feminismandmedia:

whenitraynes:

feminismandmedia:

The saga of me trying to read 50 Shades of Grey.

Don’t want to start a fight, just want to make a point.

This book outsold Harry Potter. There have been dozens of references to this book in the media. People bought it. A lot of people liked it. You’re not one of those people, and hey, that’s cool. You have your own standards, which I respect the hell out of. But that doesn’t mean someone else won’t like it. Give it to a friend who might be interested, or a collector. Sell it on Ebay. Or donate it to Goodwill, or your local library. Hell, recycle it. Let’s not take a step back to the burning books part of history.

Thanks for reading.

First of all your point sucks. As does this book.

Ignoring the horrible writing (which is really quite hard, the writing is atrocious) but anyways, this book depicts abuse. Not domination. So yeah my standard is “don’t sell abuse as romance because fiction affects reality and this can be dangerous for people in relationships and not help them see the abuse.” This book sets up a lovely stage for a series full of abuse.

It didn’t sell because it was good. It wasn’t written well and the plot was horrid. I’ve read books with plots that were good and horrid writing. I’ve read books I personally hated but had wonderful writing. This was neither. You want to know why I think it sold so many copies? Here’s why:

…Some women harbor stubborn fantasies about their power to heal a damaged man. It’s not Christian Grey’s good looks, his garage full of Audis, or his personal helicopter that seduces Ana. It’s his raw emotional vulnerability that catches her attention initially. As their relationship deepens, his confessions of early physical and sexual abuse, along with an almost child-like willingness to open up his painful past to her and her alone, keep her hooked. The deeper, more dangerous fairy tale of “Fifty Shades of Grey” is that a strong, independent-minded woman such as Anastasia Steele can reach inside a troubled adult like Grey and heal the damaged boy inside.

Unfortunately, warped pity for a broken man can be potent and soul-crushing. It’s no coincidence that, after months of indecision, I decided to sleep with my future abuser the same night he confessed that his stepfather had starved and beaten him as a child. I remember a flood of passion intermingled with sympathy. I wanted to show that sweet boy what true love was all about and make him mine forever. His pain and his need to be healed turned me on emotionally – in ways that his need to control me never could sexually.

This emotional fantasy – not the sexual one – explains the 100 million copies the Fifty Shades franchise has sold and the buzz over the movie. For some victims, the intoxication of healing a damaged partner is the root of how love blindfolds us while delivering us into danger. We cling fiercely to the seductive idea that we are powerful, smart women who can fix hurt men; perhaps nobly, perhaps idiotically, we refuse to abandon these men when so many others already wisely have.

There is a line between dominance and abuse – and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is blurring it.

Here’s the thing…I’m all for kinkiness and BDSM. No really, I don’t enjoy sex often, or even get turned on, but when I do, it’s BDSM that does the trick. But having been in an abusive relationship that was disguised as BDSM, I can tell you exactly how fucking horrible this book is.

The way this book is marketed is dangerous. I’ve found through other shows and books that media affects reality. So how do you think 50 Shades of Grey will affect rape culture? Abuse victims? Young girls getting into things they don’t know about?

Honestly if I had read this in the time when I was in my abusive relationship that was disguised as BDSM…I wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with this book. Nor would I have seen anything wrong with my relationship. In fact if I had read this and if this was at it’s height of popularity when I got out of my relationship..I probably wouldn’t have told anyone. I probably wouldn’t have realized I was raped. (And it already took me a fucking long time without this influence.)

And with TONS of rape and abuse survivors and people within the BDSM community calling this book horrible, you’re damn right that I’m going to burn this book.

A book which, I might add, I got for 25 cents at a garage sale. Which literally all my friends told me to burn so there was no way in hell any of them would want it, and a book which, honestly, was mine and I have the right to do so as I please? I burned one book. Not hundreds. And it’s damn insulting that you would compare that to what I did. I like fire. So I burnt it. Because that’s how I feel about it.

Thanks,

Mod Bethany