In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Amazon has pulled the sales rank of a huge number of GLBTQ books, whether they're erotic or not, which means that they don't appear in lists and may not show up in search results.

What have they decide qualifies as "adult," you ask?

The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students
Robert Adrich's Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History
E M Forster's Maurice
Am I Blue? (A lovely and much needed anthology of GLBTQ short stories for young adults, which, incidentally, involves kissing as the most "adult" situation in any story.)
Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Lovers, Families, and Friends
Heather Has Two Mommies

A book. Written specifically for children. is "adult."

Where the hell did this come from? Who put pressure on amazon to strip GLBTQ books of their sales rank, take them off of lists, and keep their audience from coming across them? If the problem is that they're "adult," why do books by Danielle Steele and Laurel K. Hamilton still show up in these lists?

If you're as bothered by this as I am, please take a moment and fire off a note to Amazon, post something like this other places where people will see it, and spread the word. Don't let Amazon got away with this bullshit.

Sign a Petition

Email Amazon's Customer Service

A List of Delisted Books

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 01:59 PM

Some things that are NOT adult, apparently?:

Dildo

Porn

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 02:43 PM

Smart Bitches is googlebombing for this, you can post a link with "Amazon Rank" as the anchor text to help.

Like this:

Amazon Rank

Jace

San Francisco, CA

February 2004

APR 12, 2009 03:14 PM

I wrote up a letter that you can copy/paste and use to send to Amazon.com's bigwigs.

Spoilered because it's long:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

To whom this may concern,

I was extremely disappointed when I read that recently, Amazon.com had taken steps to exclude "adult" material from their searches and sales rank, but in reality, had displaced many non-erotic, non-explicit, and non-pornographic GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bi-gender, trans-gender, queer) books in what appears to be an orchestrated, targeted effort to reduce the visibility and impact of these types of literature on Amazon.com. These books have had their sales ranks removed or lowered and their place in bestseller lists removed, and it is more difficult to find these books in searches because of this.

Many if not most of the books affected by this policy are not pornographic or adult in nature. In fact, many of the books are written for children, adolescents, or young adults, and offer guidance, advice, and support in approaching GLBTQ issues in their lives, whether it regards their own sexuality or someone else's that they know. There can hardly be made an argument that these types of books are adult, pornographic, or explicit, any more than books on relationships between heterosexual people are. Is anyone suggesting removing Nabokov's "Lolita" from searches or lowering its sales rank, despite the fact that it contains strongly suggestive language and eludes to sex acts involving a 12-year-old girl? Likewise, will Danielle Steele's next book be excluded from the bestseller list despite the large amount of raw, sexual language contained inside? I hardly think so, and this clearly demonstrates that the GLBTQ books targeted by this policy are not being targeted for their adult or pornographic content, but rather, the fact that they talk about gay people. This is no different than removing a book because it talks openly about women wanting to vote or black people marrying white people, subjects we would never dream of censoring in the modern socio-political climate. We seem to have grown enough to recognize that these subjects are admissible, and yet, we continue to discriminate based on sexuality? This is, quite simply, appalling and unacceptable.

Here are a few examples, taken from http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html, of books targeted by this policy:

"The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students"
Robert Adrich's "Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History"
E M Forster's "Maurice"
"Am I Blue?" (A lovely and much needed anthology of GLBTQ short stories for young adults, which, incidentally, involves kissing as the most "adult" situation in any story.)
"Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Lovers, Families, and Friends"
"Heather Has Two Mommies"

These books are obviously not adult or pornographic, either in nature or content. They are clearly written from a different perspective that aims to educate and assist, not stimulate or arouse. There is far less sexual content in these books than there is in a modern romance novel. If their presence on Amazon.com is being reduced in the name of protecting viewers from "adult" content, then to put it bluntly, this policy is being abused in the name of intolerance and discrimination against the GLBTQ community. As disappointing and unfortunate as it is, this seems to be the case.

I strongly urge you to reverse your actions and recognize that it is simply not acceptable to target and diminish the role of these books on Amazon.com, or for that matter, anywhere. Is it a short sighted, narrow minded, and thinly veiled attempt at censoring and diminishing literature for reasons of intolerance, hatred, or monetary or political gain, disguised by a policy that appears to be wholesome and unobjectionable. And until this policy is reversed, I will no longer support Amazon.com.

Thank you.

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 03:37 PM

^^^

Thank you! That's really well written, I posted it on my LJ entry about this for people to copypasta elsewhere.

meatpieboy

Korea, D.P.R.

June 2004

APR 12, 2009 03:40 PM

Done, Jace. I sorta can't believe this crap still happens.

MisterSatan

Portland, OR

August 2002

APR 12, 2009 03:50 PM

I removed the LJ link for credibility's sake, but I sent one in as well. What a bunch of bullshit.

CobraR

Charleston, TN

August 2006

APR 12, 2009 03:55 PM

magpieboy said:
Done, Jace. I sorta can't believe this crap still happens.

Discrimination is a global institution. This country as well as many others were founded by it.

aniccata

USA

February 2009

APR 12, 2009 04:37 PM

Done. (Many thanks for the efforts, all.)

Discrimination in any form is unacceptable.

cabaretic

Birmingham, AL

March 2005

APR 12, 2009 04:42 PM

It makes me wonder what would happen if all LGBT content or content written/created by LGBTs was removed.

What would you have left?

A travel edition of Let's Make a Deal?

_margot_

Los Angeles, CA

December 2007

APR 12, 2009 05:02 PM

done, thank you

iParadigm

USA

April 2009

APR 12, 2009 05:08 PM

Oh wow. I can't believe that. Even Am I Blue? I've read that, there's not an "adult" thing about it.

I'm definitely writing a letter.

Lemonkid

Canada

May 2003

APR 12, 2009 05:15 PM

It means that you're covered in nuts. And delicious.

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 05:48 PM

iParadigm said:
Oh wow. I can't believe that. Even Am I Blue? I've read that, there's not an "adult" thing about it.

I'm definitely writing a letter.

I know, right? That one upset me the most. I remember discovering that book when I was coming out, and honestly if I hadn't found it, I would have had a much harder time of it.

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 05:52 PM

The L.A. Times has picked this up. Hooray!

Article here

LimoWreck

I'm lost

October 2007

APR 12, 2009 06:21 PM

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, dude. I'm most definitely writing them.

Hooraydiation

Boston, MA

October 2005

APR 12, 2009 07:51 PM

Searching for the word "gay" brings up tons of sexy gay movies and books. I wonder if that's usual or the result of someone at amazon deciding that homosexuality is the proper term whilst the word gay is strictly for dirty birds.

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 07:59 PM

Hooraydiation said:
Searching for the word "gay" brings up tons of sexy gay movies and books. I wonder if that's usual or the result of someone at amazon deciding that homosexuality is the proper term whilst the word gay is strictly for dirty birds.

You'd still find 'em when searching for the term, but it makes them less likely to return as results, especially near the top of the list. They aren't being eliminated, just deranked. For example, normally if you searched for "homosexuality" you'd be likely to come up with something pretty GLBTQ-friendly.

Now, you get a book about preventing your teen from "becoming" gay: search "homosexuality".

Actually, it's even changed from last time I checked. Now the results are peppered with books about "fixing" homosexuality.

gdarklighter

San Diego, CA

August 2005

APR 12, 2009 08:19 PM

Twitter has been talking about this all day. Amazon really screwed the pooch on this one.

SomethingStupid

North Hollywood, CA

March 2004

APR 13, 2009 01:22 AM

They're saying it's an accident. I dunno. That explanation doesn't really make sense to me, but neither does it make sense to do something which would clearly infuriate such a large segment of their customer base. And the inconsistency is weird - right now, clicking Morgan's link brings up, yes, a ranked book about curing homosexuality as the first result. But the second result is a link to books about homosexuality, the third is a book about how the church needs to change to include homosexuals (ranked), the fourth is a documentary I actually quite liked about homosexuality among fundamentalist communities (ranked), then we have another book about curing gays before we get to that King and the King children's book (also ranked, though Heather Has Two Mommies is not).

Point being, if they were trying to filter search results, they fucked up, and if they weren't, they fucked up. Being that it makes no fiscal sense to suddenly go all anti-gay (or anti-erotica, for that matter), I'm leaning towards the glitch explanation, bizarre though it is. We'll find out soon enough.

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 13, 2009 05:34 AM

SomethingStupid said:
They're saying it's an accident.

Point being, if they were trying to filter search results, they fucked up, and if they weren't, they fucked up. Being that it makes no fiscal sense to suddenly go all anti-gay (or anti-erotica, for that matter), I'm leaning towards the glitch explanation, bizarre though it is. We'll find out soon enough.

The glitch explanation seems to have been debunked, especially seeing as Amazon sent out letters to some of the authors who had their books pulled weeks before this happened. They knew exactly what they were doing, it seems they're just taking the coward's way out and trying to avoid responsibility.

Morgan

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 13, 2009 05:39 AM

Good article about the "glitch" explanation

Also if you search Twitter for the hash tag glitchmyass there's a great feed being updated with new information.

Dear Author does some interesting research, as well.

PointBlank

New York, NY

November 2004

APR 13, 2009 07:47 AM

Amazon donates to a lot of conservative causes, so buy your books from the good people at Powell's, please.

MisterSatan

Portland, OR

August 2002

APR 13, 2009 08:10 AM

PointBlank said:
Amazon donates to a lot of conservative causes, so buy your books from the good people at Powell's, please.

Proof?

Not that I don't believe you, I just can't seem to find any evidence. My Google-fu has failed me.

PointBlank

New York, NY

November 2004

APR 13, 2009 08:11 AM

MisterSatan said:

PointBlank said:
Amazon donates to a lot of conservative causes, so buy your books from the good people at Powell's, please.

Proof?

Not that I don't believe you, I just can't seem to find any evidence. My Google-fu has failed me.

I've found it super-hard to google anything with the word "Amazon" in it.

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Chicago, IL

March 2009

APR 12, 2009 01:56 PM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 01:59 PM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 02:43 PM

San Francisco, CA

February 2004

APR 12, 2009 03:14 PM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 03:37 PM

meatpieboy

Korea, D.P.R.

June 2004

APR 12, 2009 03:40 PM

Portland, OR

August 2002

APR 12, 2009 03:50 PM

Charleston, TN

August 2006

APR 12, 2009 03:55 PM

aniccata

USA

February 2009

APR 12, 2009 04:37 PM

Birmingham, AL

March 2005

APR 12, 2009 04:42 PM

_margot_

Los Angeles, CA

December 2007

APR 12, 2009 05:02 PM

USA

April 2009

APR 12, 2009 05:08 PM

Canada

May 2003

APR 12, 2009 05:15 PM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 05:48 PM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 05:52 PM

I'm lost

October 2007

APR 12, 2009 06:21 PM

Boston, MA

October 2005

APR 12, 2009 07:51 PM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 12, 2009 07:59 PM

San Diego, CA

August 2005

APR 12, 2009 08:19 PM

North Hollywood, CA

March 2004

APR 13, 2009 01:22 AM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 13, 2009 05:34 AM

SUICIDEGIRL

Illinois, USA

APR 13, 2009 05:39 AM

New York, NY

November 2004

APR 13, 2009 07:47 AM

Portland, OR

August 2002

APR 13, 2009 08:10 AM

New York, NY

November 2004

APR 13, 2009 08:11 AM