I think Fifty Shades of Grey is pretty hot.
Sure, it's not that well-written; it's pretty hokey at times (how many times can you say, "He's so hot" in a book. Apparently a lot). It's an escape book, a naughty book, a remind-you-of -your-passion book, a nothing- new-erotica-book because dominating women has been a subject since the earliest erotica.
I also think it's flying off the shelves because it hits a deeper knowing, a chord of reality, perhaps unconscious, in women.
If you take away the titillation aspects of the book, what we see is the existing paradigm of our culture: domination that uses power over others. We live with it in business; we see it in politics, and in religion. (For example, the Pope demanding radical obedience from nuns?!)
I find it interesting that the author, E.L. James, wrote this book while going through midlife crisis, a time when you stop and reassess your life and the forces that have shaped it. I think on an unconscious level E.L. James was trying to sort out the power dynamics in our society and looking for a way out of a domination-based culture. Maybe the women readers on some level are struggling with the same question and how to get beyond this use of power.
In my research I saw this domination paradigm beginning to shift. Women in power, not all of course, are transforming the meaning of power from power over to power with, creating more mutual, collaborative environments. This use of power also faces much resistance because it challenges the status quo and requires skills that people who dominate don't generally have.
What ticks me off about Fifty Shades of Grey is not the book itself but the media's spin on it and the questions it raises and doesn't raise.
At a time when women are coming into their own power, have more economic control over their lives, sometimes earn more than their husbands, for the first time compose more than half the workforce, and have an opportunity to change the domination game by claiming their power, some in the media are using this book to ask questions like, "Are you sure you want control? Isn't it sexy to be out of control?"
As women come into power there are forces trying to pull them back in time, as we see in the assault by the GOP on women's self-determination over their bodies, where they are denied certain health benefits on one hand and then forced to do unnecessary procedures on the other. And then they are being asked, "Isn't it hot to be overpowered? Isn't this what you really want?" It makes me think of women saying "no" to sex, and being told it really means "yes."
Now this book is not going to undermine women's power, but these questions plant insidious seeds of self-doubt. By the way, Ana, the main character, is full of self-doubt: If I'm powerful will I not be sexy? Must I be submissive to get what I want? Is this what I have to be to be desirable?
This spin isn't about sex, it's about power. The bondage narrative moves women back from little power to no power. It may be played out as sex games behind the bedroom door, but it's the same aim to dominate women and maintain the status quo.
It's not just the questions that are being raised that bug me; it's also the questions that are not being raised. Why aren't we asking what's wrong with men that need to control, own, dominate, assault women? No mention of the other side of this game. I just read that domestic violence is up during the recession. So economic pressures force men to beat up their wife or girlfriend? What's that all about?
A domination culture obviously doesn't serve men either, as we see in Christian Grey, who described himself as, "fifty shades of fucked up." Men are under such enormous pressure to be dominant, king of the mountain, to be in control, to emulate strength. Christian takes this imperative to be in control to a perversion, formalized in his "room of pain." The domination game tells women that their pain is their pleasure, and for men, her pain is his pleasure. There's a bit of cross-wiring going on. Why isn't the media asking men, "Are you sure you want to hurt her?"
Ultimately, Fifty Shades of Grey says more about men than about women. Christian Grey captures a transition in our understanding of what it means to be a man in our society and our need to expand that meaning. His need for control doesn't come from strength but from vulnerability and a fear of addressing those feelings. Hope lies in his emerging nurturing side as we also see his care for Ana, a path that can lead him to becoming a whole person and toward a meaning of manhood that includes being able to hold feelings and love, and therefore be vulnerable.
Domination and submission: two sides of a dysfunctional coin.
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I often wonder how the first true Homo sapiens individual, if there was such a person, must have felt. Isolated? Freakish? Wishing to be like everyone around her/him so that she or he could "fit in"?
Evolution didn't stop, you know.
However, I think you're missing a huge point about it, and about its appeal... there's very little actual kink, and it's NOT the woman who's dominated, ultimately. The male lead "became" dysfunctional from being put in a submissive place as a teen by an older more powerful woman, and the ultimate arc of the story is the innocent virginal woman using the "power of her love" to "save" and "fix" him, winning him AWAY from kink in to loving "vanilla" sex and ultimately a marriage where she controls their sex lives and enjoys his money.
The man is the one who's ultimately controlled all the way thru.
i have about 1/2 dozen quotes i carry with me, i am not big on platitudes, but sometimes they just hit home. this is one of those --
nobody can give you freedom, nobody can give you equality or justice or anything, if you are a man you take it -- malcom x. it works for women too.
One doesn't have to read far to realize despite his desire for dominance, he's weak and despite her isnsecurity, she has all the power.
P.S. if you think "he's so hot" is bad, count how many times she uses the word "clambering". Yipes.
But, when it comes time to project onto all men based on the male character of a female writer in a smut book...then it's very serious and scholarly and once again reminds us that it's men, not women, who are messed up.
Sounds about right.
Modern feminism. Just like clockwork.
Overall, this critique of BDSM is misplaced. It reads more like a critique of traditional heterosexual couplings (in which the husband "owns" the wife), which may or may not have to do with a couple's interest in BDSM. After all, some straight couples put the woman in charge; and gay and lesbian couples negotiate different arrangements with each other, sometimes switching roles or sharing power. Since the author fails to think outside the norm, she wrongly assumes so much about BDSM, specifically, and relationship dynamics, more generally. Remember, the world is a diverse place! Some men like giving up power! And some men like other men! Not all who engage in Domination or submission are "dysfunctional," Ms. Regine.
Give it a try (safely, and with someone you trust) and perhaps you'll see it doesn't need to be as dark and terrible as this author naively assumes.
- Sincerely, a sub that has (trust me) quite a bit of relationship power. :-)
The truth is women like a variety of things, as do men. We're a big world of people and preferences. I agree that this book sets us back, too. It certainly seems like a veiled, BDSM-flavored retelling of Cinderella to me. That so many women still lose themselves in this fantasy concerns me.
Well mostly because men aren't buying the book. The target audience is obviously women. MOST men have no desire to hurt anyone, let alone their partner. Bondage is a fantasy shared by some men and some women...some want to be controlled, some want to control, regardless of gender.
We don't have to ask "men" the question of wanting to hurt their partner any more than we'd ask "women" if they want to hurt their partner. It is a fantasy book that some like (and buy, and read) and others like apparently men in general, me specifically, and apparently you would neither buy nor read because we don't like the concept to begin with.