To think that Amazon should not be selling this book!!! <warning - upsetting content>

[LEMisafucker]

www.amazon.co.uk/To-Train-Up-Child-children/dp/1892112000?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

I don't have the words - this is actually a thread about a thread, but i thnk this needs more attention so posting here. There have been convictions for murder in the states by folk following this book. Yet it is still published

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1915841-Has-the-world-gone-completely-mad

Link to original thread

[flatpackhamster]

IThoughtThat

Yup, I have read sections of The Death of Venus and that's why I can categorically say the book offends me very much. It isn't just one of the stories in the book that is offensive it is several of them. Your suggestion that I am offended in the manner of bearded men with effigies of Salman Rushdie Is ignorant, patronising and highly offensive.

Could you clarify for us the difference between your stance, which is a moral one outraged at the depiction of sexual acts in fiction, and the stance of those who wanted to kill Salman Rushdie, who were morally outraged at the depiction of sexual acts in fiction?

[flatpackhamster]

IThoughtThat Sun 08-Dec-13 20:11:29

You are still avoiding my question Flatpack. At least Friday was honest in saying that she agreed that fictional books about children being raped were acceptable.

The context of my reply should have given you your answer. I agree with Friday. I would not wield the banhammer for this any more than I would for anything else which I find dreadful.

... I can answer your question quite easily. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where free speech was banned. However, there are no circumstances in the world where I could find it acceptable to sell a book describing brutal child rape, that is written so that the readers can get aroused by the descriptions in the book.

So you are in favour of free speech, right up to the point where you aren't.

I think it's DISGUSTING and I bet the majority of UK citizens would think the same.

What's your stance on homosexuality? Because a hefty chunk of UK citizens would state their disgust at it. Would you like any depiction of homosexuality banned? After all, it's TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN.

I'm trying to make clear to you the consequences of applying arbitrary moral judgements to liberty. What happens when someone clamps down on your freedom of expression TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN?

[IThoughtThat]

Yup, I have read sections of The Death of Venus and that's why I can categorically say the book offends me very much. It isn't just one of the stories in the book that is offensive it is several of them. Your suggestion that I am offended in the manner of bearded men with effigies of Salman Rushdie Is ignorant, patronising and highly offensive.

You think it's OK to publish books describing child porn for weirdos to perve over and I don't. There is nothing more to discuss.

[friday16]

Yes, I am in favour of the obscene publications Act.

Odd, therefore, that the original object of your ire (one short story in a minor work by Anais Nin) hasn't awakened the interest of the Crown Prosecution Service in the near-forty years since it was published. If your threshold for outrage is the OPA, then calm yourself, because there is no way on earth that a prosecution under the OPA would, or could, be brought against any of the books that are exciting outrage on this thread. There's more chance of Fifty Shades of Grey being prosecuted. You can read the charging guidelines here.

I think 99.9999999 % of publications end up being effectively self censored by publishers, distributes or by the market itself.

Or circulates on the Internet, well away from prying eyes. Worrying about what's sold by overground publishers on public websites does seem all rather 20th century.

Do you seriously think that someone with an interest in child erotica would be purchasing near-unreadable Penguin Classics by minor mid-20th century writers? Have you actually read Delta of Venus, or are you just being outraged at a second remove, in the manner of bearded men with effigies of Salman Rushdie? "Instead of answering her as soon as he saw her hair grow electric, her face more vivid, her eyes like lightning, her body restless and jerky like a racehorse’s, he retired behind this wall of objective understanding, this gentle testing and acceptance of her, just as one watches an animal in the zoo and smiles at his antics, but is not drawn into this mood. It was this which left Lilith in a state of isolation - indeed, like a wild animal in an absolute desert." At least Nabokov could write.

[IThoughtThat]

Yes, I am in favour of the obscene publications Act.

No, I wouldn't want a government department to pre approve books. That would be ridiculous and unnecessary. I think 99.9999999 % of publications end up being effectively self censored by publishers, distributes or by the market itself.

[friday16]

I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where free speech was banned.

But. There's always a but.

Free speech isn't worth anything if it's only the speech that no-one wants banned. Free speech is only right worth having when it's about things people want to see banned.

So since you're into the "yes or no" questions: do you think that there should be a government function which approves books for sale?

[IThoughtThat]

You are still avoiding my question Flatpack At least Friday was honest in saying that she agreed that fictional books about children being raped were acceptable.

... I can answer your question quite easily. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where free speech was banned. However, there are no circumstances in the world where I could find it acceptable to sell a book describing brutal child rape, that is written so that the readers can get aroused by the descriptions in the book. I think it's DISGUSTING and I bet the majority of UK citizens would think the same.

[friday16]

Imagine, for example, that we end up with a minority Islamist government in this country in coalition with Labour (not a remote prospect).

it doesn't even need that. Roy Hattersley, a man who made it his mission to be wrong about everything he ever considered, seriously proposed that a lot of offence could be spared if The Satanic Verses were made available only in hardback, so as to keep it out of the hands of people who might be influenced by it. But Labour in general were very receptive to the idea of banning books because a lot of noisy people were threatening to blow shit up. I was impressed that so many people who had English as a second or third language had troubled themselves to read a Booker Prize winning author's not very good novel and reach a considered opinion, and was cheered that perhaps next year they might read the whole shortlist, but perhaps I was being naive.

It's hardly a new idea. Lady Chatterley's Lover had circulated in various private editions, and so long as it was kept out of the hands of, oh, what's the phrase, one's wife and servants, that was OK. It was widespread publication in 1960 that caused the problem. The list of books that have been banned in English speaking democracies over the last 100 years is like a canonical list of stuff that anyone who pretends to have an education should have read, and the banning of Ulysses in the UK up until the 1930s was particularly insane. Lady Chatterley's Lover is arguably over-rated, as it isn't even Lawrence's best work and time has not been kind to any Lawrence anyway, but Ulysses looks better and better as every day goes by. Banned? For our protection? FFS.

[flatpackhamster]

IThoughtThat

FlatPackHampster Yes, of course I believe the state should outlaw unacceptable material. Thankfully, it already does this based on what is normally considered to be acceptable or not. I don't give a shiny shit about the civil liberties of someone who wants to get off on descriptions of children being brutally raped regardless of whether those descriptions are fictional or not.

So, FlatPack do you think it is ok to sell books that describe children being raped for the sexual pleasure of the readers?

Whenever someone asks me a question like this, I ask them to consider the following. Imagine that the levers of censorship aren't in the hands of someone you agree with but someone who hates you. Imagine, for example, that we end up with a minority Islamist government in this country in coalition with Labour (not a remote prospect).

Would you welcome their hands on the ban-button? Would you like them limiting (for the protection of women and children, of course, it's ALWAYS to make you safer) what you can read or view?

[friday16]

The book has led to the death of children, though. Why is that OK?

And, of course, the book hasn't led to anything: it's an inanimate object, sat on your bookshelf. What's killed children are people. And those people should go to jail. Just as we should not accept alcohol as an excuse for violence, accepting a book as an excuse for child abuse is placing the blame in entirely the wrong place.

The adoptive parents in the Washington State case were, quite correctly, convicted. She got 37 years, and is likely to serve all of them (and as she is 42, is highly likely to die behind bars) and he got 28 years (ditto, although he might be alive by the end of his sentence). Although as a good liberal I should restrain this thought, as they have been convicted of child killing their time behind bars is likely to be particularly unpleasant, and their self-pitying sobs in the courtroom don't alter that. They committed the crime, and they are justly being punished for it.

They didn't, as it happens, advance "the book made me do it" as a defence or a mitigation, but it would have been rejected in the US just as it would be rejected here.

[friday16]

Thankfully, it already does this based on what is normally considered to be acceptable or not.

Really? When was the last successful prosecution of textual material under the Obscene Publications Act? The Girls Scream Aloud case was dropped by the CPS. The Oz trial was more than forty years ago and eventually failed. The Chatterley Trial was before most people posting here were born. Could you outline the books that are currently banned, the measures that are used to ban them, and what happens to people who transgress?

I don't give a shiny shit about the civil liberties of someone who wants to get off on descriptions of children being brutally raped regardless of whether those descriptions are fictional or not.

Thought crime, in other words.

[friday16]

I am fine with less freedom if it means fewer children die.

In which case, we should remove children from all mothers with mental illness, from all mothers with family incomes under about 20 grand a year and, particularly, from all women who are living with men who are not the child's biological father. All three categories are correlated with elevated rates of death and associated morbidity. And far, far more children's lives would be saved by this than making a laughing stock of the UK by banning novels written in the 1940s which there is no evidence of any child abuser ever taking inspiration from.

[IThoughtThat]

Friday. FairPlay for the honest answer.


FlatPackHampster Yes, of course I believe the state should outlaw unacceptable material. . Thankfully, it already does this based on what is normally considered to be acceptable or not. I don't give a shiny shit about the civil liberties of someone who wants to get off on descriptions of children being brutally raped regardless of whether those descriptions are fictional or not.

So, FlatPack do you think it is ok to sell books that describe children being raped for the sexual pleasure of the readers?

[friday16]

The book has led to the death of children, though. Why is that OK?

The Bible. Discuss.

[LittleBabyPigsus]

Also, seriously, I am fine with censorship if it means fewer children die. I am fine with less freedom if it means fewer children die. Because fewer children dying is more important than someone's right to read a book about beating children with plumbing tubing. That is a freedom I don't want people to have.

[LittleBabyPigsus]

The book has led to the death of children, though. Why is that OK?

[flatpackhamster]

IThoughtThat

So Friday. Do you think it is ok to allow erotic books to be sold if they are about children being raped.

I'd like to turn that around. Do you think it's the job of the state to decide what material people should be allowed to read or view? Is the state's job to act as moral arbiter? If so, whose morality is it applying?

[friday16]

What they advocate is ILLEGAL.

So the people that followed its advice would be committing a crime.

[friday16]

So Friday. Do you think it is ok to allow erotic books to be sold if they are about children being raped.

Yes.

[IThoughtThat]

So Friday. Do you think it is ok to allow erotic books to be sold if they are about children being raped. Books that are written with the intention of the readers getting off over children being brutalised . A straight Yes or no would be great

I really don't think it is .

[LittleBabyPigsus]

freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20122

Info on the Pearls/TTUAC here.

[LittleBabyPigsus]

I have read sections of the book (couldn't read more as it made me feel so sick). Children have actually died in the US because their parents followed its advice. The Pearls (the authors) make $$$$$ from their parenting advice books and blog. They advise parents to punish babies by hitting with plastic plumbing tubing, toddlers and up get punished by hitting with a wooden switch. They also advocate removing food to punish children. What they advocate is ILLEGAL.

I don't see why asking Amazon to stop selling a book that's led to the death of children is comparable with Hitler's book burning.

I am a Christian but still find TTUAC utterly abhorrent.

[friday16]

You cannot have double standards and ban child abuse images but not do anything about fiction that incites people to sexualise and molest children.

It isn't double standards. Child pornography involves abusing real children. Writing fiction doesn't. One argument is about stopping child abuse that is an inherent part of the production process. The other is a rather more nebulous argument about banning things which may incite bad people to do bad things. Pretty well every argument about censorship which is dressed up in "incitement" is a cover for "it's yucky and I don't like it, so it should be banned".

The claim that people who were not already a menace to children will become child abusers just because of a book is denying them moral agency. Ironically, the more the claim is made that books/films/etc make people commit crimes, the easier it becomes for criminals to claim they were victims of books/films/etc. "It was the book that made me do it" is a shockingly amoral defence, but one given currency by the very people who claim to be "protecting children".

There are lots of books that contain stuff I don't like. Some of it is potentially inciting (the protocols, Mein Kampf, assorted holocaust denial, the usual racist fuckwittery). I wouldn't ban a word of it. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

[HomeIsWhereTheGinIs]

You can't ban books because you disagree with what they say. And saying they should be banned because people might act on what they read us helping to establish excuses used by sick bastards in court. "The book made me do it". If you don't agree, vote with your feet and don't buy it.

[flatpackhamster]

And his books banned, natch.