Fifty Shades of Snark
“CRAP!” we gasp. “I’m shocked! Truly appalled at the popularity of Christian and Anastasia’s shenanigans,” we scowl, appalled, clutching our collective pearls.
It’s no surprise that the guardians of morality and arbiters of good taste scorn the books’ popularity. It’s not news that media loves a good titillation disguised as responsible cultural reporting. The most aghast, however, may be the practitioners of real-life kinky sex, followed closely by the writers of erotic romance and kinky fiction.
A central unspoken issue propelling the Fifty Shades controversy is about how women are using the books. It’s not just escapist fantasy. Well-to-do women are turning to these books to advise one another on sexual information, better orgasms, and erotic agency. Women whisper to one another about how life changing this book was. With the money, education, and resources they posses, why turn to poorly written erotic romance as the source for advice? That the well-educated would be naturally better informed on the matters of sex and sexuality is a classist assumption; sadly, it isn’t true. Privilege does not equal sexual fulfillment and relationship happiness. Frustration, sexual misinformation, and emotional discontent cross all socioeconomic strata. Enter Fifty Shades of Grey, sold in a pretty package or dressed in the anonymity of e-book, validated by the tacit media approval and thus accessible to this group of women.
This book has brought the notion of sex toys, whips, bondage, and erotic roleplay into mainstream discourse. Those who already practice toy-filled and kinky sex should be thrilled. But they’re not. Far from it.
Many of my kinky pals just roll their eyes and rant about these books. And they assume that, as a sexual adventurer and educator who often travels among the realms of sexual subcultures, I hold the same disdain. So they tell me how they truly feel. They lament the onslaught of what they perceive as “kink-curious tourists” invading their realm. They snark bitterly about incorrect technique or criticize unrealistic play depictions. They belittle the questions and assumptions people bring from reading the book. They tell me proudly that they’re above such drivel.
That’s just snotty and condescending. It’s particularly offensive coming from people who espouse sex positivity and promote self-actualization through the examination of arbitrary sexual taboos imposed on us by society.
Where did each of us find our first sparks of naughty adventuring? I doubt any of us had highbrow sources with cultural approval. Where do kinky people come from? They aren’t brought up in some secret society of pervery. Ordinary people find inspiration in common places: stolen porn or dirty books, mischievous suggestions by a lover, something glimpsed on cable TV or late night in the back alleys of the internet. We all start wanting, curious, nervous, wrestling with unnamed desires.
I remember one night in Tokyo, many moons ago, when I was at the cusp of puberty. That night I was able to sneak some late-night TV viewing without my parents’ knowledge. There I came across a French movie with Japanese subtitles. It was about a French diplomat’s wife in Bangkok. Shot in a dreamy and overly gauzy style, the wife looked steamy and exotic in every little gesture. Alone, she boarded a train car full of young football players. I remember how they all looked at her lustfully. The film cut to black. In the next scene all the men were strewn about the floor and seats, spent and sweaty. Some appeared to be passed out. At the time I didn’t exactly know why they were all so exhausted, but I knew she had some amazing and mysterious power of womanhood. She sat glowing, victorious, and powerful. I didn’t realize until I was an adult that the explicit sex scenes were edited out. That didn’t matter, really. I was hooked on the story of desire, power, lust, and drama. I stared, aroused and shocked, at Emmanuelle. Perhaps that was my introduction.
Many years later at Berkeley, I was helping my college beau move. As I waited for him to return with the moving van I came across his stash of Penthouse Variations. I sat on the cardboard boxes devouring each dirty story from a magazine I would not have had the nerve to buy, much less actively shop for at an adult bookstore where such things were sold.
I was that nervous, hopeful “tourist” of my own awakening to power and desire. From there I began my exploration of adulthood and its sexual expression, tentatively at first, learning my own appetites and misadventures. Sometimes they were good, sometimes they were comically terrible, but all gave me insight into the complexity of my humanity.
If these books, or any other source, provoke people to examine their own desires and limits, to seek fulfillment, joy, and actualization, it’s a good thing. Are the readers of Fifty Shades of Grey the new face of kink? Will this define a new generation like some sort of Summer of Love? Probably not—but maybe a little bit of unproductive sexual shame will fall away for some. What they devour and thrill to now may or may not be what they ultimately find sexual or personal pleasure in. We grow and evolve—this is the joy of a life well lived.
But I understand the kinksters’ grief, their loss of the sense of uniqueness, or their woe at losing status as wild cultural rebels. It’s okay to be sad or to feel misunderstood. It’s not okay to be subcultural elitists and disparage others’ erotic journey and discoveries.
As for my writer friends, they’re groaning as well at the Fifty Shades hoopla. While they’re thrilled at the attention the genre is getting, they also wish it had been them to hit the jackpot. That’s entirely understandable. I feel the same way as I furtively tap away on my stories. The publishing industry is a fickle mistress. She is far more cruel and capricious than Christian Grey ever could be. Which among the many writers will earn her favors and the public’s attention? So often that’s a game of timing, perseverance, coincidence, and connection, at times entirely unrelated to actual talent. Many of my friends are brilliant writers creating masterpieces in the much-maligned genre of erotica. They contain brilliant fantasies just waiting to be acted out in bedrooms across the world. Their work deserves attention by media and masturbators alike.
Let the curmudgeonly kinksters continue to gripe and society gasp in indignation—because good women and men will continue to search for better sex, mind stroking, and erotic liberation one way or another.
MIDORI left her early life in Japan to join the sex-positive movement in San Francisco in the early 1990s and began lecturing passionately on alternative sexuality, women’s issues, and identity through art. Midori is currently a full-time writer and educator on sexuality and intimacy.
As an artist, Midori understands the importance of identity and personal exploration as part of the foundations of society. She’s a dedicated artist exploring the fringes of desire, nature of memory, and identity through art installations, performances, sculpture, and art activism. Exhibiting and performing internationally, she has also presented as artist in resident at Das Arts (Netherlands) and Tanzquartier Wien (Austria). Find her online at www.fhp-inc.com, www.ranshin.com, and Twitter/Facebook: PlanetMidori.