So, apparently whilst I was asleep the other night, some brilliant Feminist activists managed to get Amazon to withdraw a book which advocates child rape through that lovely construction of "sex tourism". You know, that thing which is actually illegal in the UK because it's travelling for the express purpose of rape. Now, I don't really care whether or not Amazon apologises for this [although, they'd have to be pretty freaking stupid not to]. Frankly, I'm disgusted they allowed it to be put for sale in the first place. There is no way an organisation as large as Amazon does not have an approval policy for which products they do or do not sell and its Amazon's approval policies which piss me off.
My lovely friend Frothy Dragon wrote this several days ago:
Through providing such a product, Amazon has not only promoted the Sex Tourism trade, but it has told rapists of children where they could potentially escape charges for child sex offences. Amazon has, in one publication, minimised child sex abuse, and normalised it, implying that not only is it legal in some countries, but “Hey! Other men are doing it too, y’know!”
I further call on all relevant agencies, INCLUDING AMAZON, to work together to prosecute the people who have purchased, produced and distributed this publication. As outlined by the Foreign And Commonwealth Office, British citizens and residents can be prosecuted for having sex with a child whilst out of the country. Tourism is no excuse to allow the rape of children.I agree with every word. Amazon is minimising and legitimising the rape of children with the sale of these products. We should be pushing for more prosecutions of men, and it is always men, who travel for the express purpose of raping children and vulnerable women. It's not like we need to invent a new law for this. It's already illegal in the UK to travel for the express purposes of sex tourism.
But, this isn't just about prosecuting individual men. We need a full cultural change in order to protect vulnerable children and women. That requires multi-national corporations like Amazon taking responsibility for the products that they sell. It doesn't matter whether or not the information in the book was freely available on the internet [and Wikipedia might want to start deleting that information too]. Amazon should have an approval policy in place which expressly prohibits this kind of material from being sold by them. The fact that they put profit before any moral or ethical obligation [like, say, actually paying taxes] will only change if people start boycotting them. And, telling Amazon they are boycotting because of Amazon's refusal to deal properly with products which advocate sexualised violence.
