Until Thursday morning, the frankly-titled, self-published e-book The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct was available for purchase on Amazon.com, and late Friday the retailer also pulled a book titled Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers. The books' removal by Amazon—despite the company's initially defending their availability on its site, calling removal "censorship"—was a direct response to consumer outrage and media controversy.
Notably, Amazon still sells Loving Boys: Volume II (and used copies of Volume I, which is apparently out-of-print) by the late Dutch professor and convicted pedophile Edward Brongersma.
Although Amazon has declined to comment on the pedophilic books or their (temporary? permanent? conditional?) removal from the site this week, Amazon did publicly respond to an outcry against the sale of Understanding Loved Boys in 2002. Then, Amazon spokesperson Patricia Smith cited the First Amendment and said, "We believe that providing open access to written speech, no matter how controversial or ugly, is one of the most important things we do. And we will continue to make controversial works available in the U.S. and every where else, except where they are specifically prohibited by law."
Right on.
But back to the matter at hand: Should these books be banned from Amazon's stock, and should the two books be lumped into the same, perhaps ban-able category?
More information on the books, their authors and their content after the cut.