There are serious arguments to be made regarding age of consent laws, not the least of which is what is an appropriate age of consent. Entire countries have much lower ages of consent than those found in the US. (Spain, 13; France, 15; UK, 16). So to say that sex between an adult and a person under the age of 17 is illegal, end of discussion, doesn’t say very much. Moreover, to insist that there can be no discussion of something because the law says it’s illegal is a rather silly argument. Oral sex between consenting adults would still be illegal if that were the case.

The people who want Amazon to take down any book about pedophilia which fails to hew to a certain line of thinking plainly fear rational debate. This is why they freely lie about these books (and about these issues) and engage in ad hominem attack instead of challenging the arguments and claims with which they disagree.

The people who are behind this amazon boycott are an interesting bunch. A large number of them are evangelical far right-wingers, white supremacists, Nazis and nuts. The mainstream media are their dupes — as now is Amazon. If people wonder why those who are so upset about Greaves’ e-text aren’t also upset about books that advocate genocide (which, after all, includes killing children, not just having sex with them), the answer lies in the politics of their bedfellows.

I don’t think Greaves’ text had anything useful to add to the topic of either pedophilia or adult-child sexual contacts (which are two separate subjects). On the other hand, people who tell hysterical lies about non-existent publications like “the Paedophiles Periodical” or claim that any paedophile publication provides “how to” instructions for “rape and escape” (see commentary by “Rachel” above) also have nothing to add. They should be treated as extremists and liars — and ignored, especially when it comes to book bans.

No one should get me wrong. Amazon has the “right” to de-list any and every book. But it should develop consistent policies and not give in to public hysteria and lies. Once it does, it’s a slippery slope. The people behind the boycott have a list of books. They’ll continue to try to get them down, even if it’s one at a time. Which one will be next?

“Dropbox is making the transition back to school easy by giving everyone with an .edu email address double the credit for referrals. That’s 500MB per friend you invite! That goes for everyone you’ve already referred too.”

Nothing about doubling your total storage.