Look: I’m not going to review Fifty Shades of Grey, because any sort of deep thought about that piece of bile would be a waste of my time, but here’s my key problem with it: it pathologises BDSM, and that’s something I’m extremely uncomfortable with.
For those unfamiliar with the novel (spoilers for a bad book ahead), it concerns the relationship between college undergraduate Anastasia Steele and billionaire CEO Christian Grey. Anastasia has the sort of preconceptions about BDSM that my parents probably do; Christian Grey is a full-on kinkster, with a history of D/s relationships. All good so far - vapid, dull, but good.
And then there’s the ending.
For a book about BDSM, Fifty Shades isn’t very kinky. There’s a lot of growling and threats, but that’s all that it really comes down to - there’s a lot of sex, and not much else. Christian only physically hurts Anastasia on two occasions, and both times they’re treated awfully - the word abuse is never mentioned, but Anastasia’s entire reaction makes it clear that she thinks of it that way. The novel ends with the two going their separate ways, with Anastasia essentially calling Christian a freak because he enjoys causing pain to those who give their consent.
Even so, leaving it at this, it might still be okay. All you end up with at the end of that is two people from different worlds, who end up fundamentally sexually incompatible.
But - maybe because it’s actually E. L. James, former TV executive, wife and mother of two kids is the one who’s “fifty shades of fucked up”, but in order for Christian Grey to have this desire to hurt people who want to feel pain, he has to have a traumatic past. His mother was a crack whore who stubbed out cigarettes on his chest. He has a fear of being touched - something that isn’t resolved in the first book (I have no intention of reading the rest), but is presumably due to some past trauma.
He was a submissive in a relationship with an older woman - something that James, to her credit, portrays as consensual when spoken through Grey’s voice, but when we move back to Anastasia’s internal monologue, that same woman becomes an evil bitch, a pedophile, a child abuser and so on. Granted, there’s some room for debate here - the relationship in question begins when Christian’s fifteen, a year before the age of consent in this country - but Anastasia’s idiotic mind (with whom we’re supposedly intended to empathise) paints it as a very black and white issue.
Anastasia doesn’t like pain in the way that you and I don’t like being mugged - not in the way that a submissive doesn’t like pain. Anyone who’s actually been in a healthy BDSM relationship before understands the idea of being mind-fucked - believe it or not, very few of us are fully behind the idea of giving or receiving pain, but there’s a thrill in it, or an adrenaline rush, or a psychological instinct, or even just a sheer contrast with any reward that supplies the pleasure. And that’s great! As someone who flits between both, there’s a straightforward appeal for those who like that sort of thing. Anastasia just doesn’t like pain. Any time it gets intense - and, it should be said, not safe-word intense, but just pain to the point of being painful rather than “sensual” - she feels like running “screaming for the hills”.
The worst part, though, is how Christian’s desire to be a dominant supposedly directly stems from his traumatic past. And look: I’m not naïve. I’m aware that there are more people with past trauma in kink communities than elsewhere, and I’m aware that BDSM can be a way to assert control you’ve never had, or give up control that’s ever-present. The stereotypes of the girl with daddy issues who gets off on spanking her partners until they cry, or the male executive who wants nothing more than to be tied up and have his balls beaten until he nearly blacks out? They exist, just as any stereotype exists.
But look: I am twenty-one years old, and I’m fairly well-adjusted. I don’t have a fuck-you attitude when it comes to the rest of the world, I have great parents, and I enjoy my life, quiet as it is. And I’m into all that stuff. It’s fun! It’s jolly! It builds trust! I can think of dozens of healthy, not-motivated-by-bad-stuff-in-my-past reasons why BDSM’s great. E. L. James apparently can’t. Christian Grey’s a kinkster because he’s fifty shades of fucked up, and anyone who thinks that you can be well-adjusted and into pain - well, they’re just wrong.
Fuck E. L. James. Fuck the people who think that a book with awful representations of BDSM is either a) great for relationships or b) setting back gender politics (because women can never be sexually submissive, right). And fuck the New York Times bestseller list.
Also, fuck Twilight, because without that equally shitty series, this wouldn’t exist.
