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).

Question of the Day: Has E. L. James ever interacted with any non-white Americans?

Answer: My best guess is no.

I promise to get back on track next week talking through the “plot” (*cough, cough*) of the book.  Today, however, I need to take a short break to rant about discuss the way Ms. James includes a glaring example of stereotyping.

First of all, what on God’s green Earth was Ms. James thinking when she decided to make her Jacob (remember, this is a warping of Twilight) into a Hispanic man?  Somehow, she has managed to make an even more ethnically caricatured version of a non-white person.  We could have an entire seminar on the ways in which the original Jacob fits right into our misunderstandings about Native Americans; we can even argue about how bad it is.  But there is no possible way to argue about the badness of José.  Every time he appears in a scene, I want to hide in shame.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Ms. James has absolutely no idea what a Hispanic American would be like in person.  I’m not saying here that all Hispanic Americans are alike; not at all.  We have people here who come from all sorts of different places, people who were born in this country but whose parents weren’t, people who were born in other countries but grew up here, and people who are third generation American and beyond.  There is a lot of wonderful diversity.  And that’s my point; Ms. James appears never to have met any of them.  She’s made an utterly boring, generic “Hispanic” character.  Not a man from Mexico or Puerto Rico or Dominican Republic or Cuba or anywhere else; just a guy who happens to know a couple of Spanish words (see below).

My experience has been that my friends are always happy to share about their families and culture if I ask.  Instead of doing some research, Ms. James has chosen to create a flat character who fits the ethnic stereotype in her head.  There is no excuse for this kind of sloppy work.  Not only is it painful and embarrassing to read, it shows a lack of depth in her writing skills.

Now that I’ve said all that, let me explain what else bothers me.   First, the only non-white character we’ve seen so far is the guy who takes his crush on Ana too far.  Was that really necessary?  Here in America, we already have the idea that non-white people are to be feared.  Why extend that to nearly making him commit a crime?  I have the distinct impression that we’re supposed to be unimpressed with José but sympathetic to Christian.  I’m not saying that it was okay for José to manhandle Ana, but his actions are tame in comparison to Christian, and he at least regrets it.  It really, really annoys me that Ms. James has created this obvious ethnic line.  Of course, she’s merely reenforcing the message of the original books, so perhaps we can forgive her.

That is, until we come to my second point, which is that Ms. James should have done her damn research.  I lost count after about the first twenty times José says, “Dios mio!”  Seriously?  Ms. James can use the word fuck, she can describe bathtub blow jobs, and she can make her characters have umpteen orgasms, but she can’t come up with a better Spanish exclamation?  I spent approximately five seconds typing “Spanish swear words” into Google and came up with hundreds of results.  Surely a published author could have taken a little extra time to make her character seem less…I don’t know.  Fake Hispanic?  It’s almost as if she has him use that expression to reiterate that he is completely, entirely, super-duper, actually-in-fact Hispanic.  Oh, wait…that’s exactly what she does.

So to sum up:  Instead of taking the time to meet some Hispanic Americans, or at least do a good Internet search, Ms. James resorts to 1) creating an “ethnic” character to match an “ethnic” character in the original, only with even less depth; 2) making her one minority character into a potential criminal; and 3) overusing the only Spanish she knows to demonstrate her character’s ethnicity.  Those reasons alone confirm this book as one of the worst things I’ve ever read.

Let this be a lesson to you, future authors, on the importance of doing the hard work of understanding your characters and your subject matter before you put it in writing.

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.

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).

Nothing says “night of fabulous lovemaking” like a hearty breakfast.

I think this whole section of the book might have gone unnoticed if not for two things:

1. The overall bad writing
2. The overall bad elements we’ve seen so far

The fact that Bella Ana gets up in the morning and decides to make breakfast in a strange kitchen to celebrate turning into a pirate becoming a woman is a little strange.  I can say with 100% honesty that I have never, ever experienced this.  Not once in my life has sex caused me to feel more domestic.  That might be because I’m not a morning person and I don’t generally enjoy cooking, so your mileage may vary.  However, I’m not nosy enough to ask my friends,

Hey, you know how you and your spouse/partner got it on last night?  Well, did that give you a craving for pancakes and bacon?

What really bothers me, though, is that suddenly Ana seems to be going all “woman’s proper place” on us.  The subtle message here is that

• Ana was previously a mere child
• Sex made her into an adult
• Adult women know their way around a kitchen, no matter whose house it is

None of those are good messages for girls or women.  First, the idea that having sex (specifically penis-in-vagina sex) makes one a “real” adult is faulty.  Unfortunately, some Christians have inadvertently reinforced that message.  Among conservative Christians, sex is intended only for marriage and any form outside of that bond is sinful.  Meanwhile, young people hear the message from the pages of books and magazines that having sex makes one into an adult, a poor message at a critical time of life when many adolescents, longing to be independent, play at being grown-ups.  The combination is a recipe for disaster.

In some churches, people marry at much younger ages than might be best for them.  I can remember tremendous pressure in college to find Mr. Right.  We weren’t supposed to have sex before marriage, and both marriage and sex were thought to bring us solidly into adulthood.  I don’t regret being a very young bride, but I doubt that I would have made those choices if womanhood and sex/marriage hadn’t been conflated.

Now we see Ana thrust into much the same situation.  Apparently, what makes her a “real” adult is not graduating from college and embarking on a path of discovery about herself and what she wants in life.  It’s having sex with a virtual stranger who’s into some kinky stuff.  Oh, and making him breakfast, as he obviously needs to keep up his strength.  See what the author did there?  She turned Ana from a soon-to-be college graduate into a potential domestic servant.  Obviously, that’s what real femininity and womanhood are all about, right?  They’re all about satisfying your man and cooking him some bacon.

That’s not healthy, and it’s certainly not what I want to teach my own daughter.  I hope that when she’s an adult—a real adult—she understands that it isn’t sex or marriage or parenthood that makes her a woman.

That’s it for today.  Stick around as I continue my focus on women, counting down to the official launch of A Year of Biblical Womanhood.  Next Monday, come back for some further unfortunate connotations to the bacon theme.  And don’t forget to submit your essays for the contest.

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).

Guess what time it is?  You’ve got it—it’s Monday; time for another round of spot-the-crappy-writing.  In this edition: Ana loses her virginity!

I think the strangest part here is that Ana, at age 21 or 22, appears not to have ever had any attraction to anyone up to this point.  Again, I think this shows an exaggerated form of Bella Swan.  That, or someone raised in a fundamentalist church; whichever.

We’re apparently supposed to believe that Ms. Inexperienced has never done any kind of experimenting, even by herself.  In fact, it would seem that she didn’t even entertain crushes or fantasies.  Actually, this is starting to remind me of some of the things my ex-fundamentalist friends have told me about their adolescent years.

Anyway, when Christian finds out that Ana is a virgin, he gets mad at her.  I don’t know whether this is just more bad writing, or if it’s some kind of scathing commentary on the way women’s virginity is usually some kind of prize men get to claim.  I mean, when I was in college, I learned that Keeping the Gate Locked™ was highly valued—so much so that more than one of my friends was crushed by a potential or actual boyfriend when he learned that she’d already given away her Special Gift®.  Here in the Fifty Shades universe we have a man raging about the opposite.  There’s some serious irony there.

Moving right along, we—finally!—get to the famed smut of the series.  Because he’s such a thorough and dutiful stalker lover, Christian is willing to break Ana in before abusing her entering into a perfectly healthy, adult relationship that happens to include kinky sex.  Suddenly, Ana develops a sex drive.  See what E. L. James did there?  Great plot device, no?

What I find distasteful about this section is that even though Christian is mad that Ana’s a virgin, we are clearly meant to see it as a virtue (and therefore, any girl who actually wants sex is a slut; see Ana’s friend Kate for a prime example of that trope).  The whole scene plays into the Ultimate Fantasy that women should be virgins and that all they need is a big, strong man with lots of experience to teach them the ways of lovin’.  Apparently, this is the best that Ms. James can do.  She seems to think that this is actually the fantasy of millions of women, rather than seeing it for the long-standing crappy romance novel tradition that it is.

This is probably TMI, but I’m going to share it anyway.  The first time I had intercourse, it was nothing like what Ana experiences.  We got married at 9 in the morning, had a long day of eating, dancing, and thanking friends, and took a fairly late flight to our honeymoon.  We stood in line at the check-in desk for half an hour listening to people complain about the service before we got our room key.  My hair was shellacked in place with the pound of hairspray I had used, so I needed a shower.  It was about 2 in the morning before we even got into bed.  Seriously, my husband could have been Christian Grey (without the abusive, rapey overtones) and it still wouldn’t have been an awesome pinnacle of great sex.  But here’s the difference: I was in love with my husband.  No matter how awkward it felt, or how tired we were, it was us.  I’ll take that any day over what poor Ana got.

Anyway, at last we have our first taste of the much-gossiped-about smut.  I highly recommend that you read chapter 8 in parallel with Jen’s version of the events.  Trust me, it will be easier to get through it.  It’s all downhill from here, and not in a good way.

Stick around this week, there’s plenty of good stuff to come.  Otherwise, join me again next Monday for…dun, dun, dun…the Kitchen Scene.