Fifty Shades of Masochism
Masochism:
1.
The deriving of sexual gratification from being
physically or emotionally abused.
2.
The deriving of pleasure from being humiliated
or mistreated, either by another or by oneself.
(www.thefreedictionary.com)
I was recently at my monthly Crisis Response Advocate
meeting, and we were talking about the continuing education we are all required
to complete for the year. (For those who don’t know, as CRAs we answer a 24/7
sexual assault crisis line, including meeting someone at the hospital after
they have been sexually assaulted) One of my fellow volunteers jokingly asked
if she could count reading Fifty Shades
of Grey by E.L. James as continuing education hours. “It’s full of sex,
rape, power, everything!” she said, a little too excitedly for me. Hearing an
advocate peer say that made me even more curious about the whole Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. When a
book becomes that crazily popular, I am usually skeptical of it (except for The Hunger Games… those are actually
pretty good), but especially with the erotic nature of the Fifty Shades of Grey series, I was super skeptical. So I thought
I’d do a little research online and see what it was all about. Below is the
excerpt I found and base this blog entry on (excerpt from http://darhkportal.com/2012/04/frisky-friday-fifty-shades-of-grey-excerpt-with-giveaway/).
“Oh dear,
Anastasia, you moved," [Christian said]. "What am I going to do to you?” I’m
panting loudly. All I can concentrate on is his voice and his touch. Nothing
else is real. Nothing else matters, nothing else registers on my radar. His
fingers slip into my panties, and I’m rewarded with his unguarded sharp intake
of air. “Oh, baby,” he murmurs and he pushes two fingers
inside me. I gasp.
“Ready for me
so soon,” he says. He moves his fingers tantalizingly slowly, in, out, and I
push against him, tilting my hips up.
“You are a
greedy girl,” he scolds softly, and his thumb circles my clitoris and then
presses down.
I groan
loudly as my body bucks beneath his expert fingers. He reaches up and pushes
the t-shirt over my head so I can see him as I blink in the soft light of my
sidelight. I long to touch him.
“I want to
touch you,” I breathe.
“I know,” he
murmurs. He leans down and kisses me, his fingers still moving rhythmically
inside me, his thumb circling and pressing. His other hand scoops my hair off
my head and holds my head in place. His tongue mirrors the actions of his
fingers, claiming me. My legs begin to stiffen as I push against his hand. He
gentles his hand, so I’m brought back from the brink. He does this again and
again. It’s so frustrating… Oh please, Christian, I scream in my head
“This is your
punishment, so close and yet so far. Is this nice?” he breathes in my ear. I
whimper, exhausted, pulling against my restraint. I’m helpless, lost in an
erotic torment.
“Please,” I
beg, and he finally takes pity on me.
“How shall I
fuck you, Anastasia?”
Oh… my body
starts to quiver. He stills again. “Please.”
“What do you
want, Anastasia?”
“You… now,” I
cry.
“Shall I fuck
you this way, or this way, or this way? There’s an endless choice,” he breathes
against my lips. He withdraws his hand and reaches over to the bedside table
for a foil packet. He kneels up between my legs, and very slowly he pulls my
panties off, staring down at me, his eyes gleaming. He puts on the condom. I
watch fascinated, mesmerized.
“How nice is
this?” he says as he strokes himself.
“I meant it
as a joke,” I whimper. Please fuck me, Christian. He
raises his eyebrows as his hand moves up and down his impressive length.
“A joke?” His
voice is menacingly soft.
“Yes. Please,
Christian,” I beseech him.
“Are you
laughing now?”
“No,” I mewl.
I am just one
ball of sexual, tense, need. He stares down at me for a moment, measuring my
need, then he grabs me suddenly and flips me over. It takes me by surprise, and
because my hands are tied, I have to support myself on my elbows. He pushes
both my knees up the bed so my behind is in the air, and he slaps me hard.
Before I can react, he plunges inside me. I cry out – from the slap and from
his sudden assault, and I come instantly again and again, falling apart beneath
him as he continues to slam deliciously into me. He doesn’t stop. I’m spent. I
can’t take this… and he pounds on and on and on… then I’m building again…
surely not… no… “Come on, Anastasia, again,” he growls through
clenched teeth, and unbelievably, my body responds, convulsing around him as I
climax anew, calling out his name. I shatter again into tiny fragments, and
Christian stills, finally letting go, silently finding his release. He
collapses on top of me, breathing hard. “How nice was
that?” he asks through his gritted teeth. Oh my.
I lie panting
and spent on the bed, eyes closed as he slowly pulls out of me. He rises
immediately and dresses. When he’s fully clothed, he climbs back on the bed and
gently undoes his tie and pulls my t-shirt off. I flex my fingers and rub my
wrists, smiling at the woven pattern imprinted on my wrists from the tie. I
re-adjust my bra as he pulls the duvet and quilt over me. I stare up at him
completely dazed, and he smirks down at me.
“That was
really nice,” I whisper, smiling coyly.
Mind you, this is all I’ve read of the book. I don’t know
the characters or the entire context of their relationships with one another.
However Wikipedia is a pretty great resource for the synopsis of the book
(which is where I gathered all of the following quotes). I’ve gathered that
Christian Grey is the boss of the main character, Ana. Before Grey will engage
in a relationship with Ana, he plans to have her sign two contracts: one is a
non-disclosure agreement forbidding her from discussing anything they do
together, and the other is a contract of “dominance and submission” which also
states that “there will be no romantic relationship, only a sexual one.” The
contract “even forbids Ana from touching Grey or making eye contact with him.”
The relationship between Grey and Ana is one characterized
by BDSM…
BD: Bondage and Discipline
DS: Domination and Submission
SM: Sadism and Masochism
…..equaling BDSM.
Of course a relationship based on beating and bonding can’t
be all sunshine and rainbows, and the tension between Ana and Grey “eventually
comes to a head after Ana asks Grey to punish her in order to show her how
extreme a BDSM relationship with him could be… Grey fulfills Ana’s request,
beating her with a belt.”
To be honest I’m quite bothered by this book being so crazy
popular. I’m bothered that my fellow Crisis Response Advocates not only read
these books, but also enjoyed them and joked about them being a guilty
pleasure. I’m not trying to argue that Ana was being raped, because from what I
can gather she was a willing participant in these sexual activities with Grey.
Whether or not she was coerced and brainwashed is another story (interestingly,
she was a virgin before her first sexual encounter and contract signing with
Grey).
What really bothers me is this: most of the women I know
(yes this is a generalization) are, or strive to be, independent and
successful; they long deeply to know themselves and to love themselves; they
want to find someone (or perhaps multiple someones) to be connected on a deep level, to share in that sexual
experience together and to be empowered by it (sex is a pretty empowering
thing…. I’ll do a blog post on that later).
I’m not trying to just shut down anyone who reads and enjoys
this book series. However, I feel that it is so important for both men and
women to be filling their minds with stories that build us up, that bring us
closer together and help us understand one another, helping us see each other
as real human beings and not just genitalia and hormones and a means to getting off.
And yet…. Here
are the housewives, young professional women, and moms of America, reading a book about some handsome
powerful asshole who thinks it’s okay to use a woman just for sex, and a woman
who is not only okay with that but who longs for more. More physical abuse,
more humiliation, more spanking, more blindfolding…… When does this end? What
about her soul? What about who she is? What about Grey’s sexual objectification
or her? What about Ana’s sexual objectification of herself? As women we seem to
be fighting for equality and fairness, but when it comes down to it do we just
want to be spanked and told what to do?
