Amazon Cracks Down on Bigfoot Cock

Business Insider's Eric Spitznagel looks at Amazon.com's crackdown on self-published monster porn by sharing one of the genre's big success stories:

Author Virginia Wade's fiction debut follows a group of women who embark on a week-long camping trip to Mt. Hood National Forest. There, in the shadow of Oregon’s highest mountain, they are kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a mysterious woodland creature. "What the hell is that thing?" asks one protagonist. “‘It's f—-ing Bigfoot,’ hissed Shelly. ‘He's real, for f—-'s sake.’ Horror filled her eyes. ‘With a huge c—-.’” The book, with the decidedly un-PG title "Cum For Bigfoot," is just the first of 16 fiction ebooks that Wade (a pen name) has written about the legendary beast sometimes known as Sasquatch, each detailing a series of graphic and often violent sexual encounters between the apelike creature and his female human lovers. Wade has made an exceptional living writing these stories.

The title was pulled after an attack on self-published erotica blew up the interwebs earlier this year, although Wade changed the title to Moan for Bigfoot and now the book is back up for sale. Still, even with the new title, the book is not visible to readers unless they search for exactly that title. Wade's not alone: It looks like Amazon is removing many of these supernatural smut titles from their store or making them very hard to find. You should go read the article: the titles (The Horny Leprechaun) and pseudonyms (Ann L. Probe) on the self-published books alone are worth your time.

It's Amazon's right to not carry these books, of course, but it's still worrying, especially since Amazon doesn't like to leave money on the table. I can only assume that there's a great deal of pressure on booksellers to not carry these types of books. Would they bow to that kind of pressure over Lolita? Or Tampa? Where does Amazon draw the line? I don't know the answer to that question; Amazon, as always, refuses to comment.

(Related: I would be very interested in hearing the Business Insider editorial discussion that led to "cock" being unfit for print, but "cum" being perfectly fine.)