I'm so tired of hearing about Fifty Shades of Grey. Tired of the Facebook posts I kept coming across: "An Open Letter from a Mother to Her Daughter," "A Letter from a Pastor about Fifty Shades of Grey", etcetera, ad. naseum. Mothers to daughters. Priests to flock. Feminists. Christians. Everyone wanted everyone else to know that what went on in this movie was not okay, not ever, not nohow, not nowhere.
Man hit woman? No. Man coerce woman? No. Man take away woman's choice? Never.
What they all seem to forget is the end of all those sentences. Man hits woman with her willing consent.
The biggest irony of all is the feminists, who by rights should be defending an adult woman's right to engage in any consensual sexual activity, have jumped right on the bandwagon with the Christians and the mothers.
As someone who lives BDSM and D/s in my life on a fairly steady basis, I wasn't very impressed with the books. Edward--oops, I mean Christian, does lots of threatening and very foreplay-ish dirty talk, but never does he actually do more than tantalizingly threaten. She is never actually hurt. He does not follow through on any threats more scandalous than tying her up and making her listen to soft music. Sensory play. Bleh.
In this very fictional story, the character Christian is actually very straightforward with his potential submissive Anastasia--played by the most boring woman alive in the movie, so I haven't seen it yet--and makes her read and sign a very clear contract before engaging in any physical contact. Anastasia is a woman over 18, and if this turns her on--who are we to care?
Besides, it's obvious than no matter how many Open Letters to Fill-in-the-Blank circulate the internet and garner useless "likes", the truth is this book and movie would not be so popular if deep down, the themes presented here appeal to a lot, and I mean a lot, of women. It has made $400 million dollars in ticket sales, and that's not even including book sales.
Maybe more women will start responding to that appeal and reach out on the internet--to us, to this community. Maybe they will create painfully trite usernames and discover the joys of FetLife, Taken in Hand, and the BDSM blogging community at large.
If you're one of those seekers and you've found your way here, rest a while. We're glad you found us. Welcome home.
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