ONE OF THE INTERNET’S largest online retailers has said it has no plans to remove a book from its online bookstore which proclaims to be a “child-lover’s code of conduct”.

Amazon said that a controversial book added to its electronic store two weeks ago – ‘The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure‘ – would remain stocked in its electronic library, despite its apparent attempt to destigmatise the practice of paedophilia.

The tome is one of four self-published by its author, Philip R Greaves II, and was uploaded to the store on October 20. Being in electronic format (though not in paper edition) it is available for download to any computer, iPhone or to Amazon’s Kindle portable reading device.

In his description of the book, the writer – believed to be from Colorado – says the book was his…

…attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian [sic] rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter [sic] sentences should they ever be caught.

The fact that the book has not been removed from the store after two weeks has led some customers in the United States to boycott the store until the book is removed, with many users on Twitter aghast at the fact the book remains freely available.

This evening, however, an Amazon spokesman told TheJournal.ie that the book – despite its controversial content and seeming advocation of behaviour deemed illegal in most countries – the book would remain on Amazon’s virtual bookshelves, as it did not breach the site’s terms of service.

‘Censorship’

“Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable,” the spokesman said. ”Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.”

Amazon’s refusal to remove the book was met with anger by Andrew Madden, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse, who said paedophiles were “very manipulative people and the author’s description of this book, though noticeably short, is itself a brief insight into that kind of manipulation”.

While he had not seen the material inside the book, Madden said the author referred to “juveniles that ‘find themselves involved’ in situations with paedophiles – this is so typical of how a paedophile would want to share responsibility for his/her actions with the child, by describing the child as ‘involved’.

“The author also refers to establishing certain rules for adults to follow which he hopes will result in lighter sentences should they ever be caught.  This sounds to me like coaching a paedophile in how to abuse a child in such a way as to leave the child feeling that they went along with everything that happened.”

This tactic, Madden said, was “part of any paedophile’s modus operandi“ and presented an image to a courtroom that the child was not being forced to do anything “they didn’t want to do”.

“It is a great concern to think this book would be available to anyone who might take it as some endorsement of their activities especially as they see it so readily available on a website like Amazon.com,” Madden said. “It should be removed from sale immediately.”

Other books submitted by Greaves to the store include books on the rights of gay people to marry and of convicts to vote, another hoping to disprove the existence of God or any “omnipotent creator”, and another that examines the act of sex as “the supreme expression [of] friendship and love.”

Update, 9:07, Nov 11: Amazon has now removed the book from the online store: update here.