Amazon Loses Another Customer

The Pedophile's Guide to Love & Pleasure: A Child Lover's Code of Conduct

"This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain rules for those adults to follow" writes author Phillip R. Greaves Jr. of his controversial e-book whose title reads more like a horror novel than anything concerned with the safety of juveniles. "I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps lighter sentences should they ever be caught."

And should they ever.

One would hope that this self-published guide to raping children with the hopes that it will become acceptable behavior would be universally shunned not only by people, but by corporate entities as well.  It is no surprise, then, that public backlash to the availability of this questionable work by the massively popular online retailer, Amazon.com, had grown into a lurking behemoth so quickly that Amazon had to pull it from the e-shelves much to their own chagrin.  What is a surprise is that it was there in the first place, defended by a corporation with obviously no sense of social responsibility.

Amazon's Excuses

This is the official, yet trite, statement released by Amazon supporting its right to capitalize off of products promoting gross sexual misconduct and criminal activities:

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

The first sentence doesn't actually say anything other than they believe in the basic meaning of censorship, but it hints at their objection to it.  It seems that it is more appropriate to sell a book training pedophiles than it is for Amazon to actually enforce their policy against offensive materials, the mere existence of which is laughable if pedophilia can slip through the filter. 

Contrary to their next claim, they absolutely do support criminal acts by giving authors of books like this a platform by which to spread their filth to the masses.  Amazon operates under the guise of "individual rights," but not offering a particular title for purchase doesn't stop an individual from buying it; it just keeps that person from buying it from Amazon.  The idea of losing a dollar is more offensive than supporting pedophiles and books on how to commit that atrocious crime.

I guess it's not such a surprise after all.

The Customers Are Always Right

Despite Amazon's lame attempt at being a beacon of free speech and anti-censorship, the customers have spoken.  They have taken to Twitter and Facebook to express their disgust, call for a boycott and reaffirm that decent, responsible people still have some say over what is appropriate in their communities and in our society at large.  It should never be as easy for pedophiles to share this kind of dangerous information as Amazon has made it; thank God the customer is always right and "The Pedophile's Guide" is no longer available.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be comfortable shopping at Amazon again either way, because I certainly don't support what they obviously stand for.  This isn't the first time they've come under fire:  In 2009, they had to be forced to stop carrying "RapeLay," a first-person video game that centered around stalking and raping a mother and her daughters.  The fact that Amazon carries these kind of articles and only removes them when someone has to tell them it's inappropriate is enough for me to find a better retailer with which to exercise my individual right as a consumer.  Since they love that right so much, I'm sure they won't blame me.