I'm a little late to the hate party, but I watched 50 Shades...

♠I didn't think the public image of BDSM could get any worse, but, thanks to this movie, millions of husbands across the world are adamant that the internet has gotten women masturbating over domestic abuse.♠

For those of you to smart to watch/read 50 Shades:

- A multi-billionaire seduces a random working-class office worker.
- He showers her with expensive gifts and a huge apartment, before kissing her once and revealing that he's into "BDSM"
- The BDSM in question consists of being aroused by tying up and whipping girls, not so abnormal, but he, and I quote, "Doesn't care about his partner's pleasure".
- He uses advanced cult tacics to give her an illusion of choice and more or less forces her to agree to become his sex toy, even though she clearly states several times that she finds BDSM repellant.
- (The Books) He proceeds to abuse her under the guise of BDSM, ignoring her almost every time she uses her safe word, essentially raping her.

I know that thousands of these threads exist across the internet, but am I alone in the opinion that, far from "Making BDSM more mainstream", 50SoG has set precedent for justifying abusive relationships, and causes the millions of people who saw through the lies to see BDSM as abusive?

I'm not watching 50 shades unless someone confirms for me there is a real donkey punch scene where the actors went all out on it with no pretend.

I'll watch it then.

50 shades pisses me off. I think it promotes stereotypes of kinky people and relationships (Doms are abusive, subs should accept abuse, kinky people have all been abused growing up, kinky people are all "fucked up," kink and romance are incompatible, good bottoms are inexperienced virgins, good girls pretend not to enjoy what they enjoy). So many Literotica authors are better than Egregiously Lazy James. They should be famous rather than her.

Malevolence, have you read the books? She safewords once and he responds appropriately.

I am of the mind that the books do not portray BDSM appropriately, but I also think that the popularity has opened up some people's minds. I'm sure they've also created dangerous situations as people try things without the right experience or knowledge. There are far better books to read on the subject, absolutely, without a doubt. But, I've been fortunate enough to have some real conversations with others about the topic just because they'd read 50 Shades.

I do not feel compelled to see the film.

Note: I agree with the above comment that there are far better stories here.

The books are phenomenal, I think you should read the series before you judge the story.

mijayoo said:

The books are phenomenal, I think you should read the series before you judge the story.

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I've read it. The books are far from phenomenal. The writing style is amateurish, the characters are caricatures of stereotypes, and BDSM is portrayed as being something for the damaged. Of course, Christian Grey is a dominant/sexual deviant because of his childhood trauma. The author is ill-informed on SSC BDSM and it shows.

Suspending reality and the need for well-crafted sentences, I was able to somewhat enjoy the series. Should anyone ask me for a book suggestion involving BDSM, this wouldn't be what I suggest.

BabblingBrooke said:

I've read it. The books are far from phenomenal. The writing style is amateurish, the characters are caricatures of stereotypes, and BDSM is portrayed as being something for the damaged. Of course, Christian Grey is a dominant/sexual deviant because of his childhood trauma. The author is ill-informed on SSC BDSM and it shows.

Suspending reality and the need for well-crafted sentences, I was able to somewhat enjoy the series. Should anyone ask me for a book suggestion involving BDSM, this wouldn't be what I suggest.

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I've read the books, most of the time, Christian abides by the safeword rules, but at least twice he ignores her. That's rape.

BabblingBrooke said:

I've read it. The books are far from phenomenal. The writing style is amateurish, the characters are caricatures of stereotypes, and BDSM is portrayed as being something for the damaged. Of course, Christian Grey is a dominant/sexual deviant because of his childhood trauma. The author is ill-informed on SSC BDSM and it shows.

Suspending reality and the need for well-crafted sentences, I was able to somewhat enjoy the series. Should anyone ask me for a book suggestion involving BDSM, this wouldn't be what I suggest.

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Have you seen her new book? It's 50 Shades, but, written from Christian's perspective.

Can you say cha-ching?

Instead of an inner godess, whose going to be doing the background talking, his "inner Dom"?

Aphroditiac said:

Have you seen her new book? It's 50 Shades, but, written from Christian's perspective.

Can you say cha-ching?

Instead of an inner godess, whose going to be doing the background talking, his "inner Dom"?

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I lost faith in that author after "My face was probably as red as the communist manifesto"

Yes I read them, they are a horrible representation of the BSDM world. Here are a few examples from the book, I got this off my tumblr.




A

annayarnkitten said:

Yes I read them, they are a horrible representation of the BSDM world. Here are a few examples from the book, I got this off my tumblr.




A

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Sounds like a caring, loving relationship to me!

annayarnkitten said:

Yes I read them, they are a horrible representation of the BSDM world. Here are a few examples from the book, I got this off my tumblr.




A

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The first one, I'm nearly positive, has to do with her forgetting to get her birth control shot and getting pregnant when they didn't intend to. I can't imagine anyone ever getting upset about that.

The second one, and I'm not sure, maybe has to do with getting married...it's been a while since I read the series.

You can take anything and quote it out of context and it looks bad. Any book, any movie, hell most any conversation.

TheMalevolence said:

Sounds like a caring, loving relationship to me!

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You're right. In no loving, caring relationship ever has a man gotten upset about an unplanned pregnancy.

Please post the page numbers of the at least two times he ignored her safeword and raped her.

Again, I think I'm coming across as the series' defender, which I am not. But, I'm really tired of them being taken out of context. Ana is a willing participant. Very much so. There's a caning scene in which she does not safeword, but he should have paid better attention and considered her inexperience. But, otherwise, I cannot recall a scene in which she safewords and he ignores it. I have excellent recall for books, and I distinctly remember the scene in which she safeword and it causes him a great deal of upset.

Alright, alright.

Let's drop the abuse angle, and think about how Grey convinces Ana to move in with him;

I'm not going to go into detail, unless people ask for it, but the methods he uses are reminiscent of those used by cults to brainwash new members.

- He dangles the idea of sex in front of her nose for most of the first book.
- He then gives her expensive gifts, associating the feeling of happiness with him.
- He then shows her just how good the prize (regularsex) is, and "subtly" threatens to take it away.
- He then asks her to do progressively more taxing things that she wouldn't otherwise do, BDSM and such.

and so on.

Grey manipulates her in such a way that if it appeared in more vanilla fiction it would be berated for being degrading to women or sexist.

(nb: I haven't inflicted the book on myself, I'm going off others' detailed summaries.)

BabblingBrooke said:

Please post the page numbers of the at least two times he ignored her safeword and raped her.

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Don't know about ignoring pre-agreed safewords; from what I've seen, James is more interested in invoking the trappings of BDSM as set dressing than in actually exploring them.

But in the absence of agreement to the contrary, "no" is a universal safeword, right?

In Chapter 12 Grey, believing she's dumped him, breaks into her house, slaps her, and has sex with her by force despite her 'no'. Her reaction:

"But now I feel like a receptacle - an empty vessel to be filled at his whim. [...] I have an overwhelming urge to cry, a sad and lonely melancholy grips and tightens round my heart. Dashing back to my bedroom, I close the door and lean against it trying to rationalize my feelings. I can't. Sliding to the floor, I put my head in my hands as my tears begin to flow."

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Sounds like rape to me.

http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2014/01/lets-read-fifty-shades-of-grey-chapter.html
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/02/lines_from_50_shades_of_grey_t.html

My $0.02 worth...

Tried reading the book but gave up about half-way through. Basically Mills & Boon with some talk of sex toys thrown in.

Watched the movie last night. Thought it was mildly comedic with a touch of titillation
but 20 minutes from the end I was just waiting for it to finish.

Didn't love it nor hate it, I don't see what the fuss was all about and I'm not sure how it got to be so popular but I wouldn't begrudge the author her success. Certainly she's far less money grabbing and less pretentious than JK Rowling.

Just to add a little fuel to the fire....this is hilarious!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/fifty-shades-of-shade?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.oopyro2E6

desertslave said:

Just to add a little fuel to the fire....this is hilarious!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/fifty-shades-of-shade?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.oopyro2E6

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Hah! Love it...

Yes

I'LL do anything you say

WalterScotch said:

I'LL do anything you say

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Great!
Stop following me...

I tried to read this excuse for a book. It is fifty shades of shit. I could write something better if I sat around and scrawled out on a stack of cocktail napkins my reflections on my cat chasing a laser pointer while I watch TV in the background after about a dozen shots of tequila and an IV of Crown Royal. And then I knocked over the cocktail napkins and forgot the order so I put them in random order and my cat stole four of the napkins.

Watching the movie was like watching brick mortar dry while there was a hockey game on behind me that I wasn't allowed to watch because my wife strapped a bomb to my head that would go off if I looked away from the bricks and kill me and a school full of orphans. If my choices were to see Fifty Shades of Shit again or spend the same amount of time cleaning diarrhea out of thrift store mattresses while wearing stilettos and being attacked by shit-throwing bonobos, I'll take the latter. My wife and I saw this so-called movie in theaters on Valentine's Day. I actually found it less painful seeing the fucking Patriots hoist the Lombardi trophy. And seriously, fuck the Patriots.

Christian Grey may be a BDSM enthusiast, but the fact is, he's a fucking head case. And he's a perfect illustration of why women get into abusive relationships - they get suckered in by bullshit (i.e. Grey's supposed good looks and money) and the next thing they know they're getting the fucking tar beaten out of them and justifying it. People like Christian Grey don't need a submissive. They need a fucking therapist.

And Anastasia Steele? What in the fucking, fucking fuck makes her think that a relationship with Christian Grey is a good idea? She's a naive virgin - as in, she's never had sex of any kind. She's probably never even used a fucking vibrator. And she loses her virginity to this asshole? This crazy, fucked-up shitheel? Was her first drink of alcohol an entire bottle of fucking Jagermeister followed by a syringe full of fucking crystal meth? Because that's the adult beverage equivalent of losing your virginity to Christian Grey, and it's utterly unrealistic - scratch that. It's more insane that a woman marrying a goddamn vampire and cheating on him with a goddamn werewolf. I couldn't conceive of something that far out there and run with it if I did four standard doses of LSD and then suffered a concussion.

In summary, Fifty Shades of Shit is...well, shit. On numerous levels of shit. It's cow shit layered with horse shit layered with dog shit that's been on the bottom of people's shoes and tracked through industrial waste and gasoline. Mix in a mutilated corpse and a septic tank full of curry diarrhea and top it off with a Dumpster full of rotting meat, and you may get something that approaches the stench of this atrocity.

I don't really enjoy fiction but I tried to read the first one. I couldn't get trough all the angst and I was turned off by the portrayal of BDSM. I'm not concerned with how I got here. I'm here now, I like what I like and I'm trying to find partners who like the same things. Life is too short to try to convert the vanilla over to another flavor.

SwitchMaster said:

I don't really enjoy fiction but I tried to read the first one. I couldn't get trough all the angst and I was turned off by the portrayal of BDSM. I'm not concerned with how I got here. I'm here now, I like what I like and I'm trying to find partners who like the same things. Life is too short to try to convert the vanilla over to another flavor.

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I don't think the effect of 50 Shades was so much a conversion as a realization... While the book ws fucking horrible, I couldn't even read it enough to get to the smut. I do imagine that a lot of people got to experience a part of themselves they wouldn't and that's something. I think an abusive relationship in fiction can be very much like a person who has fantasies of anything unhealthy and unrealistic. In real life it's awful, but in fiction you get to experience only the good parts of it: "This person cares so much about me that they police all my friends", "they're so obsessed that they'd never let me leave". You get to experience that intensity of feeling, without having the drawbacks that exist as a result in real-life.

What I find weird is how much horribly written sexist abuse-romanticizing stuff gets written by men catering to "everyone" (read: male audience) and the outcry is so much smaller, the celebrity mocking is so much less sustained.

If this was a rapey video game, about which Young Men Deeply Care, Gilbert Gottfriend and Ellen DeGeneres would be getting death threats for making fun of it.