A reader asked me to comment on the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. I had no idea what it was but now I have studied the issue and am ready to venture an opinion.
The popularity of this book shows that there is a collective fantasy where a significant number of people dreams of overcoming their sexual repression. Readers massively identify with the protagonist and hope that some external force will help them learn to enjoy sex. They are beset by guilt and terror of sex which is why the BDSM component appears.
The artistic quality of the book is non-existent. This is not about art at all. It’s a collective erotic fantasy. I think it’s a very positive phenomenon because this is a significant step forward for a woefully sexually repressed culture.
Clarissa's Blog 
Interesting take Clarissa! It’s kind of scary how everyone is freaking out about this book.
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Those who are freaking out are still too scared to let go of their repression, I guess.
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Are people freaking out over the books? I thought they were hugely popular. The only people I’ve come across who are upset about the books are people who actually write real erotica for a living, and people who are actually into BDSM and can point out all the mistakes. Not exactly sexually repressed people, in other words.
Then again, I quit reading most conservative sites and some of the ones I was reading were all “this book is great it proves women just want to be dominated by Strong Men.”
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Is the culture really so sexually repressed? Australian culture isn’t all that much. It’s the land of the double entendre.,
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Gosh, horribly! I noticed that if I want to cause a collective meltdown and get crowds of people to have fits of hysteria on my blog, all I need to do is write “Sex is a physiological necessity.”
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Oh, it is surely much more repressed over there then.
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Well, I did just finish reading the first book . . . and I would agree with what you said. There is no artistic quality to speak of whatsoever. It is probably one of the worst written books I’ve ever read (and finished). But if you want to talk about being repressed . . . I probably am more repressed than the average American, and that’s saying a lot. A part of me thinks it’s sort of nice to be able to read a book like that and have it be a socially acceptable thing to do. . . . And I blush just saying that.
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You don’t need to blush. I think you are absolutely right.
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I don’t know that the book’s take on sex and relationships is at all healthy. By all reports (I’ve not read it, just several slamming reviews of it) the hero is a messed up jerk who manipulates the naive heroine, and the relationship is the basic abusive setup. (For example, the hero forces the girl to have sex when she hasn’t quite made up her mind to do so in one scene, after several sexual encounters she feels horrible, etc.) It’s a standard she-heals-the-damaged-hero-with-her-love plot, which romantic lie has destroyed more marriages than a thousand illicit affairs, not to mention has sent more women to the hospital after their “bad, damaged boy” husbands that they’ve been trying to “heal with love” beat them up. Americans would be better off joining a BDSM club or looking at porn on the internet. This writer of (apparently) straight erotica has been reviewing 50 Shades chapter by chapter (that’s a link to her latest), and has some interesting insights. (You’ll have to click through an “adults only” warning to get to her website but there isn’t anything NSFW as far as the graphics go.)
Also, it started out as Twilight fan fiction, which is a whole other level of disturbing. I invite you to google “Twilight moms” for more revelations about American culture.
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“I don’t know that the book’s take on sex and relationships is at all healthy. By all reports (I’ve not read it, just several slamming reviews of it) the hero is a messed up jerk who manipulates the naive heroine, and the relationship is the basic abusive setup.”
– Let’s forget about relationships for a second. The book shows characters who pursue sexual fulfillment. That, in itself, is a big deal for a puritanical society. Just last week I quoted a “sexpert” who seriously suggests that women force themselves to have sex against their own will to keep the husband around. People have a barbaric lack knowledge of how human sexuality works. Getting these people to at least read about sex as a good in itself and not as a road to marriage is already a very big deal.
“Americans would be better off joining a BDSM club or looking at porn on the internet.”
– Hear, hear! They would be even better off leading extremely rich sex lives. But this doesn’t happen instantly in a society such as this one.
“Also, it started out as Twilight fan fiction, which is a whole other level of disturbing. ”
– I agree, crazy people. But if narrative where sex is pursued as a positive thing and a value in itself has managed to arise from a piece of garbage written by a Mormon, that is a good sign in itself. Very recently there was this huge hullabaloo of “OMG, he said she has a lot of sex, how could he insult her in this way??” It would be better, of course, if people read the Kama Sutra or the 1,0001 Nights instead, but most people are incapable of reading anything but trash.
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I’m not reassured. I get the feeling that this book only reinforces the idea many Americans have that sex is only good if you’re doing it for some other reason than pleasure — for example, you’re “giving yourself” to a man in order to heal his psychic wounds. Sure, sex is being had, but it’s for all the wrong reasons, and girls will continue to grow up thinking just wanting to have sex for personal fulfillment is bad.
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Does the female character in the novel enjoy sex and experience orgasms? If so, then that’s a huge step forward in a culture where surveys say 40% of women are incapable of experiencing an orgasm. Curiously, the percentage of housewives is the same. Hmm. . . 🙂
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I don’t know about surveys, they can prove anything with a survey. Also, I’m not sure a fictional character having orgasms (which are in the passages I’ve read quite unrealistic — she’s a virgin and has an orgasm the very first time she has sex, and has multiple orgasms at the drop of a hat, and in general her character seems to be set up to make women feel guilty about not being ready to go at all times) means much. Women don’t have orgasms for a lot of reasons, some of which are physical, and some of which are psychological.
Americans have sex. We’re obsessed with sex. Sexual repression, per se, isn’t the problem here. It’s our reasons for having sex, and the myths we’ve constructed around the sex act. Books like these, and like most in the “romance” genre, reinforce these cultural sex myths.
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“We’re obsessed with sex. ”
– And that’s precisely what signals the existence of a problem. Would you say that a person who is obsessed with food or sleep has a healthy attitude towards them? Usually, it’s the insomniacs who are obsessed with sleep and the anorexics who are obsessed with food.
“Sexual repression, per se, isn’t the problem here. It’s our reasons for having sex, and the myths we’ve constructed around the sex act. ”
– We probably simply have a different definition of sexual repression. These reasons and cultural myths are precisely what I have in mind when I talk of repression.
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Well then, I don’t understand why you’re holding up this book as a good example of how to fight off repression!
Actually, though, I think “repression” is the wrong word. What works for me is “distortion.” Our sexual habits are distorted, out of proportion.
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“Well then, I don’t understand why you’re holding up this book as a good example of how to fight off repression!”
– Because I don’t see any representation or defense of women simply liking sex anywhere else. That already is a big deal because it doesn’t happen otherwise. I also think it’s valuable that the relationship and the sex are divorced here. So many women are convinced that a wonderful relationship has to result in a wonderful sex. I was that woman, too, which is why my first marriage failed. The idea that these things are not in any way interrelated is very important. A relationship can be good, bad, whatever. And sex also can be good, bad, anything in-between. But these things do not correlate. At all.
Whenever I see those sex-advice websites, number one question from women is always “I love him so much, he is wonderful, we have a great time together but the sex is horrible. What am I doing wrong?” And nobody ever finds it in themselves to answer, “Because these things have nothing to do with each other. That’s not how it works.”
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OK but in this book you won’t find what you want. The whole point of it is the heroine doesn’t enjoy the sex without feeling guilty afterwards, and she falls “in love” with the hero, and I believe the series (there is more than one book) culminates in them getting together permanently after she’s healed him with her magical love. Sure, she keeps saying how “hot” he is and how much she wants him, but she’s constantly qualifying it with the guilt and how she doesn’t really want him to spank her and feeling guilty about enjoying the spanky sex. (She’s not playacting the reluctance and guilt either, something that the BDSM community is up in arms about, because the point of dom-sub relationships is that they’re entirely consensual.)
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“Sure, she keeps saying how “hot” he is and how much she wants him, but she’s constantly qualifying it with the guilt and how she doesn’t really want him to spank her and feeling guilty about enjoying the spanky sex. ”
– Don’t tell me the result of the “cure” is that they both switch to vanilla sex?
“She’s not playacting the reluctance and guilt either, something that the BDSM community is up in arms about, because the point of dom-sub relationships is that they’re entirely consensual.”
– I knew that some “community” would take it as an insult. 🙂 🙂
This is getting to be very entertaining. 🙂 Thank you for explaining about this book! Fascinating stuff. Fascinating.
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Re “vanilla” sex: in Chapter 20 she’s already told him she wants him to “make love” to her instead of the kinky stuff.
Re “community” — yes, I don’t like that work any more than you do, but what this book promotes is very damaging and wrong about the whole BDSM thing.
Anyway, here is some sex advice via Nerve.com from Cosmopolitan Magazine, a magazine I used to read in the Seventies and is still around, and will probably always be around, as long as Americans are into bad advice about sex. Warning: the link is definitely not safe for work.
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I once opened the Cosmo and read a letter from a woman who said her boyfriend was mean to her, called her bad words, said demeaning things about her appearance and was very cruel to her. She asked for advice what she should do.
Of course, I expected the answer along the lines of “Dump the stupid bastard right now!”
But the magazine responded: “This is a sign that he loves you! Men express their love by saying mean things to women. You should be happy about this.”
After I stopped vomiting, I threw the magazine away and never opened another copy.
Your link is hilarious. Yes, that kind of stupid crap actually gets published. I remember when a man I know bought a book of sex advice. One of the pieces of advice was to memorize some passages from Danielle Steel and recite them to the woman.
“I was going to do that,” the man told me. “But then I thought that since you are a literary critic, you will probably not be turned on by Danielle Steel.” 🙂 🙂
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I’m going to have to disagree that it’s in any way positive, as someone who is semi-active in the Kink and BDSM scene. The books are an absolute failure when it comes to showing the basics of good kink (Consent, safety, emergency planning) and we’ve been seeing a lot more people who are inexperienced and have no clue about these basics “experimenting”, and the results have been disastrous.
The problems range from the small (They don’t respect the rules and don’t know that you still require someone’s consent to touch them and try to sexually engage with them) to the really, really big (Being targeted by predators outside the official BDSM community who go after inexperienced subs that don’t know their basic rights, getting badly hurt from not knowing how to safely use accessories like chains, ropes, and fire)
It’s great that people are experimenting, but when it comes to kink, they’d be better off flying by the seat of their pants than going by the examples given in 50 Shades of Grey.
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Exactly! This book just reinforces the already bad ideas people in Western society (not just American — the writer is British btw) have about sex. In fact, I daresay the reason the book is so popular among housewives and so on is because it reinforces their ideas about sex, not that it’s opening any new vistas about personal fulfillment. I mean, married women have had sex. A lot of them also have problems in their marriages based on notions that our culture reinforces with everything in its arsenal. One of those ideas is that sex is dirty and bad unless the woman “loves” the man. Another is “the man should be experienced, the woman should be an untouched virgin.” Another is “your love can heal your partner’s psychological problems.” All of these have led to wrecked marriages and hospital stays, and all of these ideas are promoted by this book.
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” All of these have led to wrecked marriages and hospital stays, and all of these ideas are promoted by this book.”
– No book can convince anybody to end up in an abusive relationship. These are patterns that are created a lot earlier than the time when one even learns to read.
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I didn’t say they create them. They reinforce them. Women are already primed by their upbringing and culture to seek out things that reinforce the lessons they were taught as children. The romance genre is one of those things, barring a few anomalous works.
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You don’t need to convince me that the romance genre is absolute trash! I once read two Harlequin novels in a row simply because there was nothing else to read and I’m still traumatized. And you are also absolutely right in that people will seek out books and movies that will reinforce their worldview. I wish more people udnerstood that.
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“It’s great that people are experimenting, but when it comes to kink, they’d be better off flying by the seat of their pants than going by the examples given in 50 Shades of Grey.”
– i don’t think that reading this book will make anybody actively seek to recreate the sex acts it describes. I have a strong suspicion that the greatest part of the book’s readership consists of Wednesday-missionary-position-sex housewives. 🙂 What I find valuable is simply the fact that they are reading about sex and not about yet another diet or a miraculous cleaning solution.
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Yeah, but what they are carrying away from it seems to be the idea that being dominated by a strong man is what they need. As long as he’s “polite” in movie fashion — opens doors for her and so on. Reading about diets and cleaning solutions is healthier than dreaming about being bossed around by some guy.
But look. Just think of it this way: it’s popular. Anything that becomes popular in a country with as many problems is ours should be automatically suspect.
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“Reading about diets and cleaning solutions is healthier than dreaming about being bossed around by some guy.”
– Why do you think people are fixated on dieting and cleaning? Because they dig it or because they need to please the guy who feeds them?
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I think it has more to do with wanting order in your life. Because even single people who aren’t currently dating go on diets and clean their apartments. The cleaning thing can also be due to parental damage and has little or nothing to do with the guys one is dating. The one thing I’ve never heard from a woman is “OMG I’ve got to clean the house, I’ve got a date coming over!” But I have heard “OMG mom’s on her way over I’ve got to get this place cleaned up or she’ll start cleaning and dusting it drives me nuts!” And invariably mom comes over, and the house is not cleaned to her satisfaction, and she starts cleaning and dusting. I have seen this again and again.
The dieting thing is often due to an unhealthy relationship with food, again not the fault of the men a woman starts dating, but to her relationship with her mother (in most American households mothers are the ones who control children’s diets). Despite what the freaks on the Men’s Rights and PUA websites claim, most men prefer women to not obsess over their food all the time and don’t care about a little extra weight. Men like to eat and they find it irritating to see their dates pick at a salad and moan about how fat they are.
The sex problems are also due to upbringing, and this childhood baggage is what women bring to their relationships. It doesn’t help that in this country men are taught almost completely different ideas about sex (have it early and often, you’re entitled to as much pussy you can get, marriage is a trap, etc.).
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“And invariably mom comes over, and the house is not cleaned to her satisfaction, and she starts cleaning and dusting. I have seen this again and again.”
– You are telling me? 🙂 I have this mother. 🙂 In psychoanalysis, both an excessive cleaning and an obsession with dieting are signs of extreme sexual repression, by the way.
“The dieting thing is often due to an unhealthy relationship with food, again not the fault of the men a woman starts dating, but to her relationship with her mother”
– Believe me, I’m very aware that all psychological problems are caused by very early childhood experiences.
“Despite what the freaks on the Men’s Rights and PUA websites claim, most men prefer women to not obsess over their food all the time and don’t care about a little extra weight. Men like to eat and they find it irritating to see their dates pick at a salad and moan about how fat they are.”
– I agree 100%.
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While my mother is not perfect, she has two favourite sayings:
‘Complaints to the cook can be hazardous to your health’ and
‘Boring women have tidy homes’.
So I have no dieting or excessive cleaning issues but it did take many years to get over the ‘no sex before marriage’ programming (which I ignored of course).
I have not read the 50 Shades book either. I loathe reading badly written novels especially if I have to pay for the privilege, and from the reviews I’ve read I’m just not tempted. I hear all fascinating stuff I need from friends who go to Cap d’Agde… 🙂
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Women don’t have orgasms for a lot of reasons, some of which are physical, and some of which are psychological.
And many of them are cultural. In many other countries about 50% of women report nearly always reaching an orgasm, with another 30% not being that far behind. In the United States only about 35% of women report nearly always reaching an orgasm, with only another 15% or so being not far behind.
p.s. in most other countries women say things such as “nice” or “feels good” while having sex. In America they “pray” and say “oh God, oh God”.
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An Argentinian couple is having sex. The woman moans, “Oh my God, oh my God!”
The man says, “Come on, we are not strangers here, no need to be formal. You can just call me Pablo.”
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🙂 🙂
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Clarissa and TS, loved your conversation here–I’m so glad I got to read both your takes on this. I downloaded the “sample” chapter they let you have on Kindle, and honestly the writing was so bad and the heroine was such a little wussling that I couldn’t bring myself to read the whole thing. But it’s such a HUGE subject…
(My husband and I are busy giggling over the Cosmo links too…too bad I didn’t see this before making pasta for dinner…)
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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I like pictures, so read http://www.postsecret.com/
This week they had a secret about the book (you can’t access, so I wrote it):
I feel sorry for him, but even more for a woman he’ll marry. And then 1 day she’ll discover suddenly his trues desires …
More extreme situation, but still partly resembling this one, is a gay man marrying a woman and then, 1 day …
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// Does the female character in the novel enjoy sex and experience orgasms?
But she pays for it by being beaten up and raped by her “lover”. I started reading the book’s sporkings and here found it out:
http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/309965.html
Also, this comment seems close to truth:
“This is just the author wanting someone to buy her fancy stuff in return for sex, but without having to own up to being selfish or materialistic or willing to sell her body for cash. Later, Ana will helpfully describe items that Christian buys her by telling us how much they cost instead of telling us what the things look like.
So, we’re back to the tale of two horrible people, both more than happy to lie their asses off in the hopes of manipulating the other. Ana wants to make sure that she can get her hands on the cash, so she is angling for a relationship while Christian wants to abuse and degrade her and is willing to lead her on with the hope of a relationship in order to do that.
Both make it clear that they have no interest in one another’s needs. Christian assumes he can bully Ana into whatever he wants, and Ana figures she can stall Christian forever, so that she can get what she wants. True love, folks.”
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Nobody is raped and beaten in the novel. Characters engage in consensual S&M practices which we don’t have to adopt but should not judge. They discuss limits and consent in a way that everybody should imitate.
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Have you actually read the quotes in this chapter? Read at the link, is it consensual?
//They discuss limits and consent in a way that everybody should imitate.
I read the quotes and, heaven forbid, it happens. She tries to say something, but he does only what he wants and ignores the rest.
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“Have you actually read the quotes in this chapter? Read at the link, is it consensual?”
– I read the book. Everything that happens in those quotes takes place within the framework of a consensual S&M relationship. I’m not into S&M myself but I see no reason to condemn people who are. Of course, if you take a few quotes out of this wider context of an S&M relationship, you can make it sound like rape. My question is, though, what does one gain from condemning a sexual preference that one doesn’t happen to share?
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