Ingram is being a bitch....

Ingram Spark is all but refusing to tell me in what way How to Rape a Straight Guy violated their guidelines. I ask. They tell me, "We removed your book because it violated our guidelines." I ask how it did? I get the same response. I tell them I want to know what the book did to violate their guidelines. I get the damned response. Over and over.

I'm now specifically asking, "Is it because of the word rape in the title? Will Ingram no longer distribute books like The Rape of Nanking and The Rape of Lucretia? Is it because of the sex in the book? Will Ingram also stop carrying the novels of Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz? Surely it’s not because that sex is gay? I know you don’t consider it obscene or pornographic because it does not meet the criteria as laid down by the Supreme Court."

Most pornography is not legally obscene (i.e., most pornography is protected by the First Amendment). To be obscene, pornography must, at a minimum, "depict or describe patently offensive 'hard core' sexual conduct."7 The Supreme Court has created a three-part test, known as the Miller test, to determine whether a work is obscene. The Miller test asks:

... (a) whether the "average person applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Even Amazon acknowledged that it doesn't meet this threshold. So what specific guideline did I violate? And I know it sounds like I'm making the argument that the book is pornographic, but the sex in it is described in as light a way as that you fund in Jackie Collins' novels, so I do not consider it porn.

As written, #10 is so vague, it could be that I used too many ellipses in my text. So by what criteria do I violate it? They are fucking gonna answer my question.

If they think pulling this shit will make me go away, they're wrong. I will get an answer. As for their veiled threats to close my account, all crap like that does is piss me off.