Earlier in this book, I was intrigued by the possibility that Christian is unwilling or unable have vanilla relationships, and that the consent principles of BDSM might actually provide a structure that would contain his controlling and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Christian’s controlling tendencies would be the problem, and the consent and negotiation ethics of BDSM would be the solution, letting Ana and Christian work out a way they could have a relationship.
“And please, let’s try it for three months. If it’s not for you then, you can walk away anytime.”
“Three months?” I’m feeling railroaded. I take another large sip of wine and treat myself to another oyster. I could learn to like these.
That’s because Ana is being railroaded. The all-or-nothing offer and the display of his wealthy lifestyle and constant flattery are all high-pressure sales tactics. Ana, unfortunately, seems to be falling for all of them.
There’s an obscenely rich guy I’ve just met and he wants some kind of strange kinky sexual relationship, in which I don’t get a say in things.
That’s how Ana thinks of her relationship, and it completely misreads the situation. It continues this book’s systematic erasure of Ana’s knowledge, dignity, intelligence, agency and responsibility. It’s what she thinks of saying to her mother, but doesn’t. She doesn’t even mention she’s met someone.
More emails. Christian sends her the dictionary definition of “submissive”. (Even if Ana doesn’t own a computer, wouldn’t an English Lit major have access to a dictionary?) Ana responds with the definition of “compromise”. They then argue over the logistics of their dinner date, such as whether Ana drives her own car. She thinks, “I need a means of escape.” Not a good thing to think when you’re meeting someone for dinner.
The Seduction of Venus has a post on French illustrator Chéri Hérouard, aka Herric.
After thinking things over a bit, Ana semi-seriously sends Christian an email breaking things off.
As if Ana chanted his name into a mirror five times, Christian Grey just appears in her room, and short-circuits any discussion with Ana by moving directly to sex and light bondage. This time he actually ties her to the headboard.
Do I need to repeat that silk neckties are not good for bondage?
Researching the previous post led me to the Klaw Archives, focused on the Irving Klaw’s 1940s-1950s bondage photosets and short films.
The Vintage Sleaze blog has the story behind the Fads and Fancies fetish magazine, published in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and its signature artist known as Janine, actually a woman by the name of Reina Bull.
The astounding drawings by an anonymous artist known only as “Janine” who drew work for the sleazy Utopia magazine “Fads and Fancies” a British fetish magazine in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The work is no longer anonymous. It was done by a woman all right, but Janine wasn’t her real name. Fads and Fancies was published by Utopia, who printed fetish material remarkably similar to Nutrix and Irving Klaw, and at roughly the same time.
[…]
Janine had an incredible, unique, eccentric and curious style likely developed to cater to the audience. Particular parts of the plump participants protrude depending on the proclivities she wished to portray. Which is an alliterated way of saying big boobs and big butts. Kinky and unreal, but then certainly enticing to the readers who must have been “big” fans (pun intended.) To the rest of us, they look hilarious…Dolly Parton on Steroids! The work takes an “all-purpose” approach to fetishists. The artist can not figure out if she is titillating a shoe fetish, a butt fetish, a fat fetish, a breast fetish, a stocking fetish…if the idea of a fetish is to focus on one particular object, there was something kinky for all in Janine’s curious drawings. At the time, the fetish underground was not yet defined, but the publishers knew if they appealed to a handful of eccentricities, they would reach a market.
Fads belongs in a tradition of English fetish magazines that includes Photo Bits and London Life, and goes back at least to the 1870s when the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine took a turn for the pervy. The business model seems to be, “give the punters what they want”.
Nowadays, Rule 34 is in full effect and every fetish has its own Tumblr.
Shorter, Edward. Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire University of Toronto Press, 2005
Caveat: due to time restrictions, I’ve only read the “SM and Fetish” chapter of Shorter’s book.
This chapter presents a lot of fodder for further research, and I’m intrigued by Shorter’s idea of Western society moving towards an idea of “total body sex”, from an origin narrowly focused on heterosexual missionary coitus. Sexual behaviour in the early 21st century seems so varied that it’s hard to draw boundaries around “the sexual.”
Gloria Brame has posted a set of stereo-optic 3D images, likely made in 1920s France, of Ff BDSM scenes.
At long last we get to the infamous contract. It’s pretty lengthy, and I suspect that like a lot of legalese, such as website terms of service, the readers of this book just breeze through it.
The problem with BDSM contracts is that they aren’t legally binding (unlike the NDA which Ana signed earlier). They’re social agreements, not legal documents. Like a lot of BDSM, master/slave contracts are about the trappings, or signifiers, of authority, but divorced from real authority. A person may be addressed by a title, but that title doesn’t matter to anybody except the submissive. Quite literally, the power of the government depends on the consent of the governed. All of this legalese is interesting, and adds to the mise en scene of the interaction between Ana and Christian, but it isn’t really necessary.
