Novel by Trans Woman author features death of JK Rowling, removal of womb from Black Woman

But if we say it's okay to ban books we don't like, we have to say it's okay to ban books we DO like. And if we say it's okay to ban books, we're going to be fucked. Because the books that'll get banned will be the ones by Helen Joyce or Julie Bindel or whichever other woman is saying the 'wrong' thing. Even JKR could have her books banned if we are banning books.

I didn’t say I thought it was okay to ban books I ‘don’t like.’ I said I think it’s acceptable to refuse to publish books/have books banned when they feature and glorify the murder and rape of real life people (one of whom is a child murder victim in real life).

I don’t think Rowling, Joyce, or Bindel have ever done that.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10737117/Trans-authors-book-kills-JK-Rowling-Backlash-Harry-Potter-writers-fictional-death.html

'In the book, a mechanic who doesn’t have much luck with women is stunned to see Johansson stride into his garage. Turns out she’s not actually Johansson -- she’s a look-alike model. She laments being seen as a sex object, has two affairs, several adventures and comes to an unfortunate end.

'I wrote a real love story and a homage to feminine beauty'

'A French judge has agreed with Johansson (the real one) that the book is defamatory. He dismissed a second claim that it fraudulently exploited her image, celebrity and name.'

Could be defamation. And that can work internationally - Scarlett Johansson successfully sued a French writer.

www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-scarlett-johansson-wins-case-against-bestselling-french-novelist-20140707-story.html

It's published by Nightfire, which seems to be Tor's Horror imprint.

Tor used to publish some of my favourite authors. I hope that's no longer the case.

I suspect all they have to do is say to a legal challenge is that it's fiction. You can commit basically any crime in a book.

I doubt JK would sue or what the grounds would be. Maybe harrassment? That's the only angle I could see being potentially productive? I'm sure she has excellent lawyers but I think she picks her battles very carefully.

Not available at Smiths or Waterstones. Just Amazon?

Oh yes! I had forgotten that such jobs exist. Vile misogyny is just fine, it seems.

I think it’s kind of a grey line. I mean American Psycho features a passage where the protagonist chats to Tom Cruise - while he doesn’t murder Tom Cruise there’s an obvious and rather odd parallel drawn between the two characters and I can’t imagine it’s something an actor like Cruise would have wanted to be associated with. But that was allowed. I think basically the person unhappy with their representation would need to come forward and complain/take legal action.

Is there a legal restriction there? I did wonder.

Personally I think the whole thing crosses many, many lines. But I wonder if a publisher would put this out if it broke the law. Tor is a reputable publisher (or used to be, anyway) so you'd think they'd have lawyers. But who the fuck knows these days.

I don't think it's okay and no, I'd probably be devastated if it were me.

But if we say it's okay to ban books we don't like, we have to say it's okay to ban books we DO like. And if we say it's okay to ban books, we're going to be fucked. Because the books that'll get banned will be the ones by Helen Joyce or Julie Bindel or whichever other woman is saying the 'wrong' thing. Even JKR could have her books banned if we are banning books.

So it's about the principle. I'm very much NOT saying I think this is a good book or that the story is okay.

There's maybe a legal thing here, about how you can represent living people in fiction? IANAL but I wonder if there is something there. Maybe not - I think you can basically do what you want in fiction.

So you’d be ok with someone’s free expression if it was you? Say someone you’ve worked with (who you know dislikes you) wrote a novel where a major plot point was you being viciously murdered. You’d think that’s ok because it’s the authors right to self expression? Or perhaps if you were a relative of one of the two women and their little boy who were murdered, used as a funny plot point in this book in a ‘haha they got what they deserved fashion.’ You’d think well that’s the author’s self expression.

Self expression is important but not when it’s used to justify the right to express your sexual fantasies of violently murdering and raping real life people.

For sure. The one exception is where someone names a real person - as this author has done - especially when that's talking about them dying violently. That's crossing a line.

Thanks for this. There are a couple of low star reviews that go into detail about the story, plot and how these are very loose. Very interesting. The book does seem to be for a very 'niche' audience.

I don't agree with banning books, on principle. I don't want any authors to be cancelled or sacked. It is offensive to me, yes, but anyone can claim offence and that isn't - and shouldn't be - good enough reason to curtail anyone's right to free expression.

I also think that this book looks so unremittingly bleak, misogynist and rapey that it will do a good job of exposing this ideology to more people.

nepeta Butler Youth! 😂😂😂😂

I'm in two minds whether to report it to Amazon or not. Sunlight and all that...

Amazon’s content guidelines for the UK (for books) heavily suggest that they ought to withdraw it from sale. “Just” the glorification of rape being an incontestable feature is enough.

Imagine the absolute furore about hate speech there would be if someone had written about women sexually assaulting & murdering trans women. And rightly so: nobody should write violent filth like this. Or rather, their compulsion to do so is something they need to address in therapy. Publishing houses have no business being involved.

Ah yes, women, adults of the sex who make up 98% of the victims of trafficking & sex slavery. The ones who are more likely to be the victims of sexual assault than men; & who are vastly less likely than men - & trans women* - to commit sexual assault. Women who commit these kinds of crimes are so vanishingly rare that the people who jump up & down, pointing at them & demanding we take notice of how “women do it too!” don’t seem to have any answer (beyond shouting louder) as to how that tiny handful in any way compare to the seemingly endless procession of male persons who commit all sorts of sexual offences (including paedophilia & zoophilia) & violent offences (in which I include murder & manslaughter).

You could almost think it was a kind of false flag operation, because the content of this book throws huge amounts of sunlight onto people who don’t so much Just Want To Pee In Peace as Just Want To Take The Piss - & are very successfully doing so. The contents of that waste of perfectly good trees are what hatred looks like.

• The issue here is that stats are in fact being skewed to close that gap courtesy of the practice of recording offences by self-declared “gender identity” (a concept with no legal standing in the UK) rather than by sex.

If you have Amazon Prime, you can cancel your account and there are free text boxes to explain why you're doing so.

I agree, also, though, that this book is possibly a useful thing to point to for everyone who keeps telling us we need to 'be kind'.

So perhaps once again it's something we should be sharing widely.

No, The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien

Butler Youth! 😂😂😂😂

TheInebriati (love your handle)
''And today's "gender critical" feminists, as gender theorist Judith Butler has written, are buying into fascism.''
I look forwards to Judith Butler or any of her acolytes actually providing evidence for that claim.

Someone somewhere in social media called the gender identity ideologists the 'Butler Youth'.

www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201995150

Here is the US guidelines - trying to find the UK ones.

Needs to be reported on Amazon. There's guidelines somewhere on content that glorifies rape. The publisher needs to be written to as well.

LittleWhingingWoman from Twitter yesterday: "As the brilliant janeclarejones said, 'People who are "affirmed" by experiences that women find frightening and dehumanising do not have the same political interests as women.' "