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livSo everybody's talking about Fifty shades of Grey. Lots of journalists are saying amazingly stupid things about it. OMG women are buying and reading books which have explicit sex scenes, OMG the sky is falling! If this is when you get the memo that women are interested in sex, you've been living way too far under a rock to call yourself a journalist.
And there's a fair amount of snark about how badly it's written. Everything from detailed fiskings of every scene, to an image macro that's doing the rounds showing the shelf of a book shop with Fifty shades covered over by a typed notice saying "Please don't spend money on this, you can find better smut on the internet for free!" Some of this I'm sure is justified, some of it is snobbery because the snarker is far too cool and far too elite to read anything, you know, popular. And some of it is sexism, because it's marketed at women and it's based on Twilight which was marketed at teenage girls. Because erotica aimed at middle-aged men is by default assumed to be high quality literature and erotica aimed at middle-aged women is by default assumed to be trashy "Mummy porn".
There's a slightly more interesting conversation going on about what this means for publishing, since it's essentially a self-published fanfic that has gone absolutely viral and become a commercial success, but I don't know very much about that topic. Plenty out there if you're interested. I've seen rather a cute argument that it's the modern day equivalent of Pamela.
It seems very likely that the relationship portrayed in Fifty Shades is, in fact, abusive, but lots and lots and lots of fiction in all media portrays as romantic relationships that would be abusive if they really happened. I think part of the problem here is that Fifty Shades is essentially using fanfic-derived conventions to portray, for example, what one might categorize as dubcon, but people are used to Hollywood conventions and romance novel conventions and litfic conventions for portraying power imbalances in a sexy way. In those cases, people accept the convention as a convention and don't get too upset about the realism (unless it's really egregious in promoting abusive, rapey dynamics as "romance"), but in the case of Fifty shades, people who don't come from that context are taking things too literally and not spotting cues that it's supposed to be a fantasy, not an instruction manual.
Then there's the backlash from people who actually know something about contemporary women and are aware of, often members of, alternative sexuality communities, from fanfic to BDSM. They are angry because Fifty shades and the bad reporting about the phenomenon are making their communities look bad. In reference to the "better smut online for free" type of comment, I think there's an access issue here. Fanfic on the internet might be free of financial cost, and some of it is of stunningly high quality. But it requires a whole stacking set of literacies that not everybody possesses. If you want to read Fifty shades, you have to have £5.99 in disposable money. OK, not everybody has that, but a higher proportion of people do than have internet access at home, the ability to switch off or get round filters and censorship, the knowledge that fanfic exists and the ability to search for it, a fairly complex understanding of the conventions and shorthands that fanfic has developed, probably some means of downloading and reading e-texts portably, the knowledge of and ability to use tools and community networks to find the high quality stuff among the completely unfiltered mountain of crap that is the internet. None of that is "free" if you're starting from outside that community.
As for the "negative portrayal of BDSM" side, part of the motivation for posting this was that I happened to find this counterpoint.elialshadowpine points out that Fifty shades completely fails to match the kink community's image of itself, which is all about good communication and respect for boundaries and consent and negotiation and being a lovely supportive community for people with minority sexualities. But in some ways Christian is a realistic portrayal of an abuser who uses BDSM as a cover for his abusive behaviour. Anyway, worth reading her post, though it's a pretty harsh, frank discussion of sexual abuse, so only if you feel strong enough.
And the other motivation was thatskibbley linked to a really interestingly balanced post about the book. I'm not totally convinced by this "sex critical" thing; I basically fall on the sex positive side of the debate, and I'm not sure that trying to make a compromise with the kind of radicals who hate sex workers and want to police sexuality from the left is really the best idea. But I like the example this blogger provides of approaching Fifty shades in a sex critical way, noting that there are some good, potentially liberating things about the book and its popularity, but not glossing over the aspects that are problematic.
Alsojack wrote a comment on the book-as-phenomenon which I also think is well-balanced and interesting. Not as scholarly as the Rewriting the Rules post, more of a personal response. But while I'm collecting links, I shall link to my husband being clever and interesting.
And there's a fair amount of snark about how badly it's written. Everything from detailed fiskings of every scene, to an image macro that's doing the rounds showing the shelf of a book shop with Fifty shades covered over by a typed notice saying "Please don't spend money on this, you can find better smut on the internet for free!" Some of this I'm sure is justified, some of it is snobbery because the snarker is far too cool and far too elite to read anything, you know, popular. And some of it is sexism, because it's marketed at women and it's based on Twilight which was marketed at teenage girls. Because erotica aimed at middle-aged men is by default assumed to be high quality literature and erotica aimed at middle-aged women is by default assumed to be trashy "Mummy porn".
There's a slightly more interesting conversation going on about what this means for publishing, since it's essentially a self-published fanfic that has gone absolutely viral and become a commercial success, but I don't know very much about that topic. Plenty out there if you're interested. I've seen rather a cute argument that it's the modern day equivalent of Pamela.
It seems very likely that the relationship portrayed in Fifty Shades is, in fact, abusive, but lots and lots and lots of fiction in all media portrays as romantic relationships that would be abusive if they really happened. I think part of the problem here is that Fifty Shades is essentially using fanfic-derived conventions to portray, for example, what one might categorize as dubcon, but people are used to Hollywood conventions and romance novel conventions and litfic conventions for portraying power imbalances in a sexy way. In those cases, people accept the convention as a convention and don't get too upset about the realism (unless it's really egregious in promoting abusive, rapey dynamics as "romance"), but in the case of Fifty shades, people who don't come from that context are taking things too literally and not spotting cues that it's supposed to be a fantasy, not an instruction manual.
Then there's the backlash from people who actually know something about contemporary women and are aware of, often members of, alternative sexuality communities, from fanfic to BDSM. They are angry because Fifty shades and the bad reporting about the phenomenon are making their communities look bad. In reference to the "better smut online for free" type of comment, I think there's an access issue here. Fanfic on the internet might be free of financial cost, and some of it is of stunningly high quality. But it requires a whole stacking set of literacies that not everybody possesses. If you want to read Fifty shades, you have to have £5.99 in disposable money. OK, not everybody has that, but a higher proportion of people do than have internet access at home, the ability to switch off or get round filters and censorship, the knowledge that fanfic exists and the ability to search for it, a fairly complex understanding of the conventions and shorthands that fanfic has developed, probably some means of downloading and reading e-texts portably, the knowledge of and ability to use tools and community networks to find the high quality stuff among the completely unfiltered mountain of crap that is the internet. None of that is "free" if you're starting from outside that community.
As for the "negative portrayal of BDSM" side, part of the motivation for posting this was that I happened to find this counterpoint.
elialshadowpine points out that Fifty shades completely fails to match the kink community's image of itself, which is all about good communication and respect for boundaries and consent and negotiation and being a lovely supportive community for people with minority sexualities. But in some ways Christian is a realistic portrayal of an abuser who uses BDSM as a cover for his abusive behaviour. Anyway, worth reading her post, though it's a pretty harsh, frank discussion of sexual abuse, so only if you feel strong enough. And the other motivation was that
skibbley linked to a really interestingly balanced post about the book. I'm not totally convinced by this "sex critical" thing; I basically fall on the sex positive side of the debate, and I'm not sure that trying to make a compromise with the kind of radicals who hate sex workers and want to police sexuality from the left is really the best idea. But I like the example this blogger provides of approaching Fifty shades in a sex critical way, noting that there are some good, potentially liberating things about the book and its popularity, but not glossing over the aspects that are problematic. Also
jack wrote a comment on the book-as-phenomenon which I also think is well-balanced and interesting. Not as scholarly as the Rewriting the Rules post, more of a personal response. But while I'm collecting links, I shall link to my husband being clever and interesting.