I didn’t have high expectations of this book when I started. If anything, now that I’ve read it, my low expectations of Fifty Shades of Grey were too high.
Aug 212012
Aug 062012
BDSM is about rules, which are there to regulate the interaction so that all parties involve benefit. Christian presented Ana with a contract, but that has been completely abandoned by now. Christian pays lip service to concepts like consent, negotiation and rules, but he’ll go beyond them on the thinnest of excuses. Ana just doesn’t understand them at all. Put them together, and you get a disaster.
Jul 312012
A digression, which will tie into the peculiar relationship dynamic at the heart of Fifty Shades.
Jul 302012
On her way back to Seattle, travelling separately from Christian, Ana thinks about how she’s managed to render the steel-hard man downright squishy.
Jul 292012
Ana has a dream about Christian in a cage, offering her a phallic strawberry. The real Christian wakes her up.
She gets dressed, including borrowing a pair of his underwear (identified by brand name, of course.) I get the impression that Ana thinks this is being deliciously wicked, whereas Christian probably thinks this cute, at best. Remember, Christian’s been in kink since he was a teenager, with 15 prior submissives, and owns a private dungeon. Wearing your lover’s underwear or going commando is training-wheels compared to what he’s done.
Jul 262012
I started this project to critique Fifty Shades of Grey, and instead I end up trying to diagnose it. What is this book? And why is it so unexpectedly popular?
Jul 252012
I have neglected to mention Christian’s stalker tendencies to my mom.
I see him. My heart leaps, beginning a juddering thumping beat as he makes his way toward us. He’s really here – for me.
Yes, he’s here “for” Ana, the way the Terminator was there “for” Sarah Connor.
Jul 152012
Ana continues to show her emotional maturity by teasing Christian via email, on the theory that an airplane in flight is one place where even Christian Grey can’t get to her. Her main objection to Christian’s upgrade is not the invasion of her privacy or intrusion into her life, but making her embarrassed at the airport.
More emails. Ana says everything in email that does she doesn’t say to Christian in person, and it’s hard not to read it as her being so intimidated or outright frightened by him that this is the only way she can express herself clearly. (If this story will be filmed, I bet a lot of the email communications will be converted into face to face dialog, if only to make it more visually interesting. )
Continue reading »
Jul 152012
Ana wakes up with Christian gone again. She meets his housekeeper, Mrs. Jones, and goes into another jealous snit over nothing.
Why does Christian only have attractive blondes working for him? And a nasty thought comes involuntarily into my mind – Are they all ex-subs? I refuse to entertain that hideous idea.
Jul 122012
Generally, we’ve been criticizing Fifty Shades of Grey on the grounds that it might be harmful to the heterosexual women who read it and develop unrealistic or dangerous expectations of what a BDSM relationship should be. But have we thought about it in terms of how it might affect heterosexual men?
