Whose Shades of Grey?
PERHAPS I SHOULD be embarrassed that, as a sex educator, erotic writer, BDSM enthusiast, professional Dominatrix, and lifestyle S/switch, I had absolutely no desire to read Fifty Shades of Grey. But I am not embarrassed. I could have gone my entire life without reading it and been perfectly happy. In fact, with my reading focused on biography or sex education and research these days, I haven’t picked up a piece of fiction in ages. I was never one to read Harlequin romance novels anyway. My tastes in erotic literature were always decidedly more sophisticated. In fact, the one time I attempted to read a cheesy romance novel with Fabio on the cover, I was bored to tears and gave up. By contrast, classic erotica stimulated my thinking and allowed me to identify with the characters and experience physical satiation. I spent most of my teens exploring my sexuality through the works of Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Laura Antoniou, Anne Rice, and Pauline Réage. Later I discovered self-help material on sex and BDSM in the sexuality section of my local bookstore. Believe me, cheesy romances couldn’t hold a candle to these authors and books.
While my curiosity toward Fifty Shades of Grey was limited, each time I read or heard a sex industry professional or BDSM practitioner reference the book, there was little that encouraged me to read it. I finally downloaded the book on a flight from Australia to the States and tried to approach the book with an open mind. I tried not to brace for the worst.
I regret to say that this book was perhaps the most daunting literary undertaking of my life. Not because of the poor, middle school style of writing. Not because of its poor example of a BDSM relationship that will mislead “vanilla” people about what kinky people and their relationships are like. I found Fifty Shades daunting because of heroine Anastasia Steele. Perhaps in my spoiled, black feminist bravado I failed to find Steele’s weak-minded, overeager desire to please both her roommate and Christian Grey endearing. And her indecisiveness toward committing to Grey’s desire for a relationship directly contradicts her undeniable interest in Grey and the tears she sheds over him along the way. Ana “tops from the bottom,” and at the very worst she’s nothing more than a tease.
Yes, I know women with poor self-esteem and limited life experience can be easily impressed by wealth, beauty, and charisma, and Anastasia Steele seems to be one of those women. But she also lives as a paradox, both impressed and appalled by it. She allows her wealthy best friend to dress her in her clothes, but refuses Christian Grey’s desire to purchase some of the same for her because it would make her his “whore” or “mistress.” She allows her best friend to manipulate her into actions that ultimately benefit only the roommate (e.g., interviewing Grey), but refuses any direction from Grey that might advance her personal and professional life. She is strong enough to tell Christian that his gifts of a new laptop and car are “on loan,” but not strong enough to determine whether her gift of submission might be on loan as well.
Ana’s failure to identify Christian’s behavior as potentially dangerous (tracing her phone calls, acquiring both her home address and her mother’s address) concerns me as well. It reads as a poor example for young women readers by normalizing stalking behaviors.
Christian Grey’s stalker tendencies aside, I found Steele’s constant babbling about his looks and her astonishment over his interest in her tiresome. She cannot seem to grasp hold of her self-worth long enough to determine why someone like Grey would desire her. Steele is painfully shy, uncoordinated, often unprepared, and lacks direction in her life. She is weak, suggestible, and her innermost thoughts read like a young teenager, not like a young woman graduating from college.
Worse, she is completely disconnected from her sexuality and desire almost to the point of being asexual. Her lack of sexual partners and sexual experience certainly doesn’t qualify her as a partner for Grey; while Grey invites Steele down the rabbit hole without much guidance, I found Steele’s willingness to explore questionable, given her lack of expertise with sex overall.
But what bothered me most was Steele’s attempt to change Grey, to “bring him into the light” and out of the “darkness” of his sexual proclivities. It bothers me that Grey’s sexual interests are brushed off as the result of both a difficult childhood and sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted family friend. By following this route, author E. L. James creates a platform for Ana to treat Christian’s advances as a deviance. Ana never has the chance to use Christian’s proclivities as a vehicle for welcomed mutual exploration. Given Ana’s overall lack of experience and eagerness to please her new partner, I wonder why James made Steele a sexual prude when it comes to BDSM. If she was going to be so disagreeable about BDSM in general, why didn’t she maintain that stance during all of Grey’s queries?
I have met women who were willing to do whatever a man asked to make him happy, but when it comes to BDSM, you either get it or you don’t. I found it quite unbelievable that Steele would dream and fantasize about Christian tying her up and flogging her—to the point of nocturnal emission—but then wince at the idea in her waking hours. In demonizing Christian’s sexual desire, James makes him into a sexual predator and Anastasia Steele into his victim and a woman only trying to love an otherwise unlovable man.
I wish the book had taken a more open-minded approach toward BDSM and alternative sexual lifestyles. It paints its dominant practitioners as sexual deviants who prey on the weak and make victims of their submissives. Grey’s childhood and his introduction to BDSM do nothing more than to offend the many people who choose BDSM as a lifestyle and are not the product of victimization. For me, it was like hearing people say all gay people were molested instead of being born that way.
The author misses quite a few other points with me as well. I could no more believe Anastasia had never, as a twenty-one-year-old, masturbated in her life than I believed she’d graduate college without a personal email address. I found it disgusting that Grey would introduce the idea of BDSM with Steele in the form of a limited-term contractual relationship. As he went through his checklist of potential activities, I waited patiently to read Ana asking him to show her the types of instrumentation mentioned on the list or take her to play parties to watch them being used on others. I hoped he would introduce her to people in the BDSM community (and not women he had previously had sexual relationships with) so she could ask questions about the lifestyle. Christian’s inability to explain his penchant for BDSM was ridiculous—most people involved in a BDSM lifestyle can pinpoint why they have an inclination toward such play. They are usually insightful, articulate people.
I was disappointed that Grey never explains the differences between a submissive, a slave, and a bottom to Steele, and never gives her the opportunity to explore her sensual desire on her own terms.
What’s more, Grey’s lack of guidance in Ana’s research frustrated me. She needed to discover whether she’d prefer maintaining play in the bedroom or extend it to all aspects of her life (as he initially requested). I cringed when Christian told Ana to start with Wikipedia when the website’s not consistently reliable in its material. Especially when countless reliable sources do exist for the BDSM beginner.
Had James given careful thought and consideration into her book, she might have produced something truly helpful to curiosity seekers wanting to explore their Dominant and submissive fantasies. As it is, her book is a dangerous piece of fodder that has more potential to do harm than good. One can only hope that the film adaptation consults with people with real-world BDSM experience and sex-positive educators and discovers better ways to portray BDSM people and practices. Because one can then hope we’ll see a movie in which a young woman doesn’t sign away her life and become a sex slave to a wealthy man without the necessary life experience and careful negotiation.
SINNAMON LOVE is an adult film star, fetish model, professional Dominatrix, writer, radio personality, and single mom of three teenagers living in Brooklyn, New York. Since 1993, Love has appeared in over 250 hard-core movies and numerous men’s magazines, and has made countless appearances on Playboy TV and Playboy Radio. In 2010, Sinnamon went on a yearlong tour with the Punany Poets (of HBO’s Real Sex fame), a sex-positive erotic poetry and sex education theater show. She is a frequent guest on Shade 45 on SiriusXM radio.
Love is currently a staff writer and relationship columnist for TheWellVersed.com. She was inducted into the Urban X Awards’ Hall of Fame in 2010, followed by induction into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2011. She is an outspoken Autism/Asperger parent advocate and has recently taken on improving sex education in inner-city schools.
Love can be heard on DTFRadio.com every Thursday night from midnight to 2:00 A.M. on her radio show, Sex Love & Hip Hop. Sex Love & Hip Hop is a relationship advice show featuring good music, well-known and underground hip hop artists, sex educators, adult stars, and everyday people discussing real topics for the urban demographic.