2010s – Page 8 – The History of BDSM

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 17

Dec 262012

I think EL James ran out of good ideas a while back, and now she’s just throwing random plot developments at us. To wit: Ray, Ana’s step-father, is now in hospital. What follows is boiler-plate medical drama.

I also think that someone should have told EL James it is okay to use scene breaks more than she does, because after the call about Ray, we get a couple of pages on the logistics of Ana informing her work superiors and leaving her office. At least Christian is understanding and supportive when he finds out about this.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 16

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Dec 262012

Before she meets Leila, Ana gets an inkling of just how much the Christian Grey Goon Squad has been controlling her life.

“Mrs. Grey, Leila Williams is on your proscribed list of visitors.”
“What?” I have a proscribed list?
“On our watch list, ma’am. Taylor and Welch have been quite specific about not letting her come into contact with you.”
I frown, not understanding. “Is she dangerous?”
“I can’t say, ma’am.”
“Why do I even know that she’s here?”
Prescott swallows and for a moment looks awkward. “I was on a restroom break. She came in, spoke directly to Claire, and Claire called Hannah.”

You’d think Ana would be wondering a few other things, such as: who else is on this list? Her mother? Ray? Jose? Kate? Can she see the list? Is Hannah, Ana’s assistant and actually another employee of Christian’s, screening her calls? And maybe, how does she get the hell out of this gilded cage?

Instead, Ana finds it funny that she’s only saw this crack in the invisible fortress Christian has built around her because the Goonette, her bodyguard/duenna/minder, was in the bathroom.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 15

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Dec 252012

We’re over the hump, more than halfway through this… thing. I have to stay focused and soldier on, only concern myself with the BDSM bits, not that there have been many in the last couple of chapters. We’ve moved into what amounts to your basic “shopping and fucking” novel.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 14

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Dec 242012

After the Gothic psychodrama of Ana and Christian’s tortured couplings, and murderous plots by Christian’s former employees, it’s hard to care that Elliot may be cheating on Kate even as he proposes marriage to her. (Another symptom of a post-shark-jump TV series: random and gratuitous proposals and weddings.)

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 13

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Dec 232012

This feels like one of those post-shark-jump episodes of a TV series, when the whole cast heads off to Hawaii or a dude ranch or something because the writers have run out of ideas. Jack Hyde is in jail so there’s no external threat, and Ana and Christian are married, so there’s no big event to build up to. We still have more than a third of this last book to go and there’s nothing to generate tension except waiting for Christian to blow up again.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 12

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Dec 232012

More pillow talk in the playroom. (Ana seems to have recovered quickly.) Christian still seems to expect Ana to obey him and not defy him, even though Ana’s moments of independence are rather childish and largely symbolic. E.g. going out for drinks with Kate.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 11, part 2

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Dec 232012

Christian has pushed Ana into scene in the playroom when she’d rather stop and talk about their relationship. Ana finally safewords, asserting herself in the only way Christian is likely to heed.

“Red,” I whimper. “Red. Red.” The tears course down my face.
He stills. “No!” He gasps, stunned. “Jesus Christ, no.”
He moves quickly, unclipping my hands, clasping me around my waist and leaning down to unclip my ankles, while I put my head in my hands and weep.
“No, no, no. Ana, please. No.”

This is, I think, the second time a BDSM scene between these two people in this room has ended with her in tears. Add to that the possible rape back in book 1, which also ended with her in tears. I bet if you tabulated all the BDSM scenes, or sex scenes, and calculated how many left Ana crying, it would be an unacceptable average.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 11, part 1

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Dec 232012

I didn’t sign on for this. I thought I would be reading what amounted to a romantic comedy with kink. Instead I’ve been drawn into something more like a Gothic psychodrama about a weak-willed, not terribly bright woman who married a psychopathic billionaire, with a sprinkling of BDSM scenes here and there.

Well, nobody put me up to this, so I can’t really complain, and it is too late to quit now anyway. Onward.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 10

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Dec 222012

We’re back with the Goon Squad having captured Jack Hyde, who’s proved to be a most unimpressive villain.

This is one of those moments when I feel sorry for whoever has to adapt these books into movie scripts, because it’s going to look weird if the big villain is so easily dispatched by secondary characters, and it will throw the plot of the entire movie off. You can tell that EL James wrote this serially without plotting ahead, or trying to make it conform to a novel or film three-act structure. If there is a film adaptation, it will either be altered so much that fans will hate it, or it will be faithful and alternate between nonsense and reactionary gender politics.

The Curious Kinky Person’s Guide to Fifty Shades Freed, Chapter 9

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Dec 212012

I want to get through the Fifty Shades trilogy by the end of the year so I can start 2013 without this particular kidney stone in my system. Given that I hate this book more and more with each page, that could be difficult. Part of the problem is that, as the story unfolds, there’s actually less and less BDSM, and more and more of Ana and Christian’s hideously dysfunctional marriage. That’s not what I signed up for. I was under the impression that this was a book about BDSM, and assumed that it would basically be a standard-issue romance with some extra kink in the sex scenes; at worse, silly, harmless fluff. Instead, only a minority of the sex scenes involve any kink at all (I should total up the number) and the great love story of 2012 is the most abusive nightmare I’ve ever read. I’m more angered and baffled now than when I started this project.

Okay, where were we? The Expander takes an afternoon out of running his empire to force his wife to take his name by threatening to rape her. Mrs. Expander is a drunk paranoid slut-shamer, learning to exercise her right as a member of the one-percent (by marriage) to verbally abuse underlings. Everybody up to speed?

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