Definition: "Amazon Rank"
Shamelessly borrowed from those wonderful ladies over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books:
Amazon rank: (verb) 1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies); 2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com's website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include "Bastard Out of Carolina," "Lady Chatterley's Lover," prominent romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.
Example of usage: "I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterley's Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene."
Alternate usage: "My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay."
So, there you go. I admit that I'm pretty annoyed about this whole thing -- given my own opinions on LGBT issues and erotica as a literary form. I hope the good folks at Amazon smarten up and fix this mess quickly. This is not cool in a very big way. :/
If you have somehow missed this in the media, here's a blurb:
'Gay writing' falls foul of Amazon sales ranking system
Shameful.