In The Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid relates a collection of tales about the transformation of bodies, of one thing turned into another; and through these stories, Ovid elucidates the history of love and beauty and humanity, art and poetry and romance and deceit and the world of physical and emotional interaction. I love the poem and read it regularly. It is the epic poem of my imagination; beautiful and fun and eminently enjoyable.

It also, occasionally, features animals having sex with humans.

My mind drifted to Ovid this morning when I read MONSTER PORN: Amazon Cracks Down On America’s Latest Sex Fantasy in Business Insider. I’ve never heard of the genre before, and the only mental referent I had, it seems, was Jupiter and Europa.

So, quickly: it appears that the writers of “monster porn”-self-published fiction stories that detail very explicit encounters between humans (women) and monsters (bigfoot, etc)-are in a fight over content, and are finding their products restricted at e-book retailers like Amazon.

This may seem a ridiculous subject at first glance, but the stakes are real. in 2012, pseudonymous author Virginia Wade’s book Cum for Bigfoot was downloaded over 100,000 times at Amazon alone. “During her best months, she says, she netted $30,000 or more.”

The genre, dubbed “Cryptozoological Erotica” or “Erotic Horror,” has found itself in an interesting, but not original, artistic and commercial bind. The books and short stories are almost exclusively self-published, and “feature mythical creatures of every possible variety, from minotaurs to mermen, cthulhus to leprechauns, extraterrestrials to cyclops, who become involved in sexual trysts, often non-consensual, with human lovers.”

From what I can tell, the stories fit well in that category many call pornography. But uploaded and sold by the author, they’ve operated generally out of the popular attention of the public or retailers. A perhaps inevitable “crackdown” arrived, following a media story in Britain that brought to the retailers attention e-books with “rape fantasies, incest porn and graphic descriptions of bestiality and child abuse”.

The sellers course-corrected by pulling the offending titles and much else that resembled the offending subject matter in the Cryptozooligical Erotica genre. Even those stories featuring consenting sexual relationship between humans and sentient non-human lover-monsters.

But the crackdown has left many authors (or smut peddlers depending on your point of view) in the lurch, and furious with Amazon. The article explores alternatives for the genre, including the E.L. James route of traditional publishing, and the make-over that’s underway for titles and covers (Cum for Bigfoot is already re-named Moan for Bigfoot) that helps keeps the genre available to readers.

I’m less interested in the subject matter of these books than in the questions this fight raises about the new-world order of publishing. The story is fascinating to me on three accounts.

1. The relationship between self-published fiction and online retailing has reached a point where it is possible for a writer without any representation or support to earn $30,000/month. That’s remarkable no matter what content might be featured.

2. The success of self-publishing, like so many other industries, brings actual hindrance to future success. Some of those writers who have found success in monster porn are so furious with Amazon that they considered a boycott of the retail giant. But such a course is simply impossible to take seriously since Amazon is the market. Or, perhaps Amazon owns the market. Amazon is the reason for the sales in the first place, and to leave Amazon would be to leave the market.

3. Selectively enforcing the company’s content guidelines creates an environment of justified outrage. Amazon has stated guidelines, which are, of course, broad. And making it worse (though better if you’re a lawyer), the company claims to help by stating: “What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect.” No matter how frustrating the adherence to those guidelines might be, Amazon can enforce them as they choose.

I don’t know anything about policing self-published e-books. I imagine it’s a nightmare task. So, while Amazon may have been unaware of the content of these e-books, it’s clear they’ve found an interest in looking back and finding what they missed. Virginia Wade’s seen 60% of her titles removed from the site due to content restrictions, and another author, K.J. Burkhardt, told BI that “Amazon has been systematically banning just about every book I have listed with them.” (I looked up these titles, and found many for sale, but as I know little of the genre, cannot notice any missing titles).

Amazon’s content policies reject any “offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.” Wade and Burkhardt’s titles seem likely to fit that parameter. But so too do many other titles that break those guidelines and remain for purchase, for one reason or another. It’s hard to imagine that the extra-terrestrial/human gang-bang story Alien Seed will one day find contextual arguments to help justify its continued publishing life, like the work of Marquis de Sade, but I don’t know the future.

Marquis de Sade is the natural parallel, though. I’ve read some de Sade, in my undergrad and graduate student days. de Sade functions in a context that adds meaning and knowledge to students of literature, history, politics, revolutions, etc. I understand the value of reading de Sade in a literary theory class, but I’d never read him for the enjoyment of a good story. That someone might I find a bit unsettling. Still, Justine is available at every bookstore, online or brick and mortar, and it should be.

Perhaps, in 200 years, Boffing Bigfoot, will serve the same function. And like de Sade, I’d never choose that title for a good story.

I’ll stick with Ovid.