I am presenting at "The Provider Only Retreat" in Las Vegas Sept 13th and my topic got it's name changed from "Submissive Service: Protecting the Property" to "The Real 50 Shades of Grey" by the event host. I figure there will now be women there who have read these books and I will have to address it.
50 Shades of Grey, 3 books: this isn't great literature, but I can see that people find it fun to read. There is a serious amount of drama the two main characters experience in a short amount of time. I don't believe anyone in real life truly has all this going on and the words of my therapist 25 years ago) "Can you lead your life in such a way that you feel alive without life threatening experiences occurring?" come to mind, but it does make you not want to NOT put the book down, continue reading and find out what happens.
A couple things bother me, LOTS.
One, that the author paints the person who introduces Christian to BDSM as an adult woman, one of his Mother's friends, preying on a 15 year old boy. She is cold, calculating, manipulative, doesn't want to let go, displays negative behavior, never held him, never said she loved him, yaada, yaada. Really? A highly successful women, who knows that much about BDSM, gives him "a code of Dom(me)s protecting and caring for submissives, all the information & training she gave Christian, taking him from a submissive to train him to be a Dom and she is that shitty? Hmmmm, no, no pass, no green card to reality. She gave him the concept of "a Consensual Play List" signed by adults and nabbed him up when he was 15 years old? Not happening. It just doesn't ring as possible.
Then there is the wacko ex-submissive who still has a spare key to the fire-escape entrance to the mansion, knows the safe code, gets a gun permit, etc. She breaks into the Dom's fiancee's apartment, hold a gun on her (this is after breaking into his place and making her presence known). Not only does her ex-Dom not press charges, he baths her, dresses her, he funds her recovery, and banks her life afterwards on a pretty groovy level. When she is "well", she comes back to the wife's work, introduces her to another of his former submissive's telling her they are part of "the Sub Club" [insert rolling eyes to back of head here], manipulates the wife knowing that the Dom will appear so she can see him, as he has refused. She gets told to go back to the other side of the lower 48, thank you, good bye.
Maybe I just intuitively steer clear of bad news people. When you love your life, you don't want people around you that suck the brilliance out of it. I digress. None of these wacko's would be in my life.
Back to the book, I just find it dismaying that the author uses characters with lunacy, out on the creepy edges, broken mentality/emotionally/spiritually that practice BDSM on the heavy side to portray the villains in the book. That's just messed up. What is the message here? You are ONLY sane and normal practicing light, fun, kinky, perverted fuckery when it is shared with someone you love and are in an emotionally committed relationship? Ana is working to have Christian grow emotionally so he can have a stable Vanilla relationship because before her, he only had BDSM and was emotionally void. Somehow, it rubs me that people won't read this is ONE man with problems, they will read people that people that partake in BDSM are emotionally void and that is why we do this. Ana isn't a masochist. That is made very clear. She likes some play, but not pain. It just isn't her thing. Heck, she is a virgin when Christian meets her. The 22 year old woman has not been out much, nor experienced anything. She has never even masturbated according to the story. She feels embarrassed touching herself even after she is not a virgin. What about the women on the planet that have fully explored themselves and embrace their sexuality? What about us masochists that honestly love a good caning? I love the sound, feel, smell of the cane. That can be said for all the toys and play I love. I seek out trained sadists, so that I have safe play that won't find me in the ER afterwards. Just saying. In these books, the villains are the best BDSM players. That is 50 shades of fucked up.
and that's my 2 cents worth.
-- Modified on 7/28/2012 11:38:42 AM
-- Modified on 7/28/2012 11:42:55 AM
... i got to page 100 before i stopped read it.