50 Shades of goodbye

Warnings: The Fifty Shades series is extremely sexually explicit and involves BDSM. Because of that, and because they are not exactly well-researched or high-quality literature, I will mention things such as abuse, rape, rape culture, male dominance, sexism, relationship violence, and consensual BDSM. Also, the books began as Twilight fanfic, so I will be mentioning Twilight (which is a major squick for a lot of people just by itself).

This is it, people.  My last post on Fifty Shades of Grey.  I “enjoyed” being tortured by this book.  I’ve blogged my way through it as I read, and now I’m taking a break from writing about this series for the rest of July.  During that time, I’ll be reading the second book.  Don’t worry–I’ve also got some good books to read during that time.

I have mixed feelings about the end of this book.  First, let me sum up what happens (warning: spoilers):

• Ana gets up way too early to find Christian playing moody piano music
• He wants to have sex on the piano; she wants to talk
• She asks about the contract she never signed, and he tells her it’s moot
• He still wants her to obey all the rules in the contract (you know, the controlling stuff about what she eats, her exercise, etc.); he says he’ll punish her if she disobeys
• She eventually demands that he show her how painful it can get
• He beats the crap out of her butt with a belt
• She realizes he has “needs” she can’t fulfill and she leaves him

It’s a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea.  There is something deeply creepy about the fact that Christian admits that he’s not really into BDSM and playing so much as he’s into causing women pain.  He knows why he does it, but he won’t tell Ana because he’s sure that if he lets her in on all his secrets she’ll leave him.  Except the fact that he needs to hurt her but won’t tell her why really does cause her to leave.

I’ve read other reviews that have suggested her reaction to their break-up is over-the-top and out of proportion.  I don’t think it is, actually.  Under the circumstances, I would have expected no less.  She’s invested everything in trying to keep from drowning in this relationship, and now that it’s come apart, she feels like her whole world is gone.  That actually makes some sense.  It wouldn’t if this relationship wasn’t an abusive, tangled mess, though.

We finally have some proof that this book is not about consensual BDSM.  It’s about one person’s need to control and hurt others.  The author’s own confusion is the real problem here.  It is certainly possible that someone who has been deeply traumatized could find healing through the sort of release experienced with BDSM.  That’s not what’s happening here.  Instead, we have a man who cannot work out his own inner issues in a healthy way, so he’s taking it out on women.  I will say that he might have been able to pass this off as BDSM, but I’m not sure how, given that his former subs seem to have been vastly more experienced than Ana.  It’s possible that’s why none of them ever lasted or why he put time-limits on every relationship–not giving anyone enough time to figure it out.

It should be noted here, also, that he doesn’t seem to need to cause pain in order to find sexual release.  According to the story, he’s apparently been able to get off plenty of times, and most of those outside his “playroom.”  No, his need to punish, to cause pain, seems to be at least in part separate.  I count that as doubly creepy.

The frustration I have with the ending is my own knowledge that since this is the first book, we can obviously look forward to two more novels in which she goes back to him–and eventually stays.  I’m also bothered by the fact that while real-life women are trying every day to escape controlling, abusive jerks like Christian, millions of women are reading this book and rooting for Ana and Christian to get back together and have their happily ever after.  I’m upset by the way that unlike what happens to real women all the time, he magically realizes the error of his ways and stops being abusive.  Do any of the people practically worshiping these books have any idea at all how many victims return to their abusers because the abusers have promised to stop?  Maybe Christian really does change, but that’s an unlikely scenario at best in real life.

For every person who now wants to say, “But it’s fiction!” I’d like to remind you all that I know it’s fiction.  I am perfectly capable of suspending disbelief.  I’m well aware that vampires don’t sparkle (or exist), 11-year-old boys don’t find out they’re wizards, you can’t get to other countries through a closet, and there are no rings that rule them all.  But Fifty Shades isn’t fantasy, it takes place in our very real world.  And the best fiction–real-world, fantasy, and everything else–is not a glimpse at what we wish would happen (though there may be elements of that; see The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis*).  Rather, it offers a look at the underlying beliefs and values of both the writer and the society in which it’s written.  Fifty Shades isn’t a story about the transformative powers of love; it’s a wish-fulfillment story about what many people believe would happen if victims just cherished their abusers enough.

So there you have it.  Thank you all for sticking with me through this.  I’ll continue to blog on other topics throughout the rest of July, and then I’ll pick up where I left off in August with the second book in the series.  Catch you all later!

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*In The Magician’s Nephew (warning: spoilers), Diggory Kirke brings a magic apple back from Narnia which heals his mother’s illness.  Many have speculated that C. S. Lewis wrote into the story what he wished could have been done for his own mother.  In my opinion, this is a better version of wishful thinking than what’s found in Fifty Shades.  People know that magic healing apples don’t exist, but a lot of people believe that abusers can change if they just get what they want/need or receive enough love.