Hi. I've never posted in this group, but...

[one_voice]

thought this would be a good discussion piece.

Fifty Shades of F*cked-Up. ~ Trista Hendren

I will admit that E L James is a clever businesswoman, but while reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I had to wonder if she was somehow compensated by the Republican National Convention.

Anastasia Steele is everything a good conservative looks for in a woman; most importantly submissive and virginal.

Let me start by saying, I am extremely liberal.

Whatever floats your boat sexually is fine. I believe we as women should celebrate our sexuality however we f*cking want to.

However, there was nothing celebratory about the sex in Fifty Shades of Grey.

The outright abuse in this trilogy is disturbing, especially considering how well it is selling.
Christian Grey is everything I never want for my daughter.

Yet, he is all the things women are taught to look for, even at the expense of maintaining a dysfunctional relationship.
Wealthy and good-looking seem to overpower sadistic, controlling and abusive.

*snip*

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/06/fifty-shades-of-fcked-up-trista-hendren/


There are other articles at this site that are good as well.



Full disclosure, I'm currently reading 50 Shades, I've just started the first book. I' haven't gotten to the 'nitty gritty' stuff. Last night I went to an 'adult' party, where this book was the topic of conversation.

For the most part it was general stuff, who should play the characters in a movie, could they even make a movie stuff like that. However there were two pretty good conversations.

One, about the Christian Grey, the dominate in the 'relationship' (for lack of a better word). There were two women who ripped the author for writing a book that they thought denigrated women. Made women look like nothing more than property to be used in any way the man wanted.

The second, was a few women that thought the female, Ana was a strong woman that knew what she wanted and in some way was actually in control. I thought that argument was interesting.

Like I said, I've just started the book, and so far it's just 'vanilla' sex (they use that term in the book).

Anyway, I thought it might be worth the read and maybe some discussion.

[Gormy Cuss]

1. I haven't read it but because of all the buzz I hope that others here will discuss it.

[obamanut2012]

4. Same here, Gormy

I am appalled anyone lets their daughters read the "Twilight" series, but am less apt to jump on an escapist series for adults. I may have to read the series now, because I didn't realize it was like this. (I have, alas, read the Twilight series.)

[Neoma]

2. I'd join you if I didn't have 4 books checked out from the library.

Nice to see you around.

[tammywammy]

6. Same here, many books already in line

I kept buying books while in school hoping to read them, now that I'm on a summer break before starting my masters, I get a chance to try and catch up.

Plus I've heard that the writing in Fifty Shades is just horrible. I don't think it's my cup of tea.

[one_voice]

8. Nice to see you too!

I will let you know what I think. According to my kindle I'm 35% into the book. It's very explicit. I'm just reading the contract, and can say, without a doubt there's not way in hell I'd sign it or be with someone that wanted me to sign it.

The writing isn't great. I will say, I've gotten a few chuckles from it.

[Neoma]

13. I'd rather read about Nixon.

[FloridaJudy]

3. I don't really want to read it.

These ladies' (and I use that word advisedly: they're of a generation that regards it as a compliment) review said it all for me. Listen to your grandmother: she still has a lot she can teach you.

"Never do anything that hurts"
"Nobody can hit me hard"
"Ouch!"

Edited to add: I look almost exactly like the one on the left. Except I wear nerd glasses.

&feature=colike

[obamanut2012]

5. Ha! That is dead on!

[tammywammy]

7. Hilarious! n/t

[one_voice]

9. Perfect!

Romance and erotica aren't my reading preferences, but I was curious so I figured I'd read the first one, don't know if I'll read the second/third one yet.

I don't mind romance or sex as a sub-plot but I don't like it as the main storyline.

Sex doesn't bother me, hell I watch Spartacus, The Borgias, Game of Thrones, and True Blood, couldn't watch those if sex was an issue. I believe the problem will be--at least for me-- painting this (rough/painful/slave sex) as romantic.

To each his/her own, as long as it's consensual, which in the book it is--so far--I don't know how its going to end. I hope, that the female has second thoughts, questions why she letting someone hurt her etc. If after that she decides it's all good--then that's fine--her choice. But be realistic and have her question the pain and humiliation. Don't paint her as skipping off into the sunset happy to get tied up and whipped, without any hesitation.

That's my take so far.

[Neoma]

12. "Butt plug, what the hell is a butt plug?"

[yardwork]

21. That was hilarious and like you, I will take their advice and skip this one.

And believe it or not, I pictured you as looking a lot like the woman on the left, Judy!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

51. Sounds like "The Story of O"

or "A Handmaid's Tale".

[maddezmom]

10. I started it a while ago and just picked it up again

While traveling this past week. I am not that far into it to know what to think yet.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. It started out as "Twilight" fan fiction.

If that's not a red flag as to the quality of the writing, i don't know what is.

[Neoma]

14. I thought you meant Twlight Zone at first.

I was thinking, "But that's the best kind of fan fiction!" Oh well.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. ITS A COOKBOOK!!!!!

Sorry, couldnt resist.

[obamanut2012]

17. How to Serve BDSM

[obamanut2012]

16. 50 Shades author at least admits her writing sucks

Whereas Stephenie Meyers thinks she's Jane Austen... or even Jude Deveraux (without the premarital sex and with the creepy stalking), and she isn't.

[OKNancy]

18. thank you for posting this

I copied and pasted it to my entertainment website. A lot of the women on my site are just goo-goo over this book.

[obamanut2012]

19. I don't read BDSM books

But, if people want to read some "risque" books, Virgin had a whole series of "soft" BDSM novels, and there's Anne Rice's Exit to Eden and her A. N. Roquelaure Beauty series.

It is odd, and interesting, so many women like Fifty Shades!

[FloridaJudy]

20. I had an acquaintance who was reading it

When it first came out, and who told me "Oh, you wouldn't like it. You're a feminist, and it's about sex." My reaction was WTF? What on earth does she think a feminist is? How does wanting to defend reproductive rights, assure equal pay for women, and make sure girls are offered the same educational opportunities as boys equate to not liking sex? Does she think my political views promote celibacy? She must have me confused with Sarah Palin!

Now that I've heard a bit more about it, I realize she was right. I wouldn't like it. Not because I'm a feminist, but because I hate pain. I realize a lot of people of all genders are into BD/SM, and as long as the acts are consensual and no permanent injury results, that's okay. But it doesn't turn me on. There's a popular series of erotic novels by Jacqueline Carey about a woman who's a submissive, and while I enjoyed the sex parts, I skimmed over the whipping bits while visibly wincing. I found The Story of O repulsive, and walked out on The Cook, the Thief, etc. because of the graphic cruelty. None of which means I'm a prude.

But I fear a lot of people will think exactly that. They'll think the reason we dislike the novel is because of the sex, not because the overwhelming majority of erotica portrays women as always being eagerly submissive (Anne Rice's erotica is a notable exception), and it sets up unrealistic views about what a sexual relationship should be like.

[yardwork]

22. It's amazing how many people have misconceptions about feminism.

Meanwhile, I'm still a little traumatized from having read Story of O recently, online. The ending is appalling, in particular. Some of the scenes are sexy, but overall, I don't get it. At all.

[obamanut2012]

23. The ending ruins the Story of O, but have you ever watched "Secretary"?

With James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal? It put her on the map. It explores a BDSM relationship. But, WHY is the man never the submissive???

Anyway, it got a lot of flack when it came out, and isn't everyone's cup of SM tea, but it's a very interesting movie. I also really like Maggie Gyllenhaal.

[yardwork]

24. I've heard of that movie. I like Maggie, too. Also like her brother.

One of my favorite movies is Donnie Darko.

[Marrah_G]

47. In the real world of BDSM there are LOTS of male submissives

and even more female Dominants. I guess it doesn't really sell well in novels or movies.

[obamanut2012]

53. That's what I figure

Because everything I've read, and the few BDSM relationship I have known and semi known of, it is usually a dominant female.

Written and visual porn seem to go the other way, even or erotica written for women

[FloridaJudy]

25. I'm with you on The Story of O

Branding? Really?

Yuck!

It's hard enough to get rid of an injudicious tattoo when a relationship is over. Plus, have I mentioned how much I hate pain?

[yardwork]

26. ...and the piercing that clanked. Yikes.

[Starry Messenger]

27. C-clanked?

I'm afraid even to google.

[yardwork]

31. I wish I hadn't read it. Seriously.

[LadyHawkAZ]

39. It always seemed like the writer got close to the end

and just got bored with writing it.

[yardwork]

43. I read that she wrote it in an effort to keep her boyfriend's attention.

I think that she pulled out all the stops at the end - the protagonist asks permission of her abuser to commit suicide, and he consents. I think that is really sick. I know that some people defend Story of O with the argument that the protagonist chooses to be dominated. I don't buy it. It's the same old same old. Women are oppressed systematically and when they go along with the oppression in an effort to gain some small benefit or a little bit of control they are praised for exercising their "choice." That's no choice, imo. I think that the premise of the book is sick.

[obamanut2012]

44. Real BDSM relationships also aren't abusive

[yardwork]

45. I've heard that. This was strictly amateur night.

[Marrah_G]

48. Bingo

In fact I would say that there is alot less abuse within the BDSM world then outside of it. There are alot of rules and the communities tend to police themselves. Even one abusive incident generally gets around pretty quickly and they find themselves ostrasized and potential submissives are warned off.

[KaryninMiami]

28. I'm halfway through the second one

Had no intention of reading any of them but they all the buzz of my office and I was curious. The writing is not great- reads like a pop magazine riddled with sex and lust and bondage and money and love. Good airplane or beach reading.

As for deeper meaning, I suppose one could explore what the message is for feminists or if Christian Gray, clearly a member of the 1%, would vote for Mittens or Pres.O -- not worth the effort. Pop couture, soon to be a movie, trashy.

[one_voice]

29. Agree..

it's light reading. I'm about 70% through the first book and it's not as hard core as I thought it was going to be. Quite honestly I'm finding a lot of it funny. For some reason the emails between the two of them make me laugh. Also Ana's private thoughts and her inner goddess and her sub conscience make me laugh.

An updated version of 9 1/2 weeks.

[obamanut2012]

32. Sometimes you need trashy

I admit to reading celebitchy.com. Every day.

[RainDog]

30. I read the first one

to know what the fuss was about.

I thought it the set up was really stupid - it was another rehash of virgin gets rich guy fantasy with some titillation tossed in.

I HATED that the writer said "down there." I wanted to scream, WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM?!?!?!? You can't name your body parts?

The good part is that it inspired me to think about writing some porn myself in which a female isn't a moron looking for a rich guy and pretending the story isn't anything other than the same old regressive middle class fantasy of marrying up.

[obamanut2012]

33. Promise me one thing

MAKE THE GUY THE SUBMISSIVE!!!

[obamanut2012]

41. I agree with that quote

And, I think you should write something. I'll buy a copy!

[Gormy Cuss]

34. "Down there" drives me crazy too

and I'm also tired of that Cinderella fantasy.

[RainDog]

36. no joke

What's interesting to me - about that whole fantasy set up - is that the middle class, in GB, at least, used their "respectability" to position themselves as worthy when aristocrats who had titles but no money started marrying into the growing middle class that had money from actual work but no titles or prestige.

Daughters were the vehicle for middle-class upward mobility by marrying them off to guys who, often, didn't give a shit about them but needed to marry someone with money.

so, the fantasy is based upon some pretty sad reality.

I would love to see how women behaved, sexually, in a society in which economic parity existed. We do see some of it among a few - but if women didn't feel like marriage was a vehicle to financial security - I bet women would behave differently, sexually. just my guess, tho.

or maybe part of the premise of my book idea...

[Gormy Cuss]

37. Start writing! n/t

[obamanut2012]

42. That is THE reason women married until quite recently

And, the reason some women still get married. It's not about being a "gold digger," but about society not allowing you to be financially secure.

Women are not interested in marriage at a much higher rate now than before, because they can now often afford to live on their own, even if they are living with a boyfriend (or girlfriend). Most man are still as interested in marriage as they have been, because economically it's the same as it has always been.

[RainDog]

46. Society, not women

My example, however, was that aristocratic MEN began to marry women whose families were middle class because of money. These men had titles and land but no money when the industrial revolution changed GB from a rural to urban society. Until the 1880s, married women had no right to their own property or assets, so marrying a female with money meant the husband became the owner of her property or assets.

So, the "fantasy" was that these aristocratic males married middle-class females for love - but the reality, often, was that these marriages were family transactions - the aristocratic family got cash to pay taxes on estates and the middle-class one got a family member with a title and entrée into aristocratic circles to help other members of that family gain access to titles, etc.

Not to say a female saw herself in that way - but some surely knew what was expected of them - but that was a reality. Then, the aristocratic male would have sex with whomever he pleased and actually love someone else - not necessarily the female who was his wife. Divorce was not an option. The female provided an heir to the family, for both sides, and made her family more upwardly mobile.

Not all marriages were like this, but the reality is that marriage has been about things other than love for most of its existence - among royalty, aristocrats and the middle class. No one really cared about the poor one way or another in this regard - ever.

Marie Antoinette married Louis to seal a political alliance b/t France and the HRE. The French Revolution came about because a middle class in France was expected to pay for the extravagance of the aristocracy and royalty (including funding wars like our own Revolution to spite GB.) The poor didn't start the French Revolution - it was a newly-emerged middle class (lawyers, scholars) that wanted a piece of the power in government decisions - like who pays taxes. Just like here, now, the elite didn't think they should pay taxes to fund the state. A lot of them lost their lives, not just their property, for their inability to compromise.

In GB, aristocrats made room for the middle class a little more readily - often by "political alliances" that allowed the middle class to marry into the aristocracy.

Aristocrats did not start nor propel the industrial revolution. Jenny Uglow wrote a great book called Lunar Men that talks about the beginnings of the scientific revolution. The men who did this were not at Cambridge and Oxford - those universities taught the classics, philosophy, etc. - and they were closed off to anyone who wasn't part of the Church of England. Dissenters like Joseph Priestly (the founder of Unitarianism) and middle-class inventors created the wealth of the scientific/industrial revolution. Aristocrats were supposed to govern everyone else, not earn money by work.

Women, historically, could either get married or join a religious order or live with her family and take care of her parents as they aged and then move in with another family member when her parents died. She couldn't hold a job or earn her own keep and be respectable. A VERY FEW did - earn money as governesses - but, even then they were controlled by another family.

Schools as we know them didn't start until the dissenters (anyone who wasn't anglican church) wanted people to learn to read so that they could interpret the bible for themselves and, just as importantly, if not more so, to encourage sobriety because factory work needed sober workers much more than farm work did.

Universal education (for males, initially) didn't come about until the industrial revolution needed workers who could read instructions. So, even then, schools were by and for males more often than not.

Women didn't have choices. Their entire lives were determined by the men they married. Of course women wanted to marry males who wouldn't leave them and their children (because birth control was also not an option) destitute. Women in the work force after marriage is an invention of the 1960s and 70s.

[RainDog]

56. A lot of women died in childbirth

before people understood the idea of germs, etc. Septicaemia, or massive infection because someone used unwashed hands to delivery babies, for instance, was a big cause of death for women.

A friend of mine had a great-great-great-great (however many) grandmother who delivered babies back in "old Europe." Sometimes the uterus would prolapse because of multiple childbirths - the "cure" was to use a potato to prevent the uterus from falling out of the vagina.

good times. good times.

but, yeah, because so many women died in childbirth or from multiple childbirths - there were lots of remarriages to take care of children and just simply survive. That's one reason why there are so many "wicked" stepmothers in old stories - no doubt some of these stepmothers favored their own children, especially in times when resources were scarce, because of that whole "selfish gene" idea, sadly. But no doubt, also, stepmothers were common, whether they were kind or mean.

people learned to love one another - romantic love wasn't the reason for lots of marriages. the love came after the marriage. hopefully came after. once a woman was married, tho - that was usually it.

my mother was divorced back when people just didn't do this. her husband abandoned her and her small child. it was a big "embarrassment" in my family because my half-brother, who is 11 years older than me, spent time in daycare. I learned about this when I was older - including the "shame" part. no "respectable" family put a child in daycare - but my mom had to go to work. She lived in the city. Her other choice was to live on the farm and work there - but since she had been doing that since she was 8 years old, I guess she wanted to do something else and not be isolated out in the middle of nowhere around some very, very strict religious believers.

in the rural south in the U.S., conditions were horrid for people into the 1960s, until Democrats worked to elevate their situations - before that, FDR helped by bringing electricity via the "horrible" govt. program, the TVA. I don't get why so many southerners vote for Republicans when the south has only benefited from Democratic policies, but... they do.

I do think the societal "norm" is that people will pair off and have children - it's only been a few decades since women could have sex without the idea that children would result. It's amazing to me that the Republicans want to take women back to that time, or want to punish young women who have sex before marriage with abstinence programs. It seems barbaric to me.

I grew up with the idea that of course women would use birth control and plan their families. My mother was among the first generation of women who did so.

But in that earlier post - wondering about women's behavior vis a vis economic parity - the reality is still that women earn less than men, on avg. and divorce can be a path to poverty. So, yes, still, economics plays a big part in issues like marriage. Not to say that women marry for money, but divorce can be out of the question for many when children are involved b/c of economics, even in bad situations. Women have to accept that they are often making the decision to move from middle to lower class economic status with divorce.

[LadyHawkAZ]

38. I forced myself to read the trilogy over the last

couple days. Books 2 and 3 weren't as difficult to get through because after book 1, the human brain turns to cold, raw oatmeal.

I just don't see the appeal in this series, and the problem isn't just the BDSM themes. It's a good roadmap for "How To Run A Successful Abusive Relationship", and that's the only area where the story works. The writing is awful, foul, bad, junior-high-writing-project terrible. The dialogue is awkward. The much-touted sex is as badly written as everything else, and is not sexy. The storyline is so thin you can cut a hole in the wall and use the book as a window. If you go in with the knowledge that this started as Twilight fanfic, it's possible to see a few shadows of the equally shallow Bella in Ana, but overall Ana isn't very deeply developed even though she is the viewpoint character. The peripheral characters are cardboard cutouts. Christian Grey is the only character with any real depth- and Christian is a controlling, mentally abusive horse's ass. Even the obligatory horrible childhood flashbacks didn't make him sympathetic.

I have seen Harlequin romances that were better reads.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put some Terry Pratchett on the Kindle and try to resurrect my suffocating brain cells.

[Neoma]

49. I never really pay attention to best sellers anymore.

Too much garbage.

[LadyHawkAZ]

50. there's a couple of authors that I follow

Pratchett, for one, could publish his grocery list and I'd pay to read it. But I mostly don't go for the bestsellers either.

[obamanut2012]

54. I like that with George RR Martin and Bill Bryson

[LadyHawkAZ]

57. I started following Sue Grafton

when the series was just picking up steam because I lived not far from the area at the time. I still buy whenever she puts out something new.

I buy anything by Terry Pratchett as soon as they hit the shelves- I am a HUGE Discworld geek. Same with Neil Gaiman, but he writes much more slowly.

[obamanut2012]

58. I've been told I'd like Terry Prachett

[LadyHawkAZ]

59. Belly laughs and lots of 'em

He's a master of satire.

[Neoma]

55. The closest I've come to following one author, has been Mary Roach.

Before I switched to mostly all non-fiction though, I read anything that turned into movies or TV shows. The differences are pretty striking.