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Home / Business / Companies / Media and marketing

'Against her will': Amazon sells exploitative books glorifying rape and sexualising children

By James Hall
news.com.au·
7 Apr, 2019 07:21 PM4 mins to read

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Amazon is facing criticism over the books on its platform. Photo/Getty Images.

Amazon is facing criticism over the books on its platform. Photo/Getty Images.

WARNING: Graphic content

E-commerce giant Amazon has been slammed by Australian women's rights advocate groups for selling books promoting rape and sexual torture of women and children.

The online retailer has more than 100 graphic titles for sale from an author known as Sarah Sethline.

Please Don't, Against her will, and Passing her around are just a few from the long list of disturbing pornographic fictions Collective Shout, a grassroots movement against the objectification of women, has highlighted as sexually exploitative.

Amazon has a long history of selling products that objectify women and sexualise children, says the group's campaign manager Caitlin Roper.

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"These books depict victims, including children, as sexually enticing and therefore deserving of rape," she said.

"They emphasise the victims' vulnerability, their unwillingness and their pleas, treating their resistance as something erotic and sexy."

A quick search on @Amazon brings up thousands of 'Daddy/daughter' incest titles. A recurring theme is father punishing his "brat" daughter by raping her into submission. Are you okay with that @JeffBezos @jeffawilke @ajassy @jeffblackburn @JayCarney? #ChildSexualAbuse

— Caitlin Roper (@caitlin_roper) April 2, 2019

A number of the books follow a particularly disturbing theme of fertility, including one titled Keeping the brat in line: A Forbidden Baby For Her Belly.

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The synopsis for this story, which is now not shown on the retailer's site, reveals a disturbing premise.

"God, how he wanted to go over there and f**k her until she shut up, just to teach her a lesson," it reads.

The violent narrative continued in the description, "If she happens to get pregnant from it, she can consider it a lesson doubly learned."

Director of the violence prevention project Reality and Risk, Maree Crabbe, said the major retailer associating itself with the material was disturbing.

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"Lots of pornography contains deeply problematic messages about gender power and aggression," she told news.com.au.

"Having Amazon stock materials that legitimise gendered aggression, degradation and non-consensual experiences provides a level of mainstreaming that is quite concerning."

Ms Crabbe said having this material readily available at the click of a finger normalised the heinous crimes depicted.

"Amazon, by promoting these titles, appears to be condoning the sorts of messages that are conveyed," she said.

"And the sorts of messages that are conveyed are consistent with some extreme experiences of abuse and violation that women and children around the world experience."

The director told news.com.au there was evidence an association with the consumption of porn and violent attitudes towards women was enhanced the more aggressive the material was.

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"So titles that are overtly promoting and celebrating violence and inequality are a real risk of having an impact in people's lived experiences," Ms Crabbe said.

"It's likely that people who have a predisposition to these approaches to relationships and sexuality are going to be purchasing that content, which might for them further normalise and justify this kind of treatment of other people."

The backlash comes just a week after Amazon was forced to remove paedophile-themed baby onesies with the slogans "Daddy's little f**k toy" and "I just look illegal", Roper said.

"It's time for Amazon to start exercising basic corporate social responsibility and to wake up to the real-world impacts of the rape books they are profiting from," she said.

"Amazon's despicable promotion of rape and child sexual abuse as sexy or somehow warranted undermines global efforts to address an epidemic of men's sexual violence against women and children."

Amazon told news.com.au it was investigating the titles that contained aggressive pornography.

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The major retailer also said while it didn't endorse the content of the books, it wanted to offer a wide selection of content for its customers.

It says it employs a variety of tools, including automated and manual reviews, to monitor for content that infringes their guidelines.

- News.com.au

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