Christian pays an OB/GYN to make a house call to examine and counsel Ana on contraception. This fits the Pygmalion subtext of this story, that Christian is giving her everything that an adult woman should have: computer, car, email, contraception, job, wardrobe, awakened sexuality. It’s a materialist form of initiation: I’m a “sex-having person” because I have the consumer goods a sex-having person has. Of course, this also means Christian is increasingly in control of every aspect of Ana’s life. It’s Christian Grey’s world; Ana Steele just lives in it.
It’s tempting to attribute Fifty Shades‘ phenomenal commercial success to the recession, as a version of “shopping and fucking” novels: the emphasis on brand names, the incredible disparity in wealth and status between the two leads. Ana doesn’t even have to shop for herself, much less develop her own taste and preferences; Christian’s minions do it for her. Apart from smouldering grey eyes and huge schlong, Christian’s main appeal may be old fashioned financial security. Of course, Ana would be a lousy gold-digger; she’d sign his pre-nup without reading it.
