The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    50 Shades of Feminine Repression

    By Ophelia on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 5:44pm |

    I’d heard some buzz about the 50 Shades series around the web (let’s be honest, it was Pinterest) but I don’t usually pay much attention to that sort of pop culture so it went ignored by me. That is, until two friends, each unbeknownst to the other, discreetly and with the same mischievous gleam said the same thing to me almost verbatim, “So… I’m reading this book… It’s really bad. You have to read it.”

    So I read them. All three. They aren’t exceptionally well written and I don’t know how anyone understood one another, given that everyone was murmuring and whispering all the time, but that’s what I think is interesting about the popularity of this series. My husband commented that “if all it takes is a shitty pulp romance to get women hot and bothered, guys like Pablo Neruda actually put work into this sort of thing, what’s the point?” Romance has been done though. Everyone knows women like romance and men like sex. What everyone doesn’t know, or at least isn’t willing to acknowledge, is that women like sex too. This book is sex.

    In between the many, many sex scenes, the plot of the books also play out the classic fantasy of taking that broken bad boy and “fixing” him. The book’s object of desire, Christian Grey, is a rich corporate big shot that’s into dominating women in his spare time and describes himself as heartless. Sound familiar? Our white American male powers that be might not describe themselves as heartless, but when they can’t help but sneer at ideas like “the health of the mother” and “legitimate rape,” it becomes difficult to imagine them as anything but the tin-man. Our smart, career-minded, independent heroine turns him around and morphs him into a loving husband, all the while exploring her sexual prowess and coming out of her shell.

    Can we blame women for devouring, en masse, a book that acknowledges their need for something other than hallmark cards, new shoes and putting the toilet seat down? In a society where women are expected and groomed to be looked at and enjoyed by men, where men are expected and understood to consume porn and go to strip clubs, any sexual expression in the media makes it abundantly clear that sex is for the good of men. Oh, and heaven forbid women step out of their role as receptacle for male lust. If women so much as want birth control covered for legitimate medical problems like ovarian cysts, the mere thought that a woman might have sex and enjoy it elicits outbursts of hatred and shaming.  

    Of course, this is just one example of the barrage of blows to women’s societal status. Let’s not forget the many unrelenting attempts to eliminate abortion rights, including an attempted mandate for an invasive transvaginal ultrasound, the banning of a female representative from the Michigan House of Representatives for even using the word vagina, or the failure to pass a bill mandating that women and men get paid equally for the same job. These things are not news, but they do illustrate the tone of the world in which American women are living.

    The books themselves are not a bastion of liberation per-se, though there are some strong themes of choice, consent and boundaries laid by the protagonist that are, for the most part, respected. The overwhelming response to the books, despite the unimaginative verbiage, simplistic themes and predictable plot twists, tells me that women need something more. I suspect that the popularity has already resulted in more of the same being published, hoping to hop on that moneymaking bandwagon of smut. Yes, it’s cheesy, but so is Playboy. Women deserve their outlet just as men do and maybe, just maybe this could be a ripple in creating an environment that doesn’t shame women for having a healthy sexual appetite. Fingers crossed.

    Comments

    Welcome, Ophelia. Thanks for posting here...and for subjecting yourself to 3x50 shades of gray for our benefit.

    What everyone doesn’t know, or at least isn’t willing to acknowledge, is that women like sex too.

    Is that really still true? I'm sure that certain subcultures still live in denial, but I thought that most Americans clued into the reality of female lust sometime between Sex and the Single Girl and Sex in the City. I'm not a big reader of romance novels, but my understanding is that most of them are full of explicit sex and have been for decades. I thought 50 Shades was just a slightly more risque version of the common romance novel.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 7:26pm

    Well, yes, I agree that in the context of a prime time series most of America sees the female sex drive (albeit in the form of the desperate housewife luring in the poolboy). I suppose my sample is lacking because I've never read the steamy romance novels with Fabio on the cover - they've always put a distasteful image of lonely, bitter, middle aged women in my mind and I find their preferred euphemisms of heaving bosoms and throbbing members rather humorous. Outside of primetime TV, and especially politically, the problem still exists. Perhaps a better way to describe it would be fear or hatred of the empowerment that comes from women being permitted to enjoy sex in the same way as men, as evidenced by the reactions. 


    by Ophelia on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 8:21pm

    Thanks for this - after countless Barbara Cartland harlequin romances, with various pirate/desperado/savage despoiling the naive virgin beauty in a classic Stockholm syndrome rape scene, I'd forgotten women were actually coming there for the sex, thinking maybe it was the fresh air, costume changes and discount coupons.

    Having lived through the punk 70's, a friend proudly proclaiming her doo was sculpted from contraceptive cream, and the bland Sex and the City re-runs, and fortunately missing all of Desperate Housewives, I kinda thought we'd accepted that women like being dominated, dominatrix and everything in between. Wasn't that what Basic Instinct was all about? Or Elvira/Vampira? Or Mae West? Or Dangerous Liaisons?

    It's 2012 and we're still discussing putting the toilet seat down?

    I'm afraid if the media is still giving puerile blowback interpretations, you just haven't tightened the hand restraints, mouth gag and nipple clamps hard enough on the dudes.

    In short, this is lame. The sexual revolution was 50 years ago and we're writing like Ann Landers? Take control. Scream louder. Vote the mofos out of office. Put a hex on their businesses and churches. Go Lysistrata on their asses. Do something. Anything. Own it. Christ, you can have Chippendales and gigolos and chewable g-strings. But if they're taking away abortion rights and access to contraception, fucking fight. Where are all the women's organizations that are supposed to be concerned with this stuff? Well screw them - they've gone lame and silent - take the money and outrage and put it somewhere useful. Certainly not an internet book - chain yourselves to the White House gate - that's the only way DADT finally got repealed - embarrassed hell out of lameass politicians. Start a Pussy Riot. Make Paul Ryan rue the day he ever got into politics. Make Romney break out of his frozen fratboy pose. Make them blink, make them suffer. Just don't go all June Cleaver on us.

    Tina Brown runs Newsweek, Arianna Huffington runs HuffPost, then there's the magnate Oprah, the talking head Rachel... there's no good reason female voices aren't being heard, or more importantly, female perspectives aren't being taken seriously. Bludgeon them with outrage, boycotts, petitions, lawsuits... There's more outrage for a nipple slip on TV than there is for a rape. Shame them. Drive them from the city like cowed and craven vermin, belly to the dust. Make it hurt.

    Check out Femen as one way of owning the show.

    Regards (and welcome)


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 8:00pm

    I was under the impression that what is considered interesting and controversial about the books is not that they are merely pornography for woman, which has obviously been done before, but that they are a particular kind of pornography for women in which woman enjoy kinds of abusive sexual behavior which is surprisingly similar to the kinds of abusive behavior that male pornography has often portrayed them as enjoying - portrayals which many woman have over the years strenuously deplored.

    But I have to say that, as a kind of cultural hermit, my knowledge of the books is based on a single conversation lasting about one minute with a sales representative of a publishing house.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 8:00pm

    I thought the same thing when it was described to me! In actuality, though, if you really want the readers digest version [spoiler alert] Mr. Grey proposes that arrangement to her, but instead their relationship becomes something meaningful, something he hadn't had in his submissives, with whom he did exercise those abusive and demeaning practices. She decides that lifestyle isn't really for her, so he compromises and abandons his old ways. The explicit sex scenes are not as kinky as one might imagine. Sure, there's some tying up and spanking but I think the important point is that its consensual and welcomed. I think that, though it might not be for everyone, the use of toys or the occasional spank isn't demeaning if there's respect and consent. The basis for the plot is that she's not​ submissive. 


    by Ophelia on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 8:35pm

    Does she ever spank him?

    And while the protagonist is gradually reaching the conclusion that the lifestyle isn't for her, isn't the reader meant to be enjoying the guilty erotic pleasure of some old fashioned dominance and submission when the as-yet-to-be enlightened heroine has not yet decided whether the lifestyle is for her?

    I was told by the sales rep that some men in Manhattan now wear gray ties as a kind of "will spank if you're into it" signal for experimenting women.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 9:15pm

    And in a surprising new move, The Onion reports that some middle-aged men are now open to dating much younger women.

    And they don't even mind if these women bring along their girlfriends.

    (not sure which color tie shows that)

    Who sez there hasn't been emancipation?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiMMGC706SU


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 08/23/2012 - 2:08am

    Welcome, Ophelia! Love your defense of these books as cheesy, but no more so than Playboy. These books get derided for not being literature but, somehow, all the cheese all porn med at men, from adult Moines to beer commercials, seem to get a pass.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 8:17pm

    I haven't read these books but from what I've heard--including here--there is nothing in them that hasn't been written before by women.  Women writing erotic books about women liking rough, sweaty--even kinky--sex isn't anything new. 

    Anais Nin's Delta of Venus and Little Birds, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, The Story of O, Emmanuelle,  9 1/2 Weeks. . .

    It's been done.  Many,many times by dozens and dozens of female writers who really know how to write.  It's no big secret that we women like that stuff.  So I'm trying to figure out what's so great about these books that they've become a cultural phenomenon, when there are books already out there that are infinitely better written and I'm guessing much more interesting.

    It could be the attempts at fixing the bad boy that makes them new, though even that sounds a little lame and way too maternal for a supposed bad girl and independent woman.

    The Grey books likely have the benefit of timing, a sort of anti-old white guys making anti-women laws.  Ha!  Look at us!  We do it! We like it! Whaddaya gonna do about it?

    There is something those old white guys making anti-women laws don't like to think about:  Their women are buying up those bodice-rippers by the millions.  There's sex in them books.  It's not all romantic sex.  Sometimes it's real naughty. 

    Women are complicated creatures.  So are men.  The human condition is forever fascinating.

     

    (Oh, and yes--welcome, Ophelia!)


    by Ramona on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 9:54pm

    So I'm trying to figure out what's so great about these books that they've become a cultural phenomenon, when there are books already out there that are infinitely better written and I'm guessing much more interesting.

    I'm thinking it's because they are just one tiny age level up from the  young adult (teenage) fiction that has been all the rage right?  The books evolved out of fangirl discussion groups of  the Twilight books, which were gigantic bestsellers and have a massive, very young fan base.  So all those 15 and 16 year olds are now 19 and 20 year olds who are graduating into Big Girl fiction, filled with some sorta, kinda grownup sex and stuff - or at least grownup sex in the way that very young and not very worldly young woman like to imagine it.  The literary quality would be at the same relatively immature and unsophisticated level as the books this group of readers is accustomed to.  Instead of saving dangerous, mysterious but redeemable vampire boys from the clutches of Undead existence, the heroines are now saving dangerous, mysterious but redeemable tycoon-boys from the clutches of their unfeeling world of male competition and domination.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 10:35pm

    Dan, I think you've nailed it.  Funny how every generation thinks they've invented something new.  It's what keeps us going, I guess.  (I still would like to know how many of the old guys' wives are sneaking around reading those books.  Plenty, I'll bet. Ha!)

    We were looking for the dirty parts in "God's Little Acres" when I was in the 8th grade.  None of us girls turned bad because of it, so I can't get too excited about this, either.


    by Ramona on Wed, 08/22/2012 - 11:04pm

    I think its a combination of the two. I wondered briefly while reading them why this, why now, since we know there are plenty of steamy romance novels - hell, in line at the drugstore. Its the timing. The fantasy of bringing down the ultimate white collar misogynist and taming him while stepping out of the shelter of chastity and claiming one's own pleasure is ripe in this climate. 

    Also - I happen to know that plenty of old dude's wives have this tucked in their bedside table. A girlfriend of mine told me just the other day she found it at her grandma's house!


    by Ophelia on Thu, 08/23/2012 - 12:03am

    Well, I was curious enough to look at the reviews for the first book at Amazon.  More than one asked if it was written by a teenager.  Another looked at the repetitions.  Pretty funny!


    *UPDATE*: Thanks to the many other perturbed readers who have shared their own choices of the most annoyingly overused phrases in this masterpiece. Following up on their suggestions with my ever-useful Kindle search function, I have discovered that Ana says "Jeez" 81 times and "oh my" 72 times. She "blushes" or "flushes" 125 times, including 13 that are "scarlet," 6 that are "crimson," and one that is "stars and stripes red." (I can't even imagine.) Ana "peeks up" at Christian 13 times, and there are 9 references to Christian's "hooded eyes," 7 to his "long index finger," and 25 to how "hot" he is (including four recurrences of the epic declarative sentence "He's so freaking hot."). Christian's "mouth presses into a hard line" 10 times. Characters "murmur" 199 times, "mutter" 49 times, and "whisper" 195 times (doesn't anyone just talk?), "clamber" on/in/out of things 21 times, and "smirk" 34 times. Christian and Ana also "gasp" 46 times and experience 18 "breath hitches," suggesting a need for prompt intervention by paramedics. Finally, in a remarkable bit of symmetry, our hero and heroine exchange 124 "grins" and 124 "frowns"... which, by the way, seems an awful lot of frowning for a woman who experiences "intense," "body-shattering," "delicious," "violent," "all-consuming," "turbulent," "agonizing" and "exhausting" orgasms on just about every page.


    by Ramona on Thu, 08/23/2012 - 12:23am

    Hot! Sign me up!


    by Shella (not verified) on Thu, 08/23/2012 - 1:29am