a world you don't recognize, and wonder how in the hell you got there.

But by then, it will be far too late. The time is now. The choice is yours.

Selena Kitt
Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget
www.selenakitt.com

The Breakthrough - I am JK Rowling

I had kind of a breakthrough.  I'm not sure I should jinx it though.  I started all these different things and they had similar scenarios.  I'd get the first scene written and think of something else.  In fact, when I re-read them, I had used some of the same names.  I decided that they were all pieces of one story, which means some names will be changed.  I put them all in one document and started writing the beginning.  Now I have 22,000 words. 

Today I thought about what was working and what wasn't, and I'm ready to make changes and add more.  I try to write a whole scene - dialogue first then I go back and add stage directions and stuff.  The next day I read it all and if it sounds stupid or repetitive, or doesn't make sense, I do rewrites.  It takes a while.  I stop when I don't quite know how to make the transition to the next bit of information.  That next bit will come to me the next day when I'm working out.  I don't know how it does that.  I think my mind relaxes or something.  I almost see it in a waking dream.  It tells me what to say and do, and what it all looks like visually. 

I almost feel like the story was there all along.  I did what made sense - I couldn't build another non-consent BDSM world without referencing Cinderella Club a little.  I am looking at one character in particular who had a spot on the periphery of CC, and now I have her story - sort of, and a number of others that can take place in the same location.

I don't want to share any of it yet because every time I share in real life, someone either copies me or tries to change the idea somehow - they want to be part of my process, which I thoroughly hate.  This story feels like I had written it before, in another dimension, if there is such a thing.  I would like that to be true because I would like to believe that somewhere else there is a Mia Natasha with a slightly different story.  Maybe a better one.

I also hate when people say "Life's too short" and "You only live once".  Life is not that short.  Sometimes it feels like an eternity.  An animal's life is short.  I look at my cat and I wonder what it will be like when we have to cross that bridge.  My cat represents a specific chunk of my life, like the Mayan Calendar.  When my cat is gone it will be an ending.  I will reflect on the time we had together as our dynasty or whatever, and assess my success during that period.  Have I made any leaps in this time?  What the fuck am I doing?  I don't really want to think about that.

When I'm writing, I am so into it - as though it's the greatest thing ever written - unique, original, refreshing....  I get high from it.  Not manic, just - happy.  Content that I am creating and I have the confidence to do it.

JK Rowling had good reviews on her pen named book but sold only a few copies.  So what did they do?  They totally told.  I don't buy that it was uncovered by other sources.  I think it was leaked to the media.  What if I said that I am really Jo?  Of course, no one would believe that, because we sound nothing alike.  Too bad.  Because I have good reviews too.  It's never enough.  You can fool yourself that it is, but it isn't.

I sent paperbacks to specific people hoping for the kind of media attention that is bigger than a random blog.  But nothing yet.  No responses.  Does anyone read blogs?  I know there are a few of you who read this even though you don't comment (Hi, Kelly).  I know I'm not talking to myself because if I were, well, that's a sad face emoticon, which I would post if I knew how.

When I re-read old diaries, I feel like it's a different person but I love that person.  That sounds about as narcissistic as they come, but I do.  I do love myself.  I am strong and courageous, organized and focused, (and I have a pretty fucking great ass).  I love the idea of finding my younger self  (in a time-travel) and sitting her down to tell her that she won't change very much.  And that is perfectly okay. (But oh my god, she's going to love my hair!)  I'm trying to think of a specific point in time that I would change that could change the trajectory of my life.  But I'm not sure I would change anything.  I keep wanting to go back to the night I first slept with The One so I can keep my clothes on and leave.  Would he have pursued me?  I doubt it.  Actually, I know he wouldn't.  I was always going to be just sex.  

Would I go back to high school and go slutty?  Fuck someone?  No.  Because I always wanted the relationship to be adult.  I never thought and still don't, that kids who live under their parents roof should be having sex.  I hate it because they are living children's lives but playing adult games and they are just not emotionally ready.  College students are the same way, let's be honest.  Dorm fucking seems to lead to marriage without even actually having dates, which is so fucked up.  I know women who had never even purchased sexy lingerie or stillettos because their relationships happened in sweatshirts and sweatpants, and one ratty bra that they washed on Sundays!

Which reminds me of the bondage pictures I see that people post on Twitter  - the homemade ones where the girl is roped up and in the background you see dirty laundry in baskets littering the floor, photographs of family on the wall instead of art (not placed there aesthetically either), and cheezy matchy-matchy furniture sets that would make the Architectural Digest editor's head spin while puking pea soup, and it's supposed to be sexy.  Is that sexy to you?

These days there are a gazillion twenty somethings living with their boyfriends on their parents' dime.  Apartments in big cities and jobs that can't pay for them.  And they are playing house.  To me that's not sexy either.

The men in my new book all own their own places except for one.  It's preferable for them to be in some way independently wealthy so they don't have to work in order for their Dom/sub relationship to be 24/7.  One will work from home... I have it all planned.  It's actually much easier to make them all have dead parents so you don't have to deal with them but I won't do that.  I think having the parents in there in small doses grounds the story because you see how the parents see the person and it's always different than the way they see themselves.  Like some people are complete fuck ups at work but their parents praise them galore!  Others work their asses off and their parents think they don't work hard enough.  I may have said this before in another post, but I love when each character in a show has their "problem".  In Star Trek the Next Generation, no one has the kid they want.  Warf's kid is like a Ghandi instead of a this-is-a-good-day-to-die warrior.  Wesley Crusher makes all sorts of stupid mistakes and gets emotional while his mother the doctor is calm under pressure, Jon-Luc had a son in one episode- not sure if he really was or he thought he was, but the guy did not want to follow rules.  In Beverly Hills 90210, every single character had a substance abuse problem or some other "issue".  Donna got drunk at prom, Kelly did coke, David was taking pills to stay up late to do that radio show....

Anyhow, there will be a huge cast of players in my new story.  I will challenge myself to write scenes with lots of people in them to balance the one-on-one scenes that can get repetitive.  Even so, people want the one-on-one relationships.

The other thing about that book from my previous post (On my own blog - http://mianatasha-erotica.blogspot.com/2013/07/thickening-plot.html) that I'd read for "research" :  the guy basically had no friends.  In the next book, which is so short because there is no plot, they go out with her friends and all he wants to do is take her home to fuck her.  The point of going out is to dress up, to be alluring while you are out in public showing off how much your man likes you, showing him to anyone  - look at this sexy fucker, everyone - he's going home w/ me.  Then you think about it, anticipate it and when the fucking commences, the hot liquid magma becomes full blown lava.

In real life, guys have tons of friends because they just hang out without the deep emotional stuff.  They like each other.  And that's the final piece to my puzzle today.  The men in my story will bond.  I'm aiming for epic - but if it is that in my mind only...then I really am JK Rowling.  And you will buy the book.  Should I have put that in caps?

No Parental Controls? It's Not About Parents - It's About Profit

I write erotica for a living. I'm also a mother of four.

And I do not allow my children to search anything on Amazon by themselves.

That's right--a majority of my income is derived from book sales on Amazon, and yet I won't let my own children search for babysitting books or squirt guns on their site.

Why not? Because searching "babysitting" or "babysitter" can turn up 100 titles about babysitters fucking their employers. One of which is my own. And "squirt," in any variation, can turn up all sorts of titles about women "squirting."

Amazon doesn't protect children from those search results. Neither does Barnes and Noble. Both of my kids have Nook Colors--but I buy all their books. They're not allowed to buy a book on their own. And they're tweens (11 and 12) who have plenty of freedom in their day-to-day lives and are quite responsible.

But I can't count on Amazon to protect my children, and I can't count on BN to protect them, so I go out of my way to do so. Because I know exactly what's out there. And that's a parent's job. Ultimately, it should be up to the parent to set those boundaries, and I do so.

Unlike Google though, I can't even let my kids search on Amazon. With Google, I can set up a "safe search" function that blocks most, if not all, of the things I wouldn't want them to see yet. Amazon doesn't have that. Amazon has been making attempts, as we erotica writers know, to keep erotica out of the hands of minors by putting it behind a wall--labeling it with the "ADULT" tag and excluding it from the all-department search. And we all know this is a poor solution to a growing problem. In a post-50-Shades world, the rules have changed. "Mommy porn" has become a huge genre, and many, many new writers have come along to write it, flooding the market with erotica.

Amazon's solution is arbitrary and non-transparent. It doesn't keep children from finding books about babysitters having sex or women squirting, that's for sure. They just have to be looking for a book about babysitting in the Kindle store and voila! There's my book.

That's not good.

I write erotica, but I write erotica for adults. 

I never intended my audience to be under the age of eighteen, I make clear disclaimers in the front of my books that the intended audience should be of-age, and I don't want underage children or teens reading my books far before they're ready to handle the material contained within them.

I can protect my own children--but I can't protect yours. Only Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo, etc. can do that. And there is an easy fix to this problem. Google has one--parental controls. It's a switch. On or off. Very simple.

So why haven't they done so?

I can guarantee you one thing--their motivation isn't to protect you or your children.

They are protecting their bottom line. Their profit. Period.

Follow the money.

Selena Kitt

Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget

www.selenakitt.com

LATEST RELEASE: Nolan Trilogy

Join the Insatiable Reads Hot Summer Romance Giveaway Hop!

This summer is going to be HOT!

The Insatiable Reads Book Tour is sponsoring the HOT SUMMER ROMANCE GIVEAWAY HOP from July 18-21, and if you’re an author, I suggest you sign up. Blog hops, unlike blog tours, are easy–there’s little effort on the part of the author, no long blog posts, just sign up, grab the graphic, and plan a giveaway. Easy peasy! Readers love free stuff (I know, cuz I’m a reader!) so there’s a great incentive for them to go on the hop and enter all the blog hop giveaways. And while they’re on your site, they’ll check out your books, and if they find something they like, who knows, they just might buy it!

As a reader I love blog hops because, hello!? Free stuff! But as an author I love them for the same reason. I love giving away free stuff! It’s a win-win! And blog hops are a fantastic way to get new visitors to your blog and if we’re all out there fighting for visibility in the sea of available words, you have to love a promotion that brings writers together, and readers too. I’ve never been the most competitive writer in the world. Since Excessica’s inception, I’ve always been more about being inclusive, helping other writers, and letting the power of numbers buoy us all up to the top.

Blog hops are a great way to do that. So authors, go sign up! And readers, mark your calendars, because this summer is going to be HOT, HOT, HOT!

Selena Kitt

Erotic Fiction You Won’t Forget
www.selenakitt.com
LATEST RELEASE: The Dirty Show

Corporate Fail

There's been a lot posted about the corporations behind book selling lately, and to me, it just smells like a whole lot of "fail."

This is what happens when corporations gain so much power that people forget that corporations aren't really "people." Corporations are FOR people. They serve people. They consist OF people - the people who work at them, from the lowest paid to the highest. But when corporations forget that, when people forget that, suddenly we all become slaves. Corporations becomes slaves to their stockholders (and the stockholders to the almighty dollar). People become slaves to the corporations, relying on them for everything.

Sometimes I think people forget about the *people* involved, all the way around.

I had a conversation with Amazon last week about the Adult book filtering going on. It was a reasonable conversation with a real person. She understood my point of view, said she appreciated my feedback, and really wanted to help as much as she could. Because of my feedback, they made changes in the ways they now handle appeals to the ADULT filter. If your book has been filtered and you attempt to get it unfiltered, Amazon will now tell you whether the problem is on your COVER, in your TITLE or in your DESCRIPTION. While they still refuse to tell us exactly *what* the problem might be on the cover, or in the title and description, at least they're now pointing us in a direction! At least it's something...

Now if only everyone who worked for her company would get with the program and treat people the same way... *sigh*

When we are faced with the people behind the corporations, or when corporations are faced with the people (the actual customers they serve or the vendors who supply their products) the whole dynamic changes. Suddenly things become personal - and real. The decisions corporations make have huge implications for REAL PEOPLE. What Amazon is doing with adult books is hurting a lot of authors right now who have quit their day jobs in order to do what they love -- write -- full-time. It's hurting readers who can't find the books they're looking for. It's hurting customers and it's hurting parents who STILL have no work-around or real solution to the plethora of adult books on Amazon's store.

A simple switch, Amazon. That's all it takes.

I wish we could all sit down and have a reasonable conversation. I'm tired of dealing with a faceless corporation who doesn't care about me or even the customers who are complaining to them about the books showing up in their also-bought feeds.

Amazon FAIL

• Putting ADULT filters on books arbitrarily, with no rhyme or reason.
• No transparency - not telling publishers and authors when a book gets an ADULT filter. Not telling authors or publishers what got the book flagged in the first place.
• Not creating an "adult" on-off parental control function for their site instead of using the clunky and unfair ADULT filter.

Barnes and Noble FAIL

• Misrepresenting their "bestseller" list by keeping certain adult books out of the top 100. They are tagging certain books in their system somehow, which weighs them down in the ranks, like an anchor. Once a book is flagged, it won't go past the "anchor." This happened to my box sets, which sold more than enough to get me into the top 100, but my books wouldn't go past 126, 127 and 128 respectively. So instead of dropping the ranks by 1000 (which they were doing for a long time to erotica books) now they're doing something a *little* more subtle. But still as damaging to sales. We caught you, Barnes and Noble!
• Pushing Erotica and Adult titles to the back of their search engine function, so that those titles appear behind those which are ranked below them.
• Not creating an "adult" on-off parental control function for their site instead of manipulating their bestseller lists.

Kobo FAIL

• While Kobo hasn't (yet) started filtering or suppressing adult titles, they have erotica categories that simply do not function if you put your books in them.
• Kobo's search engine is very poor, so those missing categories make a difference. And they refuse to allow you to put key words where they would be useful.

Apple FAIL

Apple's uber-prudishness is known far and wide.

• Apple has manipulated its bestseller lists - it's removed books they found "offensive" right from the list!
• Apple has removed erotica books from their store - they have wiped out ENTIRE publisher accounts that contain erotica (even when they also contain a great deal of sweet and inspirational and Christian romance!)
• They have no erotica category and no way to see erotica bestsellers at all.
• They reject adult and erotic books outright. Even when a title is sent back censored (someone put apples over the offending floppy bits) Apple STILL rejected it.

 

If I had the people from Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Kobo and Apple in front of me, maybe we could have a real conversation, person to person. Maybe they would realize that, as a parent, I don't want kids to find these books either. I want their business model to succeed - and I'd like to be part of that. I'm sure there's a way to do it. I have lots of great ideas.

If they called, I'd have a lot to say. But I won't hold my breath or spend my time sitting here waiting for the phone to ring like some girl waiting for her bad boyfriend to call. None of them are worth it, in the end. It's like dating a pit viper. You never know when they're going to strike (again).

Enough with the bad boys and their little club. I'm tired of being a member and paying their dues (and being used at their convenience, like when KDP first started and they called us all eager for us to put our books exclusively with them!) and not reaping any of the benefits.

I think it's time I started implementing some of those good ideas I have all on my own.

Stay tuned...

Selena Kitt

Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget

www.selenakitt.com

LATEST RELEASE: The Dirty Show

New Adult Marked for Deletion on Wikipedia

The New Adult category has been marked for deletion on Wikipedia.

But don't worry, lots of people have come in to protest and comment and tell Wikipedia what's what! You can go leave your comments if you want to make your voice heard. I'm pretty sure NA is here to stay, in spite of Wikipedia's control issues. 

Wikipedia clearly thinks NA is a fad, a made-up marketing ploy designed to suck us all in so we can be St. Martin's buying zombies.

To Wikipedia, NA seems like the hula hoops of the 50s.

(Are these two girls or Siamese twins?)

Or the mini skirts of the 60s.  

(Psst! Fashion designers everywere - my ass is begging you not to bring these back!)

Or the pet rock of the 70's.

(Care and training of... heyyyy, wait a minute...)

Or the Gremlins of the 80's.

 

(First page of Google, folks!)

 (Not to be confused with this Gremlin...) 

(Will never be cool. Ever.)

Or Tamagatchi's of the 90's.

(To be thereafter thrown in every kid's face when asking for a puppy, as in: "You couldn't even keep your Tamagotchi alive!")

Or the Furbys of 2000. 

(Not cute, just creepy.)

And again in 2012...

(Beyond creepy, now their eyes glow, they talk to each other and I'm pretty sure they're planning world domination...)

But Wikipedia was wrong! NA isn't a fad!

 So people were all like:

AND

AND

AND

AND

And Wikipedia was like:

And that, my friends, was that. 

New Adult Category on Amazon - But What About the Indies?

So there's good news and there's bad news.

Amazon has a new category: "New Adult & College Romance."YAY for readers! Now we can find more of the books we're looking for! That's always a good thing, when things are classified well and readers can find them. 

The bad news?

Apparently, it's only for the traditionally published, or for the "uber-super-mega selling" indie authors who clearly have some pull or clout with Amazon.

Folks, something smells bad here...

Maybe I'm just being crazy or paranoid. But so far, on Amazon's KDP platform, there is no way to choose this new category for self-pubbed authors. I looked, I checked, I searched, I hunted. I scoured the category listing in my KDP dashboard. There is no access for indies to this awesome new category. Which makes this "new adult & college romance category" a little bit of a coup for traditional publishing, does it not?

Let's just hope I'm jumping the gun here, and Amazon just hasn't programmed it into their KDP platform... yet. Although to give to traditional publishing with one hand, while withholding from self-publishing with the other, seems quite unfair and a little hypocritical, especially given the fact that most of the names on the New Adult & College Romance bestseller list were once actually self-published...

So what's the deal Amazon? Are you just slow in implementing your new category (that's bad enough, really) or are you going to withhold this indefinitely from indie authors?

Either way, it seems like a little bit of #amazonfail to me. 

http://www.emmerollins.com