It Ain't Abuse If You Don't Call the Cops -- The Enduring Wisdom of 50 Shades of Grey

Yes, I read Fifty Shades of Grey. After about four months of waiting, my turn finally came up at the library, and against my better judgement, I checked the thing out. Truth be told, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, seeing as I was prepared for Fifty Shades of Grey to be the worst book ever. It’s certainly better written that Twilight (though that's not saying much). But mostly, I was just confused by it, by its unparalled success – who are these millions of women who are avidly reading and recommending Fifty Shades of Grey? Okay, it wasn’t terrible, but it certainly was ridiculous. And fucked-up. And culturally damaging. And juvenile, which strikes me as odd considering it was written by a woman in her mid-40s. The dialogue was juvenile and ridiculous. Anastasia’s “cute” and overly repetitive quirks – like biting her lip, rolling her eyes, and her vocal inner goddess and subconscious – were ridiculous. I mean, the girl’s lucky she’s got any lip left. The sex scenes and Anastasia’s instant orgasms were ridiculous – so much so that if I was supposed to be turned on, it didn’t work because I was too busy rolling my eyes. And don't get me started on Christian Grey...

If you're not familiar with the premise, Fifty Shades of Grey is the tale of the naive Anastasia Steele, whose world is rocked when she takes up with the handsome, sexy billionaire Christian Grey. Ana manages to meet this god when she interviews him as a favor for her roommate shortly before her college graduation. She’s instantly attracted to him and can’t believe it when he seems to take a liking to her, too – because she’s plain and clumsy and boring, of course. They go through a little flirty-flirty, but they’re both in for a shock – she’s a virgin, and he only enters into Dominant-Submissive sexual relationships that come with a contract. In short, he's looking for someone he can abuse in his Red Room of Pain, and Ana spends the rest of the book hemming and hawing over whether or not she wants to participate.

 

Apparently this is the housewife fantasy. Which makes me really sad because at its core, Fifty Shades of Gray puts forth a really destructive message for women, one we've been fighting against culturally for a really long time. Seems like this is more than a few steps back.

 

Throughout Fifty Shades of Grey is the oft-repeated trope of the ugly duckling being turned into a swan because of a man’s “love.” Anastasia spends the entire book insecurely wondering why the devastatingly handsome and rich Christian Grey is attracted to her. “I am rendered speechless by the look of hunger in his eyes. Wow … to be this wanted by this Greek god.” (358)  It doesn’t matter that he has deep-rooted psychological issues that will damage her emotionally and physically – He’s rich! He’s handsome! He must be too good for her! Ugh.

 

And then beneath that, Fifty Shades of Gray presents the disturbing premise that beating your partner is arousing, not abusing – because hey, she doesn’t call the cops, right? He actually suggests at one point that it’s all in how you look at it, that maybe it’s only society telling her spanking/punishing (i.e. physical hurting) your partner is bad. Despite the overwhelming evidence that Ana should run for the hills, she's convinced that her love can fix him. That when he says he doesn't do the girlfriend thing and he's bad for her, he actually means the opposite. 

 

E.L. James uses this ugly duckling fantasy -- rich, handsome god-man falls in love with Plain Jane, recognizing her special specialness, breaking all of his austere rules because even though he's damaged, love makes him want to reach out -- to cloud the main issue. “I want to hurt you. But not beyond anything that you couldn’t take.” (376) There are a couple of passages like this, and all I can think is: HE STILL WANTS TO HIT YOU! The rest is bullshit. But what is Ana's response? “This is a man in need. His fear is naked and obvious, but he’s lost … somewhere in his darkness. His eyes are wide and bleak and tortured. I can soothe him, join him briefly in the darkness and bring him into the light.” (377) God, bring back the vampires – this shit is toxic.

 

And the thing is, Fifty Shades of Grey only works because of Christian Grey’s superficial qualities. Strip away the youth, the wealth and the handsome face, and all you have a man who gets insanely jealous when his girlfriend talks to another guy, stalks her movements through her cell phone, is a complete control freak, and  gets his sexual kicks from fully dominating and beating his girlfriend (but only in places where others won’t see the bruises). Wow, so erotic. Usually, you have these types of guys arrested. So why has this book become housewife porn? Anastasia literally only recognizes these superficial things once. ONCE. And the second she admits it, she goes into the whole, oh, poor him, he’s so damaged, my heart hurts for him. Perhaps you think I’m irrationally angry because Fifty Shades of Grey is just a book, but the thing is, I’ve been there. And you know what happens? It doesn't matter how rich or handsome he is. You can’t heal his wounds with love. He just keeps abusing you. And it makes me so angry that this woman has made like $20 million peddling the idea there’s something erotic or sexy in that.