Of glitches and fails

By now, news of "Amazon Fail" has hit (some of) the mainstream media and should therefore be common knowledge -- particularly if you're enjoying life amongst the Twitterati. But just in case you haven't heard, let me 'splain. Or rather, let me allow some of the other internet scribes to do the explaining.

Here's a link to the situation, as it was when everyone woke up yesterday morning. And here's a link to a bunch of links containing updates. And here's the #amazonfail Twitter stream. Basically, what's going on is that Amazon had stripped a number of titles of their sales rankings. That means that when you search an author, if one of the books being targeted is among his or her oeuvre, that book will be relegated to the bottom of his or her listing, rather than the top where the "most popular" books pop up first. Now, guess which books are being targeted? Well, it seems that some puritanical Cro Magnon has decided that any book containing "adult" material shouldn't show up at the top of Amazon searches. The real kicker, however, is how the concept of "adult" is being defined by Amazon. In particular, any queer-themed literature has been banished to the deepest recesses of the Amazon search engine. Some actual erotica has been swept up in the downdraft, but mostly, this very handy method of censorship seems to be hand-picking all the good literature with some erotic content and leaving some laughably bad drek in it's slug-slimy trail.

By way of example, debauchette puts it right succinctly:

What constitutes adult content? Apparently classics, like Lady Chatterley’s Lover, as well as non-”adult” texts like Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism. Yet Surrender the Booty 3: The Search for More Arse has been left untouched. Maybe they’re just weeding out the good stuff to keep the bar nice and low.

Nice, huh?

Now, there's conflicting information coming out of Amazon itself. Some of the reports are saying that they were, indeed, trying to keep adult materials--by their definition of "adult"-- off the main page. But now they're calling the stripping of the sales rankings a "glitch." Way to unconvincingly backpedal, Amazon. If it's just a "glitch," I might consider forgiving you. Except...

This isn't the first time the dickcheeses over at Amazon have instituted some deeply problematic policy. About a year ago, just in time to coincide with National Poetry Month, Amazon told all the little micro-presses that, if they wanted to sell their books through Amazon, they had to use Amazon's own print-on-demand service. Now, most micro-presses in this country publish poetry-- the stuff of which I read a lot, but not too many other people do. So, I buy a lot of poetry from small presses off of Amazon because, well, it's Amazon. It's a great one-stop shop that prevents me from having to ferret around all over the internet trying to find the work of poets of my own generation. So, yeah, my main Visa card actually gives me rewards in the form of Amazon gift certificates. I am, literally, a card-carrying Amazon devotee. However, the problem with Amazon forcing micro-presses to use their POD service is trifold: a) Amazon's affiliate is the most expensive POD printer on the market, thus making it cost-prohibitive for many (most) cash-strapped, shoe-string-budgeted micro-presses to sell their wares on Amazon, b) Amazon's POD printer produces books of far lower quality than many other cheaper, smaller POD printers, and c) so many people (like me) prefer to get all their small-press-published books from one place that many micro-presses can't afford not to sell their books on Amazon. So, the people behind these little presses, who bring important work to us out of the goodness of their hearts-- knowing full well they'll spend more money on than they'll make through their literary capitalist ventures--are essentially caught with Amazon's fat, bulbous thumbs up their asses. That ain't cool, Amazon. Particularly when you didn't ask permission first.

So, last year, when Amazon enacted this POD policy, the small community of small-press publishers raised a tiny, squeaky amount of internet hell. They called for a boycott that clearly did not cause so much as a mosquito bite on the sweaty skin of this particular Goliath. But now, with this Amazon sales-rank-stripping fiasco, a whole lot more folks are up in arms. The good news is that the angry folks have some organizations who'll probably be willing back up a real boycott. The queer community is nothing if not organized these days-- certainly much moreso than the kinkster community and the sexy-lit nerd community (Ok, we don't actually have a community. It's just us and our flashlights and our vibrators under the covers, alone on Saturday evenings in apartments where there's no room for sofas amidst the bookshelves.).

But ultimately, I don't think a boycott's really going to hurt Amazon too much. They sell too many things besides books at this point. They're simply too big and too good at what they do for large factions of their customer base to be able to resist the the siren call of books discounted 32% and free shipping for purchases over $25. No, boycotting won't get 'em where it hurts.

The only thing that I can imagine have an wounding effect is getting the attention of that other monolith, The Mainstream Media. We're well on our way-- the LA times has been reporting on this mess ever since the first #amazonfail hashtag appeared on Twitter. In the meantime, I'm doing my part by answering anti-censorship-minded blogger-targeted calls-to-arms like this one, and contributing to the googlebomb "Amazon Rank."

I strongly encourage any of my readers who have internet presences of any variety (a Facebook page works as well as anything, guys!) who don't think queer lit should hang its head in shame and hide in corners, who don't think people should be prevented from reading the smut of their choice-- high- or low-brow, and who think censorship is one of the greatest hobgoblins to emerge from the putrid cauldron human civilization, to follow suit and link to the Amazon Rank googlebombing campaign, just like I have.

Please. Amazon does not want bad press. A negative news story on your morning news show of choice will create a de facto boycott that will trump whatever organized queertopia could possibly establish, I promise.

Go get your googlebomb on. I mean it, now. Shoo!

UPDATE: For good measure, I'm gonna go ahead and link the pretty dumb things post on the same topic. Chelsea G., as always, says some wise and witty things, and her post is also a good source of links for more information. Bon appetite!.

I don't support gay marriage either.

What?

Because I'm a girl with some hot girl-on-girl philandering in her past, it may surprise some folks that I don't really have any particular investment in the legality of gay marriage.

But allow me to clarify: I don't support hetero marriage either.

On a personal level, I've got no real love for the institution. Or, at least, not for it's standard, heteronormative, monogamous, government-approved incarnation. The heteros have done a pretty good job of ruining it. And even if they hadn't, companionate cohabitation breeds familiarity and comfort. Familiarity and comfort are anathema to hot eroticism. That's not just an opinion-- that just the way biology works. Now, I happen to like hot eroticism and tend to value it above the safety of the marital bed. I'm not saying that my preference is the only valid one, by any means-- or even that I'll still hold it 5 years from now, one year from now, 2 days from now--but I do so love the riskiness of sex when affections are still at stake.

Beyond that, I am not particularly predisposed to enter into an agreement wherein I submit to someone else's constant surveillance, and in turn, am supposed to act as the Fidelity Police for that other person. Am I immune to jealousy? Well, no. But I recognize that my jealousies stem from my own insecurities and have little to do with how much my partner(s) love me. So, would it be the end of the world if my partners had sex with other people? No. Would it spell the end of the relationship if I had sex with someone other than my primary partner? I hope it wouldn't. Admittedly, espousing a preference for nonmonogamy is scary. A surprising number of boys turn tail and run when I confess that I don't think monogamy is a necessary ingredient in the recipe for a happy relationship. As a result, standing by that belief is proving to be something of a risk unto itself.

But my inclination toward polyamory isn't the reason I'm anti-marriage.

When I was busy being a big ol' homo, Michelle, my ex, wanted to "marry" me. Since we broke up, she went on to "marry" someone else. Throughout our 5 years together, I was reluctant to "marry" her for a whole bunch of reasons. Not the least of which is that most days, I didn't trust myself to not run after the first moving object with a cock who crossed my path. And the one after that. And the one after that. In essence, there were real, relationship-specific reasons I didn't want to "marry" her.

But more than those reasons, I feel like that whole "commitment ceremony" shebang is a consolation prize. Commitments between gay people are not recognized by their community in the same way that hetero marriages are. The government does not grant the same privileges upon those who happen to fall in love with those of their same gender. No property rights. No power of attorney. No tax breaks. No hospital visits. None of the financial gain that is to be had via the civil institution of marriage. How cute that the gays are still allowed to throw parties, though, right? Yay. Parties make it all better. Except they don't. So, in this way, our government has reduced the romantic idea of marrying for love to nothing more than a financial arrangement.

The thing that's always mystified me about the whole marriage-is-sacred crowd is how they don't recognize that denying a portion of the population access to benefits associated with marriage actually cheapens the thing they claim to hold so dear. Seriously. That's what they're doing. If you believe that marriage should be between two people who love each other, who the fuck cares what happens to the house when one member of the couple dies? Why is it so un-sacred to let the surviving lover continue to live in said house? Or reap the profits if it sells? The important thing in a marriage is L-U-V. Right? Right??

So, while in a homo relationship, I resented the hell out of the fact that I couldn't file my taxes jointly with Michelle. I was in love with her. Marriage-proponents claim to prize love above all. Why was my love for her less worthy of tax rebates than it might have been if I'd fallen in love with someone with a dick?

Every time Michelle would bring up the marriage thing, I'd get so fired up that I quickly found myself unable to think about "marrying" her without "finger-quoting." Any "marriage" we had would have been a sham because it wouldn't ever be legally recognized. And I didn't want to participate any anything that was less than authentic. Poor thing-- eventually, she did drop it.

But that's still not the reason I'm anti-marriage.

The fact of the matter is that marriage is a rite of the church. It has been since its inception. In its history, marriage is nothing if not a manifestation of religion... a manifestation of religion that happens to have been co-opted by the state.

I don't participate in any particular religion. True enough, I've cobbled together my ethical center from a number of sources-- yogic philosophy, assorted pagan rituals, some Zen thinking, and yes, even basic Judeo-Christian humanist tenets. But I do not subscribe to any one set of rules as might be set forth by any one particular religious organization. And as that's the case, I don't give a flying fuck how the church wants to define marriage. They could say that marriage consists of a man's commitment to his own personal toenail hygiene and I'd be fine with that. It doesn't affect me, so why would I have a opinion?

I do, however, participate in my civilization. The government of my civilization has established an institution that they, too, call marriage-- and that institution is exclusionary of a certain subset of the population. And any legal institution that is exclusionary of a certain subset of the population creates, by its very nature, a second class of citizens. And creating a second class of citizens is nothing if not unconstitutional.

The government has given itself a stake in marriage, claiming that stable couplehood promotes stability in the civilization. Personally, I think that's a dubious claim. We've got sky-high divorce rates. We've got people marrying multiple times in a lifetime. And for a culture that claims to hold monogamy in high regard, we've got an awful lot of folks fucking around outside their primary relationships (some statistics say nonmonogamy affects upwards of 80% of American couples). Now, nonmonogamy doesn't have to spell the end of the relationship, but because so many couples sink into the monogamous model of relationships without questioning how well it functions in a practical world, such dalliances are often equated with betrayal. My point here is that interpersonal relationships don't often follow rules. And they're idiosyncratic. ... and the government wants to regulate that kinda circus...because... why?

But, ok, the reality is that government does regulate interpersonal relationships for the purpose of social stability. Though I think that's a cock-eyed project, it's a fact of American life with which I must contend. Fine. I'll deal.

As many problems as I personally have with the notion of marriage, I do not think that the problem is marriage itself. Now, I know this isn't a new stance, or even a novel opinion, but honestly-- why don't we just let the fucking churches have their goddamn word? Our constitution dictates that we observe a separation of church and state. That said, it makes sense to me that the church thinks they have some stake in this issue when we use the same word for a civil union as we do for a religious union, even though, by the doctrine of separation of church and state, it shouldn't.

So, why don't we just make up a new term for the civil unions-- all civil unions: homo, hetero, or otherwise... and then grant their availability to all citizens?

The argument for or against gay marriage is and always has been a semantics argument. I don't see why we don't just let the religions win that argument and protect their vocabulary. However, in its refusal to see this issue as the semantics debate that it is, our government is refusing to grant equal rights to all its citizens. And that's crap.

On Tuesday, state constitutional bans will be on the ballots in California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas. This damn thing's already been voted down once in Arizona, but apparently, it's been tweaked and is now back on the ballot. And this, from the New York Times:

Several gay friends and wealthy gay donors to Senator Barack Obama have asked him over the years why, as a matter of logic and fairness, he opposes same-sex marriage even though he has condemned old miscegenation laws that would have barred his black father from marrying his white mother.

The difference, Mr. Obama has told them, is religion.

As a Christian — he is a member of the United Church of Christ — Mr. Obama believes that marriage is a sacred union, a blessing from God, and one that is intended for a man and a woman exclusively, according to these supporters and Obama campaign advisers. While he does not favor laws that ban same-sex marriage, and has said he is “open to the possibility” that his views may be “misguided,” he does not support it and is not inclined to fight for it, his advisers say.

Even my man Obama is still hung up on the word "marriage." And he makes no bones about the fact that his is a religion-generated hang-up.

But you know what? You're not allowed to govern on the basis of our religious beliefs, particularly when those beliefs disadvantage portions of one's constituency. Obama does oppose the constitutional bans on "gay marriage" -- which is a good thing. Because if these silly and, frankly, discriminatory bans pass, it'll get a lot harder to make the argument that our civil codes are actually egalitarian in spirit and law. But for my life, I do not see why we can't just remove the word "marriage" from every civil contract and call it a day. It's such an easy solution.

So, I say, let the church continue to marry people who are not me. Let the government, if it must meddle intimate levels of social ordering, grant its civil unions to any takers. I'm still not sure I'll ever be one of those takers. But you never know.