Books

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).

The interactions between Ana and Kate have to be some of the worst examples of conversation between friends I’ve ever read.  It’s not so much that the dialogue is all that bad; maybe not great, but I’ve read (and written, in first drafts) much worse.  But as I was reading it, it felt a lot less like two adult women having a heart-to-heart and a lot more like the scene from the 90s version of Beverly Hills, 90210.  You know which episode I mean—the prom one, where Kelly and Brenda wear the same dress and then Kelly gets all proud of Brenda for making it with Dylan.  Yes, Ana and Kate’s post-date talk has all the maturity of teenagers on prom night.

Also, here we have another example of the way in which our culture (and quite possibly British culture as well, since the author is from the UK) treats women, sex, and rape.  Kate confesses that her first “sex” was (in a surprise twist) on her prom night.  She says that she and her date were drunk, he was “rough,” and she “wasn’t ready.”  Does this sound to anyone else like she might have been raped but is not capable of admitting it, even to herself?  She seems to brush it off as an amusing anecdote (as evidenced by her “sad comedy” face).  She also refers to this as “typical teenage post-prom disaster.”  Well, that certainly confirms that the author got all her information about American proms from watching bad teen movies.

At least Ana has the good sense to tell Kate that the experience sounds awful.  Or she does on the outside, anyway.  She seems too busy entertaining her inner goddess to give a crap about the fact that her roommate has just confessed that her first sex was actually a lot closer to rape.  Of course, Kate seems to dismiss it too, moving on to talking about orgasms like she’s conversing about the weather.  This just highlights one of my major frustrations with this book.  If only Ms. James were capable of treating these social issues with the gravity they deserve!  The story could be a brilliant commentary on sex and power dynamics if she made it a little more clear that she doesn’t actually think that prom rape is normal or that it’s okay to hide abuse under cover of BDSM or that it’s not predatory for adult women to sleep with adolescent boys.  As it is, I’m left with the impression that she’s using those things to titillate and to pay lip service (pen service?) to character development.

The one good thing in this chapter is that we finally see Ana eat something.  It’s probably a bad sign when a woman can’t eat around the person she supposedly likes, not because she has nervous-in-love butterflies but because he scares the crap out of her.  It’s also not a good sign when a man wants to control every last bite she takes, even before he’s had her sign a sex contract stating he can do so.

Naturally, Ana doesn’t tell Kate about José’s advances.  (I’m devoting a whole separate post to my thoughts on José, so stay tuned.)  She says Kate will “have him for breakfast.”  So she can talk about her orgasms, and Kate can confess her post-prom rape, but Ana can’t tell Kate about the way José wouldn’t take no for an answer?  I guess it’s supposed to make a better story when characters don’t really talk to each other about important things, but it’s an over-used plot device.  Besides, it doesn’t work in this context.  Whether or not Ana tells Kate about José won’t affect the plot of the book.  It’s not setting up some future disaster that will result from her non-disclosure…

…as evidenced by the fact that three pages later, Ana does finally ‘fess up about José, downplaying the seriousness of it.  Apparently, she doesn’t know Kate very well, because her worries about Kate going after him appear to be unfounded.  This whole chapter is just one bizarre interaction after another.  We’re supposed to believe that these two young women are great friends, but it’s hard to grasp from the interactions we’ve seen so far throughout the book.  Fun little exercise:  While you read the book, look for all the times Ana says bitchy things about Kate, followed by explaining what an awesome friend Kate is.  Ana, you suck at friendship.

That wraps it up for chapter 11.  Next week, I’m going to talk about José and the ways that pretty much everything about his character disturbs me.  For now, stick around.  I’m finally starting my series on A Year of Biblical Womanhood, and I’ve got a couple of other good things planned for this week.

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 post contains mention of sexual abuse, assault, and rape, which may be triggering for some people.

We’ve arrived (so to speak) at chapter 10, In Which We Meet Christian Grey’s Mother and Learn All About His Issues.  First, let me just say that my husband’s mother would absolutely never even consider showing up at our door unannounced.  Aside from the fact that my in-laws live nearly 400 miles away, it’s just not something that would cross her mind.  If there were a dire emergency, she would call.  Failing that, she might come see us; but if we were otherwise engaged (ahem) there is no way she would be rude enough to interrupt.

That said, I think there are women who do that sort of thing, especially if their sons are a bit too attached or unwilling to just tell them to shove off.  It’s perfectly fine that Ms. James sets Christian’s mother up as a privileged bitch.  The problem is, she doesn’t continue with that.  One would think that a woman so unconcerned with the fact that she’s showed up when her son is “entertaining” company would be fairly unlikable.  Yet somehow, Perfect Ana already has Mrs. Pretentious Name wrapped around her little finger in less than the time it took Christian to tie Ana up two pages ago.  (Side note: where the hell was Taylor while Ana and Christian were getting it on for most of two chapters?  Inquiring minds want to know.)

Personally, I also thought it was a bit weird that Christian’s mother sounded surprised? incredulous? that he had a Special Guest staying over.  Several pages later, we learn that his mother thinks he’s gay.  There’s something that vaguely bothers me about those two facts put together.  It reminds me a lot of all the people I know who intellectually understand that gay people exist, but don’t really have a concept of what that exactly means.  Surely Christian’s highly educated mother has a better grasp than that?  Maybe we just haven’t seen enough of her at this point to make sense of this weirdness yet.  Anyway, it’s a moot point, because Christian’s not gay, just extremely kinky, and he gives Mommy a nice surprise that she’s caught him with a woman.

During the whole bizarre exchange, we never quite figure out why Christian’s mother was so insistent on seeing him (other than wanting to have lunch with him; apparently she has no access to telephones to call him to find out whether he’s free).  She leaves, Ana talks to Kate, and Christian gives Ana the Contract for Abusive Kinky Sex to look over.  We learn that Ana lives in the Dark Ages and has no access (on a college campus?) to a computer or the Internet.

We also find out why Christian is such a messed up guy—or his version of the story, anyway.

Apparently, when Christian was young enough that it was illegal, his mother’s friend made him her submissive.  First of all, what kind of sick woman does that?  Second, the way Ms. James writes it, it plays out like a hormone-addled teenage fantasy.  It is apparently every adolescent male’s wet dream come true to have a hot older woman make him her sex slave.  Maybe this is just the way Christian has processed the abuse he suffered, but I think Ms. James is buying into the fetishizing of sex abuse.  If it had been reversed, i.e. Ana molested by her father’s best friend, we would be recoiling in horror.  There would be a lot more angst on her part and probably a good deal more about the fact that it constitutes rape of, at minimum, the statutory variety.  But since it’s a woman making it with an underage boy, it has the undertones of hot sex and “breaking him in.”  (If it had been a man having sex with the underage Christian, we surely would have seen how that “turned him” gay, though we also would have viewed the adult man much more negatively.  Apparently, all youthful sexual activity for men shapes them into experienced adults, but it ruins girls for life.)

I get it.  We’re supposed to make the connection to why Christian is so screwed up as an adult.  Maybe we’re even supposed to see that he’s in denial that he was violated.  But just once I’d like to read a story that didn’t sexualize that situation and then play it up for an erotica later on.  I know some men who were assaulted by older women; trust me, they aren’t pretending that it was the relationship standard they hold all others to.  I won’t deny that there are adolescents (both boys and girls) who fantasize about getting it on with teachers and such.  But responsible adults don’t follow through with that, on the understanding that a fifteen-year-old is not an adult and that usually there is an imbalance of power in the relationship to start with.

Just like I believe it’s important to put a stop both to the sexualization of women and the sexual oppression of women, I believe it’s time we put a stop to the unhealthy view of men that says they are at the mercy of their gonads from puberty onward.  Men, too, have been reduced to little other than their dangly bits by a society that encourages boys to believe that they can’t or don’t need to control their lust-fueled actions.  Similarly, the wider culture views the sexual assault of men to be virtually impossible, thereby turning predatory older women into the stuff of fantasy.  This is exactly why boys are less likely to seek help.

As people of faith, we need to make sure that we do not in any way feed into this unhealthy notion.  I think we need to start with acknowledging that adolescents have sexual feelings and that it is a normal and healthy part of growing up—rather than insisting that those feelings are unacceptable and must be suppressed until the “proper” time and place.  We also need to do exactly what the Bible tells us to do over and over: make sure we are caring for our most vulnerable people.  Children and teens who have been sexually violated are among the people who require our care and love.  We need to make it very clear that we will not tolerate adults preying on children of any age, regardless of whether the perpetrator believes that the victim “wanted” it.

Just one more thing: If this is you; if you are among those people who have been or are being hurt by the adults in your life, please know that you are not alone.  There are people you can talk to.  You can message me here if you just need someone to listen (all messages go straight to private email and do not appear on the site).  If someone is telling you (the way Christian tells Ana, or his mother’s friend told him) that your relationship must be secret, that’s a lie and it’s abuse.  Please find someone you trust, ask for help, and let that person care for you.  You don’t have to do this by yourself.

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 post contains a lot of mentions of oral sex.  And also Mark Driscoll.

Oh, come on.  You knew I would eventually bring it around to Pastor Mark, right?

Remember the time Mark Driscoll said that wives should suck their husbands off in the morning?  I’ll bet this chapter would be his favorite (if Ana and Christian were properly married, good little Reformed Christians, that is).  Thankfully, according to Pastor Mark, oral sex is commanded in the Bible, since Song of Solomon is actually yet another list of rules for us to follow.  Makes sense that “Thou shalt commit blow jobs” is on the list, right?  And of course, it needs to be in the text of the Bible in order to be acceptable; God forbid we should perform any sex acts that don’t specifically appear in the Christian Owner’s Manual™.

Still, here we have Ana doing for Christian what Pastor Mark agrees is a great way to wake up (though they reserve it for after brekky).  I wonder if he would approve of doing it in the tub, since that’s not in Scripture.  I have no doubt that he would heartily endorse Ana’s obvious enjoyment of her first experience, though.  Both Pastor Mark and E. L. James seem to have the same assumption that the mere thought of giving head will make even a first-timer pant with lust.  (Not saying that it shouldn’t, or couldn’t, just that someone with no experience isn’t necessarily going to feel that way.)

Anyway, the chapter reeks of the awful writing found in the entire rest of the book.  This particular scene is characterized by its glaring lack of attention to proper details.  I think, as in the previous chapter, the author is going for “hot smut.”  The idea is that it’s not important whether all the body parts function strictly the way they do in real life, or whether Ana yells like a pirate, or whether she sticks his schlong in her mouth without rinsing off the damn soap first.  We’re supposed to suspend our disbelief for the sake of feeling aroused by the graphic descriptions of sex.

I’m not buying it.

A common complaint about sex scenes is that no one wants realism.  No one really wants to read about people pausing to put on a condom or cleaning up after the act, and no one is interested in the messier, more awkward aspects of actual sex.  That’s likely to be true; I wouldn’t know.  I don’t discuss smutty novels with my friends on a regular basis, so I’m not sure what they do or don’t like.  What I do know is that the opposite is certainly true: Ana and Christian’s almost-but-not-quite coherent bedroom antics are just as unreadable.

Fifty Shades sucks, blows, and bites, and not in a good way.  I’m not bothered by the fact that even losing her virginity is a lot smoother for Ana than for us regular people.  What bothers me is that it’s just so over-the-top badly written that it moves from sensual fantasy into just plain ridiculous.  If this is supposed to get me hot, it’s not working.  I’m not even blushing anymore.  I’m just left feeling kind of confused.

I’m pretty liberal, so I honestly don’t have much of a problem with Christians reading erotica.  In fact, well-written sensuality can lead to greater intimacy in a relationship.  With the right element of realism, the fantasy can move off the pages and into the bedroom, especially with couples who are willing to experiment.  I also think that erotica aimed at women can be empowering, because for a long time it was denied that women even had sex drives or the ability to have orgasms (yep, it’s true).  But smut of the Fifty Shades variety (or the Mark Driscoll variety) is so unhealthy and unrealistic that it does more harm than good.

Also, a tip: Bathtub sex is not practical, but if you’re going to go down on your man in the tub, at least make sure he’s not covered in suds.