Was It Good for You?
SO, WAS IT?
There’s not much point discussing whether Fifty Shades of Grey, which has sold 40 million copies and climbing, is a good book. Reviewers and critics have been merciless in their assessment, deriding the story as implausible, the characters as one-dimensional, and the style as laughable. At the age of twenty-one, the beautiful heroine, Anastasia Steele, has never dated, has never even been attracted to anyone, has never felt the faintest frisson of sexuality—until she meets billionaire Christian Grey, described as “heart-stoppingly beautiful,” a man who likes to take control. The first time she’s in bed with him, she comes three times. Ana is young and pliant, up to a point; Christian is psychologically wounded, which has left him with a need to control women and a fondness for inflicting pain. He does not like to be touched, she does not want to be beaten—and they are in love. Will he let her stroke him? Will she let him beat her? These are the book’s great questions. Ana proclaims, “I know it will take an eternity to expunge the feel of his arms around me and his wonderful fragrance from my brain.”
Sentences like this haven’t slowed sales one click. Some claim that the Fifty Shades phenomenon is partly explained by the growing popularity of electronic reading devices. Without a cover to reveal what we are reading on our Kindles or Nooks, we are free to pursue sexually explicit books in virtual anonymity. But the new electronic secrecy could lead us to read classic (and classy) erotica, books like Fanny Hill, Story of O, and The Image. Instead, we are sinking deep (or sinking shallow) into the Fifty Shades trilogy. Why is that?
For one thing, in erotic fiction, as in all genres, there is a need for contemporary material. Fiction helps tell us how people live; contemporary fiction tells us how we live now, which is why, despite the great writers of the past, we always need new authors. Today’s writers chronicle our society, our anxieties, our joys. Story of O is still a highly charged book, but it was written before AIDS, and condoms were not a part of the picture. They’re certainly part of the scene today, and part of Fifty Shades. Condoms are probably mentioned fifty times in the first book alone! The book’s very zeitgeist is contemporary, with an unabashed worship of wealth. Christian’s Red Room of Pain is notable for its luxury as well as its bondage devices. Readers of the Fifty Shades trilogy are titillated by scenes of dominance and submission and fabulous wealth. They read on to learn just how much the lovers will submit to each other. Then they recommend the book to their friends.
Why is that? Not for the plot, not for the characters, not for the style: women read Fifty Shades of Grey for that timeless erotic situation—the man urging the woman to go further; the woman slowly submitting—in a contemporary setting. And people also read it for the sex scenes. So, it is valid to ask (indeed, absurd not to ask): How good are those sex scenes?
A good sex scene contains enough erotic detail and pacing and originality to get us excited, which is sufficient for pornography but not for fiction. Beyond being arousing, the sex scenes in mainstream novels and short stories must offer more.
Here it must be acknowledged that the line between pornography and mainstream fiction is sometimes difficult to draw. Women often need story and setting and emotion to get excited, so those elements are featured in pornographic novels for women, making them more like non-erotic fiction. And non-erotic fiction for women is often sexually explicit, because many serious women writers are bold about sex.
How do we even judge sex scenes in fiction? Novelist and critic Elizabeth Benedict offers some guidelines. Her lively, well-informed book, The Joy of Writing Sex, published in 2002, examines the question of what makes a good sex scene, and Benedict offers instructive criteria.
Let us use these to evaluate a single representative erotic encounter in E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey.
First, the scene. At three pages, it’s shorter than most of the sex scenes in the book, but just as explicit. It occurs about halfway through the book (starting on page 273 in my paperback edition). Grey is in Anastasia’s apartment. They are alone; her roommate, Kate, is conveniently away. On the threat of being punished, Grey warns Ana not to roll her eyes at him, but she rolls her eyes saucily anyway. “Come here,” he says. “I told you what I’d do. I’m a man of my word. I’m going to spank you, and then I’m going to fuck you very quick and very hard. Looks like we’ll need that condom after all.” He makes a grab, “tipping me across his lap … very slowly he pulls down my sweatpants. Oh, how demeaning is this? Demeaning and scary and hot.” Grey proceeds to give her a spanking, alternating his blows with fondling and caressing. “My body is singing, singing from his merciless assault.” Then he takes her from behind, slamming against her sore backside. After they come, he breathes, “Oh, baby. Welcome to my world.”
According to Elizabeth Benedict, a good sex scene:
1) is not always about good sex but is always an example of good writing;
2) should always connect to the larger concerns of the work;
3) is driven by the needs, impulses, and histories of the characters;
4) depends upon the relationship the characters have with each other.
So how does this scene rate?
1) E. L. James is not a graceful writer nor a keen observer nor an original thinker. The scene includes the lines: “My insides practically contort with potent, needy, liquid, desire” and, “The feeling is beyond exquisite, raw, and debasing and mind-blowing.” Although these pages are not always clumsy, no one would claim they were “an example of good writing.”
2) The book is about control. Christian Grey is looking for a good submissive. In allowing him to spank her, Anastasia finds unexpected “radiance” when she gives him the control he craves. The scene not only connects with “the larger concerns of the work,” it embodies them.
3) For weeks Christian has been exploring Anastasia’s sexuality and urging her into greater and greater submission. His deprived early childhood and his adolescent introduction to sex by an older “Mrs. Robinson” have shaped his psyche, and he has a great drive to dominate women. His need to spank Ana comes from a deep place, as does her excitement at being spanked. The scene is certainly driven by the characters.
4) Sex can make lovers grow closer, and in this scene it does. Grey has been begging Ana to sign a contract making their relationship explicit, but she keeps postponing it. By letting him spank her, she is showing her love for him, just as he shows his for her by the gift of an Audi. Spanking Ana, and knowing she enjoys it, Grey exultantly cries, “Welcome to my world.” The scene utterly depends upon “the relationship the characters have with each other.”
So in three out of four of Benedict’s criteria, the sex scene discussed here succeeds. It feels essential to the growing closeness of these two rather improbable characters and leads us to the next stage of Ana’s submission. Perhaps the secret to the success of Fifty Shades of Grey is simple. Whatever else E. L. James does or doesn’t do, she knows how to write a good sex scene.
Anyway, it was good for me.
CATHERINE HILLER is the author of five novels, most recently Cybill in Between (Ravenous Romance) and The Adventures of Sid Sawyer (Armadillo Central). She has also written a book of erotic short stories, Skin (Carroll & Graf), which was praised by John Updike. She has a PhD in English from Brown.