Fifty Shades of Grey.... Oh, Just Shoot Me Now
I resisted reading the trilogy because I was in the home stretch of finishing my own novel, RED (which is going to be published by Kensington Ebooks at the beginning of September 2012. Yippee!), and I didn't want to distract myself with someone else's take on BDSM, even in fiction. My novel is a BDSM erotic thriller, not a romance in the usual sense of the word, and I have never been a big fan of "romance" as a genre.
But then the books kept getting so much publicity, I decided I needed to read it as both a writer and a kinkster, because what I hate more than anything is people who go around with strong opinions based purely on hearsay.
The first novel is mildly amusing, mildly erotic, but it's tedious writing that very quickly gets old. By the time I finished the third book, I was skimming because I just wanted the torture to be over. The same words and phrases over and over. And the later "plots" of former sub stalkers and disgruntled employee sabotage thrown into the last two books are just lame.
And I personally hate the endearment, "baby." It's just so.... Seventies. Call me "dear," call me "sweetheart," call me "nasty whore" — anything but "baby."
I realize that it's fantasy, but I suppose this is why I can't stomach romance novels: it's just so ridiculous. A twenty-something virgin (??!?) literally stumbles over the world's richest, youngest, most handsome dominant AND he's single? Not even a girlfriend or sub in sight! AND he's immediately smitten with her.
And they have almost non-stop, mind-blowing sex in which they ALWAYS cum together. How can a rational person take it seriously?
But I can see right away why the vanilla readers seem to like it more than the kinksters. We kinksters are already having great, creative sex with all those interesting toys. We don't need a fantasy, so much, because we live ours. What Ana and Christian are discovering is a normal Saturday night for us.
As for the BDSM, she gets a lot of it right. She also gets a lot of it wrong. Mostly, it is the "broken" theme, which is always guaranteed to piss us kinksters off. It's one of the worst stereotypes we have to fight against. It's not just Christian, the major character, portrayed as broken, but his former sub ( who comes after them with a gun in major psychotic break) and his "Mrs. Robinson," painted as a controlling, jealous pedophile who, in the end, is a pathetic lonely old woman.
There's not a single well-adjusted, happy kinkster in the whole damn series.
Ana is so focused on his repulsive "sadism" that she ignores major warning signs for any woman in a dating relationship: his obsessive jealousy, controlling personality and stalker behavior. All of THAT she jokes about. "Oh, Mr. Controlling Stalker... he's so cute!"
I also had issues with the view of his "Mrs. Robinson" as a "disgusting pedophile." Yes, sex with a fifteen year old boy is against the law, and maybe I'm in the minority, but I know too many people -- especially in this lifestyle -- who found "sexual mentors" at less than legal age, and it was hardly the kind of pedophilia that does lasting emotional damage.
If I had a fifteen year old son, I'd prefer he learn about sex with a mature woman instead of another idiot fifteen year old that would probably get knocked up. Especially if he had kinky tendencies. A mature partner would educate him, not risk his physical well-being as much as experimentation with another equally clueless newbie might.
There's so much whining and moaning about Christian's sexual needs and Ana's refusal to submit (when actually in many ways, at least sexually, she does), I just wanted to scream at them, "Get over it! If either of you bothered to post to FetLife about it, everybody would tell you both to just relax, go with it, and find a form of BDSM that works for you both!"
All that amazing sexual chemistry and obvious infatuation, and Ana is still unsure what to do? Jesus! I'd beat the shit out of her myself!
No, as a writer, E L James has no obligation to make her characters poster children for kink, but it is still annoying. Almost as annoying as the constant "does he love me if I won't let him beat me" and "please never leave me" back and forth of the two utterly co-dependent characters who act more like emotionally retarded high schoolers than consenting adults.
On the other hand... James does a fair job of showing Ana learning, slowly, that it's not all "sick torture," but some sensuality and imagination in the bedroom. She gets off on the bondage and even the spanking that so revolted her in the beginning.
Will the books send a flood of tourists our way? Yes, definitely. Though they will be almost exclusively females with unrealistic sub fantasies, and as a sub myself, I groan at the idea of more female submissives in a community already overloaded with female submissives and not nearly enough male doms (imho).
But I remember vividly discovering Anne Rice's Beauty series, and feeling that amazing relief of knowing I was not the only one who had such fantasies. I remember wondering how this woman got into my head.
And if Fifty Shades does that for even a handful of people, then I suppose it's worth it.
Now, I just have to get over my raging envy at E L James' success as a writer, especially for something I found so annoying. The movie rights sold for a seven-figure sum. SEVEN FIGURES. Oh, the humanity! Just shoot me, shoot me now!
Instead, I'll just concentrate on hoping my own novel, RED, will have even a fraction of Fifty's success.
But then the books kept getting so much publicity, I decided I needed to read it as both a writer and a kinkster, because what I hate more than anything is people who go around with strong opinions based purely on hearsay.
The first novel is mildly amusing, mildly erotic, but it's tedious writing that very quickly gets old. By the time I finished the third book, I was skimming because I just wanted the torture to be over. The same words and phrases over and over. And the later "plots" of former sub stalkers and disgruntled employee sabotage thrown into the last two books are just lame.
And I personally hate the endearment, "baby." It's just so.... Seventies. Call me "dear," call me "sweetheart," call me "nasty whore" — anything but "baby."
I realize that it's fantasy, but I suppose this is why I can't stomach romance novels: it's just so ridiculous. A twenty-something virgin (??!?) literally stumbles over the world's richest, youngest, most handsome dominant AND he's single? Not even a girlfriend or sub in sight! AND he's immediately smitten with her.
And they have almost non-stop, mind-blowing sex in which they ALWAYS cum together. How can a rational person take it seriously?
But I can see right away why the vanilla readers seem to like it more than the kinksters. We kinksters are already having great, creative sex with all those interesting toys. We don't need a fantasy, so much, because we live ours. What Ana and Christian are discovering is a normal Saturday night for us.
As for the BDSM, she gets a lot of it right. She also gets a lot of it wrong. Mostly, it is the "broken" theme, which is always guaranteed to piss us kinksters off. It's one of the worst stereotypes we have to fight against. It's not just Christian, the major character, portrayed as broken, but his former sub ( who comes after them with a gun in major psychotic break) and his "Mrs. Robinson," painted as a controlling, jealous pedophile who, in the end, is a pathetic lonely old woman.
There's not a single well-adjusted, happy kinkster in the whole damn series.
Ana is so focused on his repulsive "sadism" that she ignores major warning signs for any woman in a dating relationship: his obsessive jealousy, controlling personality and stalker behavior. All of THAT she jokes about. "Oh, Mr. Controlling Stalker... he's so cute!"
I also had issues with the view of his "Mrs. Robinson" as a "disgusting pedophile." Yes, sex with a fifteen year old boy is against the law, and maybe I'm in the minority, but I know too many people -- especially in this lifestyle -- who found "sexual mentors" at less than legal age, and it was hardly the kind of pedophilia that does lasting emotional damage.
If I had a fifteen year old son, I'd prefer he learn about sex with a mature woman instead of another idiot fifteen year old that would probably get knocked up. Especially if he had kinky tendencies. A mature partner would educate him, not risk his physical well-being as much as experimentation with another equally clueless newbie might.
There's so much whining and moaning about Christian's sexual needs and Ana's refusal to submit (when actually in many ways, at least sexually, she does), I just wanted to scream at them, "Get over it! If either of you bothered to post to FetLife about it, everybody would tell you both to just relax, go with it, and find a form of BDSM that works for you both!"
All that amazing sexual chemistry and obvious infatuation, and Ana is still unsure what to do? Jesus! I'd beat the shit out of her myself!
No, as a writer, E L James has no obligation to make her characters poster children for kink, but it is still annoying. Almost as annoying as the constant "does he love me if I won't let him beat me" and "please never leave me" back and forth of the two utterly co-dependent characters who act more like emotionally retarded high schoolers than consenting adults.
On the other hand... James does a fair job of showing Ana learning, slowly, that it's not all "sick torture," but some sensuality and imagination in the bedroom. She gets off on the bondage and even the spanking that so revolted her in the beginning.
Will the books send a flood of tourists our way? Yes, definitely. Though they will be almost exclusively females with unrealistic sub fantasies, and as a sub myself, I groan at the idea of more female submissives in a community already overloaded with female submissives and not nearly enough male doms (imho).
But I remember vividly discovering Anne Rice's Beauty series, and feeling that amazing relief of knowing I was not the only one who had such fantasies. I remember wondering how this woman got into my head.
And if Fifty Shades does that for even a handful of people, then I suppose it's worth it.
Now, I just have to get over my raging envy at E L James' success as a writer, especially for something I found so annoying. The movie rights sold for a seven-figure sum. SEVEN FIGURES. Oh, the humanity! Just shoot me, shoot me now!
Instead, I'll just concentrate on hoping my own novel, RED, will have even a fraction of Fifty's success.
