Book that tells you where is it legal to have sex with children

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Consent-Tourists-Guide-ebook/dp/B005S18YGS/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1343945440&sr=8-7

Hi Amazon are selling a book that tells you what counties you can visit and legally have sex with children. I am totally disgusted at this.

Is it the responsibility or amazon or the responsibility of the country and government to have laws to protect children?

Solid - no, I'm not arguing that any particular national, cultural or econominc group is solely responsible for raping children. However, it's well known that rich Westerners take advantage of people in desperately poor countries and one of the ways in which they do this is by raping children in those countries. It seems that the publication that this thread is about was specifically designed to help enable sex tourists to rape children and avoid prosecution.
And no, I'm not arguing that under no circumstances should Anglohone Westerners (or anyone else) 'interfere' with other countries' laws. That said, I do have a problem with imperialist 'civilising' attitudes from people who have little understand of the culture, traditions, historical and economic backgrounds, and legal systems of the countries that these outside 'reformers' are trying to change. (And I believe that Anglophone Westerners have shown fine form for doing this for several centuries now, often with horrific consequences.)
An absence of sex laws similar to those of e.g. the UK - or an absence of a legally defined 'age of consent' - is not necessarily indicative of 'barbaric customs' because an absence of a legally prescribed 'age of consent' isn't an automatic indicator of a culture where child rape is accepted or tolerated.
Your argument that campaigns that insist that other jurisdictions with cultural and legal landscapes very different from one's own should imitate one's own country's laws in order to protect those children from rape by sex tourists therefore seems quite simplistic.
You seem to be suggesting that Western sex tourists are raping children only in countries where there's already a 'custom' of sexually abusing children. This isn't the case. Sex tourists aren't taking advantage of 'barbaric customs', in the main, they're taking advantage of desperate poverty. To insist that the best way to address this is by insisting that these countries try and protect their chidren by imitating Western sex/child protection laws seems naive, short-sighted and arrogant.

SQ - I don't think anyone's said increasong ages of consent is a 'liberal value', but maybe I've missed something in this thread...
Eclectic - I'm not sure which country your referring to, but if Amazon is answerable to English state law (and I believe that to some extent it probably is), then that almost certainly imposes on it some responsibility WRT the material that it publishes/exhibits/sells.

There are a fair few countries where it is the custom for young girls to be forcibly married off to older men. That in itself is a bigger cause for concern than some nut publishing an ebook of facts.

Yes, Solid - but what has that got to do with this thread?

Solid, it wasn't being promoted as facts.

It was being promoted as endorsement of breaching our own country's laws. The blurb read as if it was promoting the idea of child sex tourism. Are you really comfortable with that? Really? I'd re-evaluate your feminist credentials if you are...

Just wanted to say this thread has really given me a lot to think about, challenging my own views on censorship and now I want to find a way to learn how many Australian 'child sex tourists' there are.

Genuine question about free speech as I find the concept confusing. At what point does free speech become hate speech? Where is the line drawn between just airing vulgar views and actually being considered dangerous under law?

I struggle with the whole 'their country, their rules' thing. While I certainly agree we had no right to get involved in Vietnam, I think we had no right to leave Rwanda to struggle alone IYSWIM?

Please be gentle I genuinely am trying to learn.

"Genuine question about free speech as I find the concept confusing. At what point does free speech become hate speech? Where is the line drawn between just airing vulgar views and actually being considered dangerous under law?"

Inciting violence, e.g. 'I don't like group X for reason A' vs 'The sooner we start killing Group X the better'.

"I struggle with the whole 'their country, their rules' thing. While I certainly agree we had no right to get involved in Vietnam, I think we had no right to leave Rwanda to struggle alone IYSWIM?"

Humanitarian aid for countries suffering from 'an act of God' is one thing, assuming it'll be used appropriately. Meddling with people who create their own disasters, unless that disaster threatens you in some way, is a different matter. I wouldn't send my child to die in someone else's country just because they've decided to defecate in it.

Thanks for the explanation Helxi. So if you're inciting violence, that's where the line is drawn? (I know I'm talking very black and white here)

I'd say endorsing violence would fall under hate speech, as well, even if not as per an enticement.

The difficulty with encouraging tighter censorship is that the more things that are banned for well-intentioned reasons (hate speech etc) the more the laws are used by those whose intentions are not good at all.

The arguments against this book are presumably that it incites people to rape and assault children. Thing is, most people do not want to rape children, and those that do are aware, or can easily find out without this particular book the best destinatios for sex tourism: such information is readily available. Someone who is, like the majority of people, horrified by the idea of sex tourism and raping children is not going to change his/her view just because of some badly-written ebook. However, trying to force Amazon into adapting their policies so that books can be banned if enough people complain about a particular book is a really bad, stupid idea, because what it will lead to in short order is arseholes trying to get important and useful books banned on the grounds that said books offend their nasty, narrow mind and/or insult their imaginary friends.

It is interesting that there is no common consensus in Europe, and that the legal age in Spain is only 13.
I would have expected otherwise.

SGB

Are you really comfortable with Amazon promoting rape culture? Really

If a book full of horrific images of this nature were being sold, the fact that "you can find that stuff online anyway" would be irrelevant. Of course this book shouldn't be sold, AMazon has to take at least some ownership of what it's selling.

Solid - It's more likely that Amazon's removal of this book was because of existing law, so doesn't reflect increased or tighter censnorship.
Agreed, it's appalling when commercial/voluntary 'censorship' takes place in response to a 'moral majority' (or vocal minority) panic. As far as I can see, noone posting on this thread had tried to make that happen here.

This book didn't violate any existing laws at all. It's a summary of international legislation, albeit one in a very creepy wrapper.

They took it down to avoid the publicity, or to give them the benefit of the doubt, because it was brought to their attention and they didn't want to be party to that sort of thing.

The book promoted the violation of an existing law.

Hmmm OK

So if a book with a creepy title and foreward explained how to get work caring for preschoolers in the UK - OK?

If a book with a creepy title and foreward listed the addresses of care homes for vulnerable children exist in the UK with times that they are allowed out on their own and where they like to go - OK?

I could go on (and on!)

I think not OK.
I think the book in the OP is not OK.

What do others think?

Incidentally it is illegal to publish some things.

To do with drugs and bombs, mainly.

No, it didn't. As far as anyone can tell, all it did was give a list of countries and the respective age of consent. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.

The packaging and blurb gave off a creepy 'helping "red-blooded travellers" stay on the "right side of the law"' vibe, which, if given the benefit of the doubt, could merely mean that they want you to make sure that the age of consent isn't 21 if you go home with an 19 year old. I think you'd have to be pretty naive to believe that was the real intention, but that doesn't stop it being our inference/speculation, rather than anything inherently wrong with the book itself.

No, eccles. It implied that you could get away with having sex with minors in certain countries (they wouldn't have been minors by that country's laws, but by ours) This would have been a violation of laws outlined here The wording in the blurb endorsed breaching this law.

Implying that something is legal when it is not, is not a violation of the law, actually detailed here.

I'm not sure about the UK, but stateside it is illegal to promote illegal activities.

This book was promoting an illegal activity, if not through its content, then through its blurb and so forth.

Thus, by hosting it, Amazon could have ended up up shit creek, so to speak.

Yes it is illegal in the UK to publish certain materials, as I indicated earlier. Even if they "dress" themselves as something above board.

ecclesvet have been cases where obscenity charges have been successfully brought against authors/publishers for publishing 'facts' that are seen to fulfil relevant legislative criteria, so it's not inconceivable that such charges could be brought against authors/publishers of this book in this case. If that were done, and the case went to court, noone would be able to say whether or not 'this book' (or its publishers) 'broke' the law.
FWIW, if it really was a cut and paste re-hash of Wiki pages then it may have breached copyright as well as criminal law.