Before you dismiss this as the whinging of an introverted and sexually frustrated puritan, I’d like to state the following. I am by no means a prude. I am regularly told off by my friends for being far too open about my life, I don’t have a problem with anybody watching porn (providing that it’s not illegal), and I don’t have a sex drawer- I have 2 drawers, a small suitcase and a shelf in my wardrobe that serves as storage space for my *ahem* toys. Having read that, you’re probably wondering what I have against the “Fifty Shades” series. “It’s all about sex, surely you can’t have anything against that!” It’s a valid point- I don’t have anything against the fact that it’s meant to be erotic literature for women. I don’t have anything against its attempt to liberate women sexually and encourage them to experiment with their sex lives. What I do have a problem with is the way that E.L James has gone about it. For a book that has become a staple in so many women’s lives, I was expecting something that had been properly researched, veered away from the twee nonsense that dominates the female market and featured a main character with some backbone and savvy about her. Unfortunately, what I got was the same generic claptrap featuring a terrible portrayal of a BDSM relationship and a female protagonist who isn’t so much empowering as she is frustratingly meek. If that alone isn’t a good enough reason to dislike it, just take a look at the following points.
The plotline and writing is both predicable and terrible.
I read the first 3 pages of the first book before audibly
groaning and reaching for the rum in a bid to make the rest of the book less
excruciatingly painful. All I can say is that you know a book is awful when
you’re quite noticeably tipsy and you still get the urge to throw the thing out
of a window just to end it all. I understand that “Fifty Shades” began life as
fan-fiction for the equally overrated Twilight series, but surely that doesn’t
mean that E.L James had to continue writing in the style of a drippy 12 year
old loner a la Stephanie Meyer? Considering that the book is allegedly aimed at
an adult audience, I’d have thought that the content would have matched the
intelligence level of the more mature woman and upgraded from the “high-school
romance” element. The plotline is as uninspiring as the writing itself- we barely
get through the first chapter before meeting the mysterious billionaire Christian
Grey and establishing that Anastasia Steele finds herself sexually attracted to
him. Is it wrong to want a bit more of a backstory about the protagonist before
moving on to the main plot itself? The rest of the book carries on in a stereotypical
Hollywood romance fashion whereby Anastasia can’t work out whether her feelings
are reciprocated before eventually having sex with our high powered billionaire.
I hear you say “Ok, maybe the plot isn’t that great but at least the sex scenes
are titillating!” Wrong. I’m sorry, but I just can’t get hot over dialogue that
consists of “He touched my sex”. For a novel that’s supposed to be explicit,
the language is reminiscent of an innocent schoolgirl regaling her Saturday
night antics to her chums in the playground. It might have been a thrill for me
as a 14 year old, but now? Not so much.
Christian Grey is a domineering, insistent, creepy stalker.
Before I read the first “Fifty Shades” book, all I ever heard
from other women was how “sexy” and “caring” Christian Grey is towards the
naïve and almost infuriatingly innocent Anastasia. I’ve yet to work out where
that view stemmed from because I found most of his actions throughout the book
controlling and sometimes downright terrifying. How can you say that somebody
is “caring” when they use the internet to track your location down via a mobile
phone, take you back to their house when you aren’t in a position to give
consent and then proceed to remove most of your clothing whilst you are, as Mr
Grey says himself, “comatose”? Put it into perspective ladies- if you woke up
after a night out with a raging hangover in a guy’s house with your clothes
missing, you wouldn’t be going “aww, that’s so sweet he must really care about
me”, you’d be freaking out and calling the guy a creeper. Let’s not forget the unnerving part where
Anastasia is given a list of rules to which she must adhere to if she wishes to
have sexual relations with Christian. I understand that the sex scenes are
supposed to be BDSM play, but to instil boundaries on every aspect of
Anastasia’s life (including what she may wear, how long she must sleep for and
what food she is permitted to eat) is nothing short of psychotic.
It is a terrible introduction to BDSM.
BDSM was seen as a taboo sexual practice before “Fifty Shades”
came out and seemingly liberated women from the chains of “vanilla sex” by allowing
them to express their sadist/masochist fantasies without fear of controversy. I
wouldn’t have a problem with this if the book actually interpreted BDSM play in
a healthy and consensual manner, but poor research has made this a terrible
foundation to base your future sex life on. Yes, BDSM is about relinquishing
control to somebody else or having somebody relinquish all control to you, but
that doesn’t mean handing a contract to your partner asking them to agree to
engage in “any sexual activity deemed fit and pleasurable by the Dominant” and
to do it “eagerly and without hesitation”. By all means feel free to set aside
some rules before you begin, but take the time to communicate with each other and
come up with boundaries that you are both comfortable with. It’s also important
to give both parties the opportunity to say that they’ve had enough at any
time, regardless of what your rules might be. Safe words exist for a reason-
whether your safe word is “no” or “banana”, mentioning it at ANY point during
foreplay or sex should mean one thing- STOP.
It gives a completely unrealistic expectation of sex.
I have to feel sorry for the men out there whose significant
others have read this book, because if these women believe anything about Christian
Grey’s sexual prowess they must feel a little cheated when they get frisky with
their man. For those of you who don’t know, at the start of the book Anastasia
is a virgin who has only been kissed a handful of times in her young life and
has never felt the need to play with herself. Yet somehow, even though she
herself has no idea what makes her tick and has never experienced an orgasm,
sex god Christian Grey manages to make her erupt into orgasm for the first time
by merely biting her nipples. That in itself raises questions as to just how
much E.L James knows about the average sex life, but the part where Anastasia
has sex for the first time really takes the biscuit. For most people, the first
time you have sex doesn’t involve you collapsing into each other’s arms with
rose petals cascading around you, it’s an awkward fumble proceeded by an
equally awkward and sometimes painful experience that leaves you wondering what
all the fuss is about. But not for Anastasia- because Grey is apparently a
wizard in the sack, he not only makes her first time relatively pain free but
also manages to make her orgasm again simply by thrusting into her a couple of
times. This sequence continues throughout every single sex scene in the book where
Grey apparently has to do very little to Anastasia to make her climax. At one
point she is whipped no more than 3 times by Grey before she comes. Some could
make the argument that she’s an extremely lucky girl. Others might say that
it’s because of Grey’s sexual prowess. I personally think that it’s nothing
short of delusion combined with wishful thinking.
What do you think of the Fifty Shades of Grey series?
Do you love it or
loathe it?
