When did Amazon Dot Com Start Selling Porn?

Factual Questions
1

So, recently I’ve discovered this blog, “The Worst Things For Sale”, that trawls the internet for things which are being sold over it and are horrible. It’s very funny, especially when the entries are read one after the other. However, it has exposed me to a bizarre new phenomenon: Amazon.com is selling porn.

And I don’t mean tasteful literary erotica. I mean stuff like this:

http://theworstthingsforsale.com/2013/05/22/someone-to-cuttle/

I don’t know when they started doing this. More importantly, I am deeply confused as to WHY and HOW they started doing this. I am accustomed to thinking of Amazon as a company that wants to present itself as very mainstream and respectable. And, well, the sheer quantity of suggestions for bizarre, over the top smut that the site throws at me whenever I follow one of that humor blog’s links to it implies I’ve merely discovered the tip of an iceberg.

Not only that, but with Amazon’s user tracking and recommendations system, I don’t believe someone could make such a purchase from Amazon and expect it to remain private. I can only imagine the horror of the site ever after popping up with suggestions for more outlandish products every time you, say, tried to do your Christmas shopping. For me this has become one of those incredibly disturbing things that never the less remains too fascinating to look away from.

Does anyone know what’s actually going on here? When did it start? Is Amazon really making money off of it? Are there any privacy violation horror stories regarding this floating around out there? Has anyone here at the SDMB actually found that, contrary to my expectations, the kindle is an ideal platform for erotica?

2

Hard to call that ‘porn’, I think.
Erotic humor, it looks like.

It’s a book, yes? Or a video?
I was afraid to click too much.

Edit- overcame fear of clicking and clicked.
That’s some weird shite, mang… Do Not Want
But it doesn’t look like ‘porn’.

3

It’s completely text, and no more explicit than your average romance novel. But Amazon sells all books and has since the beginning. There are plenty of explicit graphic novels, how to sex guides, erotic photography books, and so forth. I’m sure not if they directly sell porn videos, but they definitely sell them through their second hand function.

4

That blog is awesome. This is my favorite:

http://theworstthingsforsale.com/2013/06/06/martin-loofah-king/

5

Man, living in the future amazes me sometimes.

6

It’s certainly not my cup of tea, but what’s wrong with it? Amazon has been selling literary and photographic erotica as long as I can remember. They also sell dildos, vibrators, lubricants, condoms, fleshlights and all other manner of sexual toys.

Right below everything Amazon recommends for you there is a link called “why recommended?” If you click it, it’ll tell you why it was recommended. All you have to do is click on ‘Don’t use for recommendations’ and viola.

7

n/m

8

Let me be clear, here: I am not condemning pornography or non-heterosexuality. I look at pornography. I read smut, too. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that Amazon wants to sell me some, and that the particular porn/smut/erotica they have on offer is openly, screamingly, very, very far out on the fringe. And that anyone would buy such, knowing how Amazon tracks purchases.

9

Why wouldn’t amazon want to sell you sexy words? They sell words, and sex sells.
Weird sells too- people probably pay $3 just to find out more about cuttlefish gangbangs.

(Bet you could torrent that. Not that you should.)

10

I notice the reader reviews are mixed. One of the 5-star reviews says “This book made me INK and INK and INK all over myself,” while lamenting that “the general lack of marine life shapeshifter fiction is absolutely appalling.” But not everyone approves.

11

I wouldn’t buy porn from Amazon. Cash is harder to trace.

12

Hard time getting your mind around erotica?

[spoiler]Howe beautifull are thy feete with shooes, O princes daughter! the ioynts of thy thigh are like iewels, the worke of the hands of a cunning workman.

Thy nauell is like a round goblet, which wanteth not licour: thy belly is like an heape of wheate, set about with lillies.

Thy two breasts are like two yong Roes that are twinnes.

Thy necke is as a towre of yuory: thine eyes like the fish pooles in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the towre of Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus.

Thine head vpon thee is like Carmel, and the haire of thine head like purple, the king is held in the galleries.

How faire, and how pleasant art thou, O Loue, for delights!

This thy stature is like to a palme tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.

I said, I will goe vp to the palme tree, I will take hold of the boughes thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose, like apples.

And the roofe of thy mouth like the best wine, for my beloued, that goeth downe sweetely, causing the lippes of those that are asleepe, to speake.

I am my beloueds, and his desire is towards me.

Come, my beloued, let vs goe forth into the field: let vs lodge in the villages.

Let vs get vp earely to the vineyards, let vs see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appeare, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I giue thee my loues.

The mandrakes giue a smell, and at our gates are all maner of pleasant fruits, new and olde, which I haue laid vp for thee, O my beloued.

From the “Canticle of Canticles” (in translation), King James Bible, 1611.[/spoiler]

Or is it explicit public oral-anal that is the problem?

[spoiler]The wyndow she undoth, and that in haste. “Have do,” quod she, “com of, and speed the faste, lest that oure neighebores thee espie.” This Absolon gan wype his mouth ful drie. Derk was the nyght as pich, or as the cole, and at the wyndow out she putte hir hole, and Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers, but with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers ful savourly, er he were war of this.

Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys, for wel he wiste a womman hath no berd. He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd, and seyde, “Fy! allas! what have I do?”
“Tehee!” quod she, and clapte the wyndow to, and Absolon gooth forth a sory pas. “A berd! A berd!” quod hende Nicholas, by Goddes corpus, this goth faire and weel."

From “The Miller’s Tale” in the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer, c. 1380s – 1390s.[/spoiler]

Got news for you. Sex has been in literature from the git-go. Not just tawdry writings, but truly great literature that has lasted the test of time.

13

LOL unintentional entendre. Thanks for giving me a laugh!

14

So is your real question, “How did Amazon know that I’m into gay cuttlefish erotica?”

15

Honestly, Amazon has been selling porn for years and years. Real porn, from companies whose entire output is porn.

Check out the Luna Loupe page. She has dozens of similar titles.

The Human Cow: Transformed and Milked
The Catgirl and the Tentacle Monster (Fantasy Tentacle Erotica)
His Cowboy Werewolf Lover (Gay Western Erotica)
The Minotaur’s Virgin Bride (Fantasy Beastman Deflowering Erotica)

Why? Because porn sells and all bookstores sell them. Barnes & Noble and Borders used to have open erotica sections, although little in them were erotica. They were merely better written porn from higher-end publishers that specialized in it. It’s not new, or weird, or disgusting, or lower class.

This is, to be blunt, nuts. Amazon tries to sell everything that can be sold. It always has. That was its goal from the first day it set up its first website. Sexually oriented books and materials have always been part of it. That includes books and porn DVDs of every possible variety and fetish. Because sex sells.

Yes, of course it is. Who could possibly imagine otherwise?

16

Here’s another tidbit from Amazon that I really hadn’t expected to see there.

NSFW

I enjoyed the product description.
Reading further I found this

I note that people who purchased this also bought Betty Crocker Potato Buds. There’s some sick fucks out there.

17

Two new ones in stock, but no used ones.

18

The cuttlefish book does come with a warning…

Doesn’t partial shifting cross the obscenity line?

19

Amazon has various policies about what they sell and don’t sell. There are various stricter policies about what marketplace sellers can sell.
All of these policies are enforced haphazardly, and Amazon rules about what can be sold are about as effective as US immigration and customs enforcement… the rules are obeyed most of the time. Just… not anything to close to all of the time.

20

The only thing I find odd is that it’s being sold when there’s so much similar fiction available for free.