The History of BDSM

Here we find out that Mrs. Robinson’s real name is Elena Lincoln (is that American enough?).

We could go into a debate over the ethics and morality of a sexual/BDSM relationship between an adolescent male and an adult woman, whether it is intrinsically exploitative, whether we would feel different if the genders were reversed, and so on. That’s outside the purview of this blog. I will say that Ana’s feelings regarding this other woman aren’t driven by anything like that. They come from jealousy, pure and simple.

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This chapter introduces two nemeses to the story: Leila, Christian’s deranged former submissive, and Jack Hyde, Ana’s new creepy boss. Instead of resolving the problems of the Ana-Christian relationship, the narrative shifts to dealing with external threats. It’s probably not coincidence that Jack and Leila function as dark doubles of Christian and Ana: there’s a kind of dream-splitting at work in this story, with the bad elements of  a figure separated and projected onto another figure by the dreamer or fantasizer.

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In the first book of the Fifty Shades trilogy, an emotionally damaged one-percenter attempted to coerce a college graduate into an abusive relationship (which she had no understanding of or desire for) through a combination of seduction, bribes, deception, stalking and emotional blackmail. She finally realized that she was neither submissive nor masochistic, returned his gifts, and left him. The end.

Hopefully Anatasia Steele would have realized there are other men in the world, that there are other options than a false choice between slut and old maid, and perhaps she might even experimented with BDSM with some other person who is not so deranged and compulsive.

Except it wasn’t the end.

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