OOOOH MY LAWD! Tomorrow is the big day!!! 50 Shades of Grey is finally going to hit the big screen!!!
Okay, I really don’t care, but I know a multitude of women are primed to go watch this flick, and it’s very likely their significant others are going to cash in on this for a blow job or two. Hell, if I were a guy, I would totally capitalize on this rare opportunity. I mean, for real… you’ve got the release of a steamy, sexy, and tantalizing film on Valentine’s Day, of all the days! People are going to be getting some tomorrow night for sure!
I read 2 ½ of the “Grey” books, and while I will admit the first one was sprinkled with titillating, naughty little scenes that made me happy I was reading it, the book in and of itself was pretty much mediocre at best. I am not a literary critic, and if you knew half the crap I read just because I had nothing else to do, you would never ever listen to anything I had to say again. This post isn’t about the actual books or the movie for that matter.
This morning I was yawning and guzzling my elixir of life as fast as the coffee maker would produce it when I happened across a pic on Facebook that was shouting at the world something along the lines of “50 Shades of Grey is about domestic violence and anyone who watches the film is supporting abuse.” I rubbed my sleepy eyes, thinking that surely I had read that wrong. Nope, it said exactly what I first thought.
I clicked on a link that took me to a blog called The Rambling Curl and tried REALLY hard to read the post. Unfortunately, it was so riddled with half-truths and the most absurd conclusions that I didn’t make it through the first couple of sentences on any of the ‘points’ the author was trying so very hard to drive home. (I might add here that it was all linked up via algorithms to a Facebook page that basically says porn will be the downfall of society and anyone who watches it is a bridge troll who needs to get back to hell where they belong. PUH-LEEEEZE! But that’s a topic for another time…) I am not going to line out every single long-winded point from the blog as there were so many and they were absolutely ludicrous. I will, however, say that misinformation and half-truths can be so very damaging.
What made the 50 Shades books so enormously successful wasn’t the gratuitous sex scenes. Harlequin has been publishing mommy-porn forever. Anyone who has ever read Jean M. Auel has also been treated to some shaggin’ caveman-style. Sex in literature isn’t new; sex sells, and it doesn’t even have to have anything remotely resembling a plot as long as you have plenty of ‘throbbing member’ and ‘the liquid center of her’ references. I was a curious teenage girl once, and believe me: I’ve read my share of crappy “romance novels.” Ha ha! “Romance” my aching ass!
I’m absolutely sure I learned WAY more about sex from these books than I ever did in health class, and these books really DID contain things like kidnapping and forced sex and asses being paddled and basically some big ol’ handsome dude with the sexual prowess of ten incubi forcing his will on the heroine until, lo and behold, they fall deeply in love and live happily ever after. I don’t recall anyone ever making a big stinkin’ fuss over these rags, and they really DID involve force and violence. The 50 Shades books were so enormously successful because they brought into the public eye a subject that has been in shadow for a very long time. The world of BDSM was finally put in the hands of damn near every female between 18 and 50, and they found it intriguing!
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I happen to feel that bringing this into the mainstream is fantastic. I would have preferred to hand out the book The Ultimate Guide to Kink to the beginners and the curious because it covers the psychological aspects of this lifestyle. It needs to be made less of a stigma. Then again, no one asked for my input.
These books don’t propagate so-called “rape culture.” They involve two consenting adults who enter into the relationship that suits them. These books were written to sell copies (and man did they ever!) and make panties wet. Mission accomplished.
The fact that there are people in this world who will take a mediocre piece of fiction and twist it to further their own outlandish opinions blows my mind. It was a damn book. It didn’t provide detailed instructions on how to obtain GHB, abduct a woman, and violate her. It did involve some consensual non-consent, but there are many people who are into that. In fact, the rape fantasy is one that is quite common among women — even more so than men. Rape and BDSM role-playing are simply NOT the same thing, and they should not be lumped into the same garbage-strewn blog post. A man pursuing a woman isn’t stalking unless she has told him to fuck off and he persists. Finding ways to “run into” the object of one’s desire isn’t about stalking or power… IT’S NORMAL. These books are no more about stalking and violating another person than the Twilight Saga. This is absolutely fucking stupid.
Shaming anyone for their own personal desires or fantasies is just wrong. Not being able to understand or relate to what drives one person in the bedroom does not give anyone license to judge and shame another. Instead of turning a sexy little trilogy that quite obviously struck a chord with thousands of women (and men as well) into something disgusting because you don’t understand it, how about you take the time to do your research and at least give your hypocritical and misplaced puritanical bullshit a rest. If these books were so “disgusting,” then why did they sell like crazy? I’ll tell you why that author is now rolling in the dough; because she was able to reach out and strike something in fans everywhere that they thought was something they should be ashamed of. It made it okay for them to have different or unusual sexual proclivities without feeling like they were somehow broken or perverted.
What it boils down to is this:
These books are about sexual fantasy, and sexual fantasy is healthy and natural. Your fantasies and mine are most likely not the same because we are all so varied and unique, and finding a person whom you find sexy and appealing and happens to be just your type of freaky is awesome. Sexual exploration and even the unorthodox do not a deviant make. We should inherently know the lines that should not be crossed, and all the bullshit that is blurring those lines needs to stop. If you want to be pissed off about something, make it something REAL. Watch Sleepers and go be angry at the men who brutalized all of those little boys. Leave the rest of us alone. We have every right to have sex in whatever fashion we choose, wearing leather or lace or kabuki stage makeup… Even if I want to dress as a peacock and bark like a dog… you know what? That’s none of your damn business.
So, if you don’t like the books, don’t read them. If you don’t like the movie, don’t watch it. Let’s not stop there!! The world would be easier to share if we just practiced tolerance. Don’t like gay marriage? Cool. Don’t get one. Think tattoos are trashy? Awesome! Don’t get inked! Man… do your own thing and stop worrying about what others are doing. Let your freak flag fly with whatever fills you with pride.
~Ms. M
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