50 Shades of Grey: Disturbing or Delicious?

Some day my prince will come
Some day we'll meet again
And away to his castle we'll go
To be happy forever I know
 

-from Disney's Snow White

When I first began reading the Twilight series, I was struck with and torn by an internal moral dilemma: This book is so offensive....and I can't stop reading it! The feminist inside of me was screaming about how Bella flippantly moved from one man to the next and seemed to lack any genuine emotional independence. It was the same story I'd been told over and over again as a young girl- the story that shows up in Disney films, fairy tales, and teen movies alike. Here's how it goes:

Codependent female character: Help me! I need rescuing from myself.

Domineering male character: I can do that; it's what I've been doing for years!

Codependent female character: Great! Please kiss me/bite me/ sexually release me from the repressive bonds of society. I need you.

Domineering male character: I can do that; it's what I've been doing for years!

Codependent female character: I need you. You complete me. Please save me.

Domineering male character: I can do that; it's what I've been doing for years!

Can he help her self actualize?

You get the picture. It's a repetitive tale involving a weak, incomplete female who lacks personal ambition, strength, and ability to cope with stress, but then magically meets the man of her dreams. He is: emotionally tortured, strong, good looking, wealthy, and overbearing...and he possesses the key to her soul. They meet and have a passionate romance, break up, get back together, and live happily ever after.

BORRRRRRING. OFFFFFFFENSIVE.

...And oh, so juicy.

Why, given the plot's repetitiveness and predictability, do we women continue to read these stories? It's a sociological phenomenon that I am trying to wrap my head around. Did the feminist movement teach us anything? Are we socialized so strongly to identify with these characters that we somehow begin to long for them, or even worse, to long to be them?


 

Is this really what I want?

Given my history of falling prey to literary horrors, it was no surprise that I came across this same dilemma while listening to the audio version of 50 Shades of Grey (that's right, folks- you can listen to this juicy tale as well). Perhaps I should have known what I was getting myself into- the book did, in fact, begin as Twilight fan fiction. However, I found myself particularly disturbed by this book.

50 Shades of Grey is Twilight on ecstasy. It's the soft porn version of an old Disney classic. It's....well, just plain twisted. The gender dynamics of this story are a complete throw back to the 1950's. Young college student Anastasia Steele meets Christian Grey, a powerful young entrepreneur, who is the first man who takes her breath away. He wants to make her his "submissive" in the sexual fantasy land that he has created as a result of being sexually abused by an older woman during his adolescence (this is the emotionally tortured piece). But first, he will gently take Anastasia's virginity as a way of softly preparing her for what is to come (no pun intended). He constructs a contract for her to follow involving rules such as: following a specific diet (dictated by him), sleeping a certain amount of hours (dictated by him), and wearing certain clothes (dictated by him). And, of course, all sexual contact will also be...dictated by him.

AND SHE ACTUALLY THINKS ABOUT SIGNING IT.

 

Sigh.

Have we not gotten past this part of our history? The last time I checked, we had moved beyond the Stepford Wives mentality. However, this book has topped best seller lists around the world, and even set the record as the fastest selling paperback of all time (faster than Harry Potter, people!) I'd like to hope that the appeal isn't as simple as the sex. But then that leaves the question...what is the appeal? Do heterosexual women worldwide secretly long to be dominated? Do we all long for a Christian Grey to come prancing in to our mundane lives to awaken our inner most sexual desires?

Out with the old...

...in with the new

I have admittedly been unable to get through this book. Some people hypothesize that listening to the book, rather than reading it, is likely affecting my reaction to it. I'm not totally convinced this is the case. What I will say is that this book has prompted me to have conversations with my female friends that I might otherwise not have- conversations involving our secret fantasies, our acceptance or rejection of female submission, and what male and female prototypes currently and historically look like in literature. And those conversations, at the very least, give this book some kind of value in my life.