Fifty Shades of Grey

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).

I’ve reached the point where I’m not sure I can take any more of this story.  It’s on an endless loop of screwed up interactions followed by intense sex.  Both Ana and Christian seem to have on-off switches in their personalities, enabling them to have only two possible positions options.  She’s either thinking about having sex with him or actually having sex with him; he’s either controlling and abusive or a sex god.  Every chapter contains Ana and Christian in both modes, but I think this penultimate chapter is possibly the worst because it’s more distinct.

After Ana’s mother, sounding like a Hallmark card, sends her home, we have to endure pages of Ana in “thinking of you” mode.  All she does for the entire trip is worry about Christian’s “situation” and his lack of warmth when she emails him.  Doesn’t she have anything else to occupy herself, such as her new job?  I remember what it was like to be in a new relationship (or even just have a new crush).  Yes, I spent plenty of time thinking about the other person.  However, I was also capable of training my mind on other things.

Meanwhile, when Ana returns, we get Christian in Angry Control Freak mode.  It’s not directed at Ana this time–he’s preoccupied with his business.  I suppose this is probably one of the things that’s put him ahead in business, but it’s pretty much standard operation for him outside the bedroom (or the Red Room of Pain or the bathtub or the kitchen…).

Naturally, once Ana’s back, there are pages and pages and pages and–yep, you guessed it–pages of the two of them having sex in a variety of ways.  We get it; it’s “erotica.”  And if I didn’t want to read endless and repetitive sex scenes, I should have picked up a different book.  It’s not the sex that bothers me, though–it’s the fact that it isn’t just sex scenes with some semblance of a plot for filler.  It’s the layers of absolutely terrible commentary on relationships present throughout.

I’ve read other erotica for comparison (yes, really; I don’t care for erotica).  Most of the time, there’s some excuse for the sex woven into the narrative: circumstances, an established relationship that experiences a change of some sort, and so on.  What troubles me is the narrative in Fifty Shades that provides the excuse.  A naive young woman being preyed on by a controlling man with a troubled past could be done well, if the writer were to tread carefully.  E L. James does it with all the grace of an elephant in a tea shop.  What we should read is screwed up people screwing up and then just screwing.  Instead, we skip the “screwing up” part entirely–which just makes it appear that “fucked up” is a desirable state of being in a relationship and “fixing you” is an admirable way to handle life.

The second-to-last chapter is nothing more than a recap of the previous chapters.  I probably could have skimmed the rest and simply read this one, and I’d still have the general plot of the book down.

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).

Is it me, or is it a little obsessive to be so fixated on sex that one doesn’t want to do anything else?  I understand being in love.  I understand wanting to have sex.  But at the exclusion of everything else whenever you’re with the person?  That doesn’t seem realistic.  Or healthy, actually.  Increasingly, this story is coming across like it can’t decide whether it’s erotica or something else.  I’m leaning toward something else.

After Christian takes Ana flying and then kisses her until she wants to forgo breakfast in favor of humping in a field, they do the most romantic thing ever: they go to IHOP.  No, really.  Even Ana seems surprised.  It’s made even better when she describes the restaurant as smelling like “sweet batter, fried food, and disinfectant.”  Thanks for that disturbing thought, Ana.

Ana says what the rest of us are thinking: “What the hell is Christian Grey doing in IHOP?”  (Okay, not in those exact words.)  Given what we’ve seen of him so far, it does seem a little strange.  Still, that could be a great set-up for something romantic and fun…except that it’s not.

That’s one of the biggest problems I have with the awful writing in this book.  So often it seems like we’re going to get more, and then the author leaves us cold.  All of these great lead-ins end up being disappointing filler between sex scenes.  Instead of Ana and Christian taking this opportunity to get to know each other, all they do is imply that they’d both like to go at it like rabbits in the middle of IHOP.

Fortunately, the server interrupts them and gets all flustered when she sees Christian.  Of course.  I mean, it’s not like this happens every time Ana and Christian go out together because we all need to be reminded how hot he is.  We’re spared Ana’s usual jealous rage over it this time, but after the server leaves, we get Ana’s whining, which makes up for it.  She apparently thinks it’s unfair that he “disarms” women.

He’s apparently both confused and not confused about this.  He says it’s just his looks.  Ana explains that it’s more than that, to which he replies,

You disarm me totally, Miss Steele.  Your innocence.  It cuts through all the crap.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a compliment.

When they finish their meal, Ana offers to pay.  I just love Christian’s reply:

Are you trying to completely emasculate me?

Yes, Christian, that’s exactly what she had in mind.  She obviously knew that her offer to pay would make you feel very, very tiny inside.  I’m so glad we have this book, or we might never advance the cause of feminism, which has a clear goal of emasculating men by having women pick up the tab.

Naturally, Stalker Christian knows where to drop Ana off.  Instead of being completely weirded out by this, she’s disappointed that he can’t take her back to his hotel room and have lots of kinky sex.  She thinks,

Why do I want to spend every single minute with this controlling sex god? Oh yes, I’ve fallen in love with him, and he can fly.

Well, all righty then.

After several pages of annoying chit-chat, emails, and phone calls, Ana discovers that Christian has phoned her while she was accepting a job offer.  When she calls him back, he tells her he has to leave because of a “situation.”  She’s relieved that even though he sounds angry, it’s probably not at her.  On the other hand, she recalls that the last “situation” he dealt with was her virginity, which makes her think,

Jeez, I hope it’s nothing like that.

The chapter concludes with another series of exasperating emails.  The thing I hate about these emails is that they read exactly like things people send in real life.  That is, they really only make sense to the participants.  I hope Christian explains to Ana what she says in her sleep, because I don’t think I could take another round of Gmail.

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 chapter is also known as The One Where Ana Dreams Christian Feeds Her Strawberries, Gets Up at the Crack of Dawn, Goes Flying, and Eats at IHOP.  All of that would be fine–good, even–if we were talking about anyone other than Ana and Christian.

The chapter opens with Ana dreaming that Christian, trapped in a cage, is trying to reach her with a bowl of strawberries, only he can’t reach her because something is gripping her and holding her back from him.  When the actual Christian wakes her up, she tells him she was dreaming.  He asks her about what, and all she says is that it was about his effort to feed her strawberries.  What strikes me as weird is when he tells her his therapist would “have a field day” with that.  Why?  I thought the whole “you’re dreams are a window to your soul” thing went out of fashion a long time ago.  I think Ana has enough waking-life problems that she doesn’t need to wonder if her dreams are trying to tell her something.

In the meantime, Ana notices Christian’s good mood.  Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t it a little strange that she’s making note of his good mood?  She’s noticing because it’s unusual.  Some of the things she says that bother me about it (emphasis mine):

I gaze at him but he still looks amused . . . thank heavens. [She’s grateful that she hasn’t set him off.]

I notice the Twinings [tea] label, and inside, my heart sings.  See, he does care, my subconscious mouths at me. [She needs proof that he actually likes her, because it’s not clear.]

He’s so loveable when he’s playful and carefree. [He’s not particularly loveable at other times.]

He is in such a good mood. [She’s making note of this because it’s rare.]

Once they’re in the car, he turns on his iPod to play a selection from La Traviata.*  I think this scene is trying too hard.  First of all, while it comes across as Christian being pretentious and showing off his superior culture/knowledge, this is actually the author being pretentious and showing off her knowledge.  I genuinely hate when writers do that.  If you can’t work it seamlessly into your plot, don’t pour factoids into the story so that readers are keenly aware that you really, truly know your shit.

Second, even if one assumes that the music Ana and Christian each choose is some commentary on their relationship, it’s far too in-your-face.  As the Wicked Witch of the West says, “These things must be done delicately.”  You want to write some deep metaphor about this screwed-up relationship?  Awesome.  Just please, please do it more subtly, so that we readers have the chance to discover it for ourselves.  Your characters should not intentionally create the metaphor.

Third, the whole thing reads like that song about “to-may-to” vs. “to-mah-to.”  He plays opera; she plays Britney.  He’s had lots of women; she’s had one man.  He doesn’t do relationships; she wants more.  It’s annoying.  We get it–opposites attract when there’s kinky sex involved.  Who is the author trying to convince, us or her characters?

Eventually, they get to a fairly uninteresting scene where they go gliding.  Actually, I might have liked this scene in a better different story where the characters weren’t in an unhealthy relationship.  Instead, we have Ana, Christian, and her effing inner goddess.  Yep, she shows up again, this time to hide “under a blanket behind the sofa.”  So the Divine Miss G breaks out the pom-poms when she sees chains and a riding crop, but she cowers in fear over going gliding?

It turns out the reason Christian has taken Ana gliding is because he wants to give her “more” in their relationship, and this is his way of doing it.  In real life, that’s what we’d call a FAIL.  It’s true that she had to trust him not to get them both killed, but there’s no real deepening of their relationship.  The kind of trust Ana’s looking for (and rightly so) is on the emotional level.  She shouldn’t have to be surprised by his good moods, and she should be able to expect that he will trust her with what’s inside him.  Her trust in him should also run deeper than the knowledge that she won’t die if he takes her flying.  This is a good time to use that metaphor–let us see their emotional trust in the same way we’ve seen their physical trust.  Don’t use the gliding scene as the method of achieving more, let it be in parallel to the relational more.

I’ll leave it there for now.  Next week, we’ll join Ana and Christian at IHOP for some sexy pancake times.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

*La Traviata (which my spell check doesn’t like and wants me to change to “aviatrix”) was one of my mother’s favorites; I always hated it–it’s just so damn depressing.  The music is lovely, but if I remember right, that’s the one where the woman dies of consumption.  I remember watching a production of it with Mom once, and she was all impressed that they used a skinny performer in the role of the dying woman.  She said that the robust opera singers never looked much like they were suffering.  Um.  Well, there’s actually a reason why opera singers are mostly not petite–one needs a lot of power behind an operatic voice, and many very small people find that after years of singing, they start to sound like they’ve got consumption.  I don’t think the point is to look the part, anyway–it’s about singing the storyline.

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).

I don’t know how your weekend was, but mine was a whirlwind of dress rehearsals and performances.  My son’s jazz band competed on Friday, followed by a full day getting ready for the first of my kids’ two dance recitals, which was yesterday.  My head is still spinning.  I’ll blog about the weekend tomorrow, but I didn’t want to deprive you all of my weekly Fifty Shades commentary.  You’re welcome.

I’m still stuck on this chapter in which Ana drinks too much with her mother, Christian shows up because he’s a stalker, and he and Ana have sex in the only scene that passes for something with a positive message.  Now we’ve arrived at the (literally) bloody aftermath of their coupling, and instead of enjoying the moment, Ana gets distracted by her curiosity.

It’s not the fact that Ana’s curious that bothers me–it’s her timing in asking Christian about it.  She notices the scars on his chest and realizes–gasp!–that those are not, in fact, chicken pox scars (duh).  They’re cigarette burns.  Amazingly, Ana leaps to the conclusion that Mrs. Robinson might have put them there.  Because it’s not enough, of course, that Mrs. Robinson is an abuser who turned a fifteen-year-old kid into her submissive.  Now she must also be prone to stubbing out her cigs on his chest.  That makes complete sense.

I’m not one to defend Mrs. Robinson here.  Clearly an adult in her thirties or forties who thinks BDSM sex with a teenager is a good idea is not a woman I want anything to do with.  I have zero sympathy, and I think Christian is pretty warped for thinking that relationship was anything resembling acceptable.  I do not, however, think that automatically makes her the sort who would inflict burns on her partners.  What she actually did is plenty bad enough without making further assumptions.

That said, the rest of this conversation between Ana and Christian is entirely disturbing.  Ana pushes Christian to explain himself, which he claims to be doing only to gain her trust.  Apparently, trust is a one-way thing and a tool for manipulation.  That is, he doesn’t care about trusting her, he only wants to make sure she trusts him so that she’ll comply with their agreement.  Good luck with that, Christian.

Ana, on the other hand, also doesn’t seem to actually care about Christian.  She just wants to know things about him because she feels like she’s in the dark.  She doesn’t leave me with the impression that she is genuinely building depth into this relationship.  She feels sorry for Christian, but it doesn’t seem to have triggered the kind of healthy concern normal people experience with their partners.  The whole thing has an unbalanced quality to it, as though this exchange is some kind of business transaction.  In a sense, that’s what this relationship is, but the story is set up to convince us it’s deeper than that.

Christian finally says his involvement with Mrs. Robinson steered him away from his destructive path toward becoming, as Ana puts it in her mind, a “crack addict or whore.”  He claims Mrs. Robinson “loved” him in a way he found “acceptable.”  This is apparently because his adoptive family was perfect and he was not.  Ana asks if Mrs. Robinson still loves him, and he says not the way she did.  I must stress again, however, that Mrs. Robinson did not love him.  Not then, not after it was over, and not in the now of the story.  At least, not in any way that resembles something good.

Anyway, they go back and forth on this issue some more.  I’m on Team Ana this time–I think the (apparently married, at least at the time) Mrs. Robinson is a predator, and the whole thing disgusts me.  We’ve now also arrived at the part where E. L. James most blatantly equates past abuse with BDSM.  She’s attempting to dive into the psychology of it without actually having any real knowledge of her subject.

It’s always hard for me, as I read this book, to figure out where the line is between bad writing and bad philosophy.  I honestly can’t tell if Ms. James believes what she’s written or if she’s just failing to express something.  I could probably write a whole blog post–heck, a whole series of posts–on how the way we use words reflects something much deeper than we may realize.  It’s those complexities that turn a ho-hum story into something that strikes a chord.  On the flip side, a seemingly bland novel (even an erotic one) can suddenly become an unintentional mirror of our own wrong thinking.

By the end of Ana and Christian’s talk, during which he’s threatened to spank her–presumably for some kind of insolence–he’s crossed the line on defending Mrs. Robinson.  If I were Ana, I would hightail it to the nearest exit.  Sadly, she doesn’t, and they continue their conversation until it morphs into bathtub sex.  Good job sticking to your boundaries, Ana.

Just three more chapters to go, folks.  I’ll pick things back up next week with whatever is happening in chapter 24.

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).

Additional warning:  Today’s post mentions sex during menstruation.

We now come to the absolute only part of this awful, trashy book that I like.

I’m pretty sure E. L. James did this without meaning to.  Well, no.  I mean, she did intend to write this book, and she probably did intend people to like it.  What I mean is that she has at last done one simple thing that has impressed me, and I doubt that it was done for any other reason than for the sake of writing erotica.  She likely wasn’t trying to create something beautifully feminist here, as evidenced by the entire rest of this mess.  I’ll bet you’d like to know what that is, right?  Okay, here you go:

Ana and Christian have sex during her period.

I know, I know.  That should actually be kind of squicky.  Many women do not enjoy sex during their periods for a variety of reasons.  That’s perfectly fine too, so don’t think I’m trying to make it sound like now everyone should just suppress any unpleasant feelings and grin and bear it.  I just think that this is probably one of the best sex scenes I’ve ever read; it’s certainly the best one so far in this book.

The first thing I like about it is that Christian is not all grossed out by Ana’s period.  Talking about menstruation is, for a whole lot of men, an absolute no-no.  On the flip side of that, some men use it as an excuse to trash women for being “emotional” or “irrational,” blaming every feeling a woman has on PMS.  It’s either something so awful it can’t be discussed, or it’s a running joke.  I have so much appreciation for Christian in that moment because he does neither of those things.

I also absolutely love the sensual quality of the beginning of their intimacy here.  He tells her to look at herself, to appreciate her body.  His words to her about how beautiful she is are tender and reverent.  We women are taught from a young age to fear and hate our bodies.  Far too many of us have struggled with self-loathing.  It’s pretty realistic (even if E. L. James hasn’t written it very well) that Ana doesn’t find herself attractive.  For her to not only be told that she’s gorgeous but to have Christian use her own hands to show her is both erotic and achingly lovely.

What follows is slightly more awkward, due to the poor quality of the writing.  I was a bit annoyed by the way Ana’s own stupid brain breaks the magic of their intimacy, just as it often does.  It bothers me less here, however, because I appreciate the overall tone of the scene.  Some people are grossed out by the part where Christian removes Ana’s tampon; that didn’t faze me at all.  I know it’s kind of yucky, really, but once again, what I appreciate is that Christian isn’t disgusted by Ana’s blood. In fact, after they make love and are situated in each other’s arms, he says exactly that:

“I’m bleeding,” I murmur.

“Doesn’t bother me,” he breathes.

“I noticed.” I can’t keep the dryness out of my voice.

He tenses slightly.  “Does it bother you?” he asks softly.

Does it bother me?  Maybe it should…should it?  No, it doesn’t.

In this tender moment, they both affirm the absolute normality of her period.  I see this as a huge step, that a basic part of human biology is treated with such respect.

I need to say a brief word here because I know that one can be a woman without menstruating.  But the fact remains, for the majority of women, this is our experience for approximately forty years of our lives.  To have it dignified in erotic literature is an incredible thing.  I can’t help believing that there is hope we might overcome the stigma of our monthly cycles and that people with much more skill than E. L. James might be willing to take that leap too.

As I mentioned, I’m not sure that was E. L. James’ intent.  It seems to me (though I could be wrong) that she wasn’t trying to do some bold, feminist thing.  She was actually attempting to eroticize menstruation and put period sex in the same category as whips and chains–that is to say, deviant and possibly icky.  What I’d like to see is the same sort of sensuality in the context of a healthy relationship (that is, not one that involves stalking and abuse).  And while I typically wouldn’t care about the BDSM elements, I also think that it would be good if we could see menstruation and sexuality in a context other than something some people might believe is deviant already.  It would remove the link between the two, which are really unrelated.

I suppose this is just proof that even something like Fifty Shades gets it right now and again.  While I still dislike this book–for all the reasons I’ve already stated–I’m glad to know that there is at least one thing I don’t despise.  Don’t get too comfortable with that, though.  I’m sure that next week I’ll be back with more snark.

 

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).

My apologies for not posting yesterday.  Better late than never, right?

For those of you who didn’t quite follow the title of this post, it’s a reference to a line in the movie The Graduate.  In case you haven’t seen it, let me sum up: Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman) graduates college.  Having nothing better to do with his time, he has an affair with Mrs. Robinson.  He decides he likes her daughter better and they run off together.  The end.

I first saw this movie with my boyfriend (now husband) and a bunch of our college friends on recommendation of one friend’s mother.  She said it was one of the movies we just had to see.  I have never been able to figure out if this was a generational thing or if we just didn’t happen to like the movie, but the general consensus was that it was about an hour and forty-five minutes of our lives we would never have back.  Just about the only thing I remember (other than the general plot) is the line, “I have one word for you: Plastics.”

Anyway, the whole point of that story is that in Fifty Shades, Ana keeps referring to the woman who initiated Christian into BDSM as “Mrs. Robinson.”  I have concluded that E. L. James has not ever seen that movie, because if she had, she would not be calling the woman Mrs. Robinson.  First of all, the movie Mrs. Robinson is manipulative, but she isn’t a child molester.  Benjamin is an adult, unlike 15-year-old Christian.  Second, in the movie, Benjamin has a very good idea that Mrs. Robinson is horrible, and he eventually gets a clue–again, unlike Christian, who seems to think it’s perfectly fine and dandy to have an ongoing business relationship with his rapist.  Finally, if E. L. James had had her wits about her, she would have realized that no one under the age of 25 has seen the movie at this point, which makes Ana referencing it and making that connection–and Christian getting it–kind of weird.  It’s this vague sense of having heard of the film without having watched it and having the takeaway be, “Oh, yeah, that movie about an older woman seducing a young, impressionable man.”  Which is not precisely what the movie is about.

Ana (remember, we’re still with her on vacation) gets jealous when she finds out Christian is having dinner with an “old friend.”  Naturally, this turns out to be her worst nightmare–Mrs. Robinson.  To Ana’s credit, she understands that an adult preying on a 15-year-old is wrong, and she points out that if it had been a 15-year-old girl and an adult man, no one would be romanticizing it.  Christian is all lost in the fact that he feels his Mrs. Robinson did him a favor.

There is nothing in me that thinks it is okay for an adult to be sleeping with a teenager.  I do not mean two young people, one of whom happens to be 18 and the other of whom is not.  I mean the kind of situation we’re talking about with Christian and his Mrs. Robinson, where an adult over the age of 30 thinks that it’s a good idea to have sex with a 15-year-old.  Before anyone gets all upset that I’m being judgy, I hold no blame for the younger person in that relationship.  Everything is squarely on the adult’s shoulders.  Why an adult would even have a sexual interest in a teenager is beyond me.  Ana rightly pushes Christian on this, telling him she sees Mrs. Robinson as a pedophile (even if she does spell it the UK way).

That brings us to how the heck Ana and Christian end up having another conversation about this.  Guess where he is right now in the story?  If you said, “Seattle,” you’d be wrong.  He follows Ana to Georgia, because he’s a creepy stalker.  While she’s busy emailing him about how mad she is that he is seeing Mrs. Robinson, he’s busy watching her from across the bar, counting how many drinks she’s had.

So, nah, he’s not messed up at all.  Nope.

I don’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed, but we’re nearing the end.  In a few weeks, we’ll bid goodbye to Fifty Shades of Grey.  I suppose I could continue with the next one, but I haven’t decided if I want to.  I may need to pull an Ana and have a cosmopolitan or five.