The Guardian
by Jessica Valenti
The rumors are true: author EL James is writing another book in the worldwide hit series, Fifty Shades of Please God Not Again. The new book, to be released this summer, will be written not from the point of view of original protagonist Anastasia, but from the perspective of the domination-happy and ultra-rich Christian Grey.As if women don’t hear enough about what sex counts as “good” from real assholes, now we’re going to have to contend with the perspective of a fictional one as well!
The book, desperate not raise reader expectations beyond mind-numbing obviousness and mediocrity, will be called, “Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian.” Riveting.
Yes, I realize I’m in the minority here – over 100m copies of the so-called erotica series have been sold, and the movie adaptation broke records with its $81.7m dollar opening weekend. But its popularity can’t change the horrific combination of bad writing, BDSM myths and the charming notion that most women secretly want a bossy rich guy to stalk them and smack them around a bit.
The book series focuses on the life of Anastasia Steele, a hapless college senior who bites her lip a lot and meets a fabulously wealthy CEO who’s into BDSM. But as Emma Green wrote earlier this year in The Atlantic, “Fifty Shades eroticizes sexual violence, but without any of the emotional maturity and communication required to make it safe.”
As several experienced BDSM practitioners emphasized to me, there are healthy, ethical ways to consensually combine sex and pain. All of them require self-knowledge, communication skills, and emotional maturity in order to make the sex safe and mutually gratifying. The problem is that Fifty Shades casually associates hot sex with violence, but without any of this context.
The biggest problem with the sex in Fifty Shades isn’t the violent sex: it’s the normalization of the lack of communication between the participants in that violent sex that is dangerous for both BDSM neophytes and experienced practitioners.
And it doesn’t get better for the BDSM community: eventually Christian comes to believe his penchant for sexual domination is due to childhood abuse and gives it up – a further mischaracterization of BDSM as an emotional problem that needs to be cured. Anastasia gets an end to the kinky sex she never really seemed that into but almost allowed to happen to her and a bordering-on-traditional marriage with children. The sexual politics stink: BDSM isn’t a sign of illness and no one should consent to sex they don’t really like and wish they didn’t have to put up with. …