I can’t deny it anymore… 50 Shades of Grey is a big deal. I haven’t read it beyond little snarky excerpts posted by people on social media, but it certainly seems to have caught on and I can sort of see why. For whatever reason, it’s given more traditional and buttoned-up women the “permission” to be sexy. It’s full of kink, so they’re exploring new grounds and seemingly really enjoying it. Even though this essentially started off as Twilight fan fiction (actually) it’s still ultimately a good thing, I think.
If this is popular, other books in the same vein will become popular, opening the way for other erotica writers from different genres to move forth and make a name for themselves in the more mainstream sector. Then, who knows? Maybe we’ll move out of the literary realm and into photography and videos that are more conventionally accepted as a part of sexuality in general. Maybe we’ll even decide that sex isn’t such a big, scary taboo!
So, it took a cheesy book to make this seem possible… Never underestimate the right introduction at the right time. That said, we can still poke fun at it, of course, which is why I posted that highly disturbing video. Hopefully you’ll laugh.
I have to ask, though, has anyone here read it or do you know someone who read it? What do you think of it as a concept?
Camille, One of my close female friends is reading the book and says she enjoys it very much. She admits, though, she feels a bit naughty since she enjoys the book so much. I’m considering suggesting that she view your site and videos; if she thinks that book is sensuous, she’ll discover what sensuality really is when she sees your videos and/or pics!
That’s awesome. I hope it’s a gateway for a lot of women to discover their sexualities.
My mom asked me about the book and, yeah, can I not do that again?
But since my day job involves making bondage rope, she asked what I thought of the books in general and if we’d seen an uptick of sales since they’d hit the mainstream. So far not much, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a few more orders in the coming months or so.
What little I’ve read in the bookshop is appalling bad writing and dull characterization but, yeah, it may be the best intro possible. I look at it like Lender’s bagels or Starbucks coffee. On the one hand, they’re not especially good examples of their products but they were very good introductions for people who’d never had them before and for some folks that was enough to go off on their own and find that bagel shop at the market or go and open their own coffee shop or… whatever.
Cheap, trite, sappy… and somewhere in the world there’s a couple having the strangest (to them) conversation about what if they brought a flogger into the bedroom? Win/win to me.
I completely agree with your analogy. They will set the spark, and then people will hopefully be inspired to branch out and seek new experiences. Awkward about your mom, though. But cute!
Yeah, my folks know what I do for a living so that’s cool, I just don’t want to refer even obliquely to any *ahem* extracurricular interests I’ve developed since I started working there. I’ll just say “good employee discount” and leave it there.
But here’s the thing!
My mom works at a Barnes & Noble and they’re having a hard time keeping the books on the shelves at all, obviously. More interesting is the fact that there are more and more people who are just buying the entire series in one go rather than one book at a time. One day she had two women each buying the series at the same time and she made some comment about the popularity of the series and so on.
It turned out that the two women worked at one of the local adult stores and they HAVE seen an uptick in sales. Specifically they have people calling and asking for the toys and gadgets that appear in the books! So this was essentially research material so they could know that they need… floggers or cuffs or whatever the hell all else is in the series.
And this is a small city in the American midwest.
Like I said, win/win.
Wow, well, that is really wonderful to hear! I hope it all trickles down to you. It gives my heart a great deal of glee to know that middle America is having an uptick in fun, adventurous, curious, satisfying sex!
I’ll admit to reading the original fan fiction, but I haven’t read the books. It worked as a fan-fic, but I can see how it wouldn’t work as a book. For whatever reason, fan-fic stories and editing, don’t really translate well to real life book form.
There’s actually a fairly large amount of non-vanilla type of sexual relationships (be it BDSM, slash, etc.) in fan fiction. For me, it wasn’t weird to read a story with a BDSM relationship in it. What has been weird for me, was my mom’s book club (ladies in their 50s-60s) reading the series. I’m all for people learning about different sexual preferences and exploring what’s out there, but come on, no one wants to hear how their upper-60s mother’s sex life has improved.
Seriously though, as you said, I really hope this does break down some barriers people have about what has normally been classified as taboo in regards to sex. Plus, I’m glad women finally have something they can go to for fantasies. Men have historically had porn, but women are finally realizing that there is something equally as stimulating out there for them!
You’re right on point with that last paragraph. It’s hard to divorce yourself from the squeamish side, but the result is that a lot of people will hopefully be happier. It’s hard to argue with that.
As a community leader of a local BDSM/Kinkster community, I personally felt like 50SoG puts forth a somewhat unrealistic portrayal of a D/s relationship. The story repeatedly makes use of cliches that are easily recognized by those who don’t take part in the scene.
For this reason, it is both useful, and frustrating. Useful because it brings our art into the light, and gives it a new life amongst new practitioners. People who might not have tried sadomasochism or dominance and submission play might give it a shot because this book opened their eyes to it.
It is frustrating because while it is certain that relationships like the one detailed in this book do exist, the continued pop culture impression is that all BDSM relationships _must_ be like this. And that is dangerous talk, which can lead to players taking part in play they might not feel comfortable with because “it’s the submissive thing to do” or it’s “correct” based on their interpretation of a fictional portrayal of a real life play dynamic.
In real life, BDSM relationships run the gamut from controlling to free, from painful to sensual, and everything in between. The real focus of BDSM is exploring unfamiliar and therefore exciting social structures, finding a balance between equality in love and humanity, and the potential for voluntary inequality in the bedroom.
While I am excited that books like 50SoG exist, to bring our play to more practitioners, I wish that more of them extolled the virtues of learning. I help run a community of kinksters not for the friendship, or social graces, but to help teach people correct techniques and interesting ideas they might not have thought of. To show them how to perform inherently unsafe activities in the safest and most controlled way possible, without ruining the mood along the way.
Is 50SoG a first step? Yes, and a pretty good one at that, but just as with blowjobs, no one is at their best the first time they try. I hope books come along that tell _that_ story. The story of the BDSM couple who doesn’t quite know how to do it. The mistakes they make along the way, and how they learn from it, not just as a couple, or a D/s pair, but as peers on equal footing choosing to subjugate, or be subjugated, for their own and each others’ pleasure.
Sorry for the tldr, Camille, this is something that’s been swimming around my head for awhile, and your blog post stirred my brainpot.
~Desmond
Agreeable Agony
I definitely agree with you. I hope that people treat it as a starting point and think critically about what their desires actually are instead of following a script. I really hope that someone does make that more realistic BDSM erotica… I think that would be a great thing. DumbDomme.com is actually great for that, and she’s up on Fleshbot a lot. It would be nice to see something nuanced like that take hold in the mainstream.