Let's get this off my chest...
Fifty Shades is the worst thing to happen to BDSM EVER...
Simple as that.
A bully abuses a girl using his position of power over her.
EL James wouldn't know a D/s relationship if she was in one.
As an English teacher I can judge and say she writes like a 14 year old.
As the holder of a psychology degree I can tell you Mr Grey is an example of an evil human being.
As a Mistress to a submissive pet (not SuperGirl) I am furious that a Dominate/sub relationship be portrayed as she has done.
And to release it on valentines day...
Fuck off..
If YOU think it kinky romance then for fucks sake read this post in full.
If you still don't understand then please disappear from my life because you're clearly stupid.
Yes, I'm usually quite tolerant to views differing from mine, but not on this one. If you think this monstrosity is harmless fun then you are an idiot.
Let me break it down for those who don't understand.
Here's fifty things wrong with it.
1. Ignoring consent, he does it. You never do that. Never.
2. Reacting to the sentiment “no, I don’t want to have sex with you right now” by threatening to tie the speaker up, taking their clothes off, and… having sex with them. That's rape.
3. Not treating safewords as important.
4. Not treating contracts as important.
5. Joking about the importance of safewords and contracts in a D/s relationship.
6. Having a partner sign a D/s contract without telling them it isn’t legally binding.
7. Not exploring and explaining limits
8. Forcibly preventing a partner from learning about their limits. He doesn't give a shit about her.
9. Forcibly preventing a partner from learning about a sexual practice you are encouraging them to engage in.
10. Making a romantic relationship dependent on indulging non-mutual kinks
11. Taking sexual advantage of someone who is intoxicated
12. Refusing to allow a partner to masturbate
13. Pushing someone who has never experienced any sexual interest, including maturbation, into a sexual relationship immediately after meeting them
14. Pushing someone who has never experienced any sexual interest, including masturbation, into a kinky sexual relationship immediately after meeting them despite the fact that they have no knowledge about kink
15. Refusing to allow that partner any trustworthy source of knowledge about those kinks other than yourself
16. Forcing a partner to make specific decisions about birth control based on your preferences
17. Reading a partner’s email and phone messages without their knowledge or consent
18. Physically hurting a partner without their informed consent
19. Physically hurting a partner even though it causes them fear
20. Controlling who a partner can and cannot spend time with outside of the relationship
21. Showing up at someone’s house after they’ve literally just emailed you to say they don’t want to see you anymore
22. Routinely forcing a partner to eat when they don’t want to.
23. The perpetuation of the idea that a woman has no libido or sexual desire of her own until it is “awoken” by a desirable man
24. The man as aggressor and the woman as, essentially, prey
25. Refusal to utter the word “vagina,” instead referring to female genitalia as “down there,” despite the fact that male genitals are described frequently and in often-bizarrely-metaphorical detail
26. A female character who is just so skinny and naturally feminine that she forgets to eat all the time! That’s… that’s not what people do. If you regularly forget to eat, you might have an eating disorder. And you definitely need to get that looked into.
27. The good-girl cures bad-boy trope
28. Stating marriage, babies, heteronormative normalcy as the ultimate goal for a young woman and lots and lots of kinky sex with multiple partners as the ultiamte goal for a young man
29. Racial stereotyping of a young man of color (the only vaguely significant character of color) as a scary probable rapist who nice white girls must be protected from, despite the fact that his behavior (which I am totally not condoning) is much less sexually predatory than that of the white male love interest
30. Complete erasure of queer people of all types
31. Typing- that is, the idea that a man only likes women of one physical “type,” and thus that his only possible interest in these women is their physical appearance, not their personalities or anything else
32. Excusing the rape of a young boy by a woman. The one good thing the female main character does in the series is condemn the woman who raped her partner when he was 14 and question his continuing relationship with her. However, he completely laughs off her objections and the overall plot of the books somewhat normalizes his sexual abuse.
33. Presenting the only dominant female character as a rapist
34. Treating female sexual pleasure and orgasm as something bizarre
35. Treating female sexual pleasure and orgasm as something belonging exclusively to a male partner, to bestow or not as he chooses
36. Presenting a character who has never felt sexual attraction to anyone, ever, and has never masturbated, as obviously heterosexual and ignoring the asexual spectrum completely
37. Consistent devaluing of female friendships
38. Painting the normal state of relationships as a dominant man and a submissive woman
39. Treating a partner’s kinks as something unpleasant to be barely tolerated
40. Someone seeking out a partner they know will barely tolerate their kinks because of internalized kink-shaming
41. Creating the sense that a character’s kinks must stem from some “reason” and thus the idea that kinks cannot be natural
42. Associating kinks with extreme trauma from early childhood
43. Treating a kink as something very embarassing, to be kept secret under threat of legal action
44. The phrase “laters, baby,” which is just obnoxious. And the whole “inner goddess” thing, which deserves a special nod for its sheer terribleness
45. Generally terrible writing.
46. Lack of aftercare. The whole second book’s plot could have been avoided if Christian weren’t genuinely a terrible Dom.
47. This one part where a female character puts her hair in pigtails to make herself look like a child to protect herself from the sexual aggression of her partner. And then he totally gets that that’s why she’s doing it, and says something along the lines of “that won’t protect you.” I actually cannot.
48. Plagiarism. Since when is it totes okay to make money off someone else’s copyrighted idea?
49. Coopting fanfiction and fanworks, by and large a feminist, queer-positive practice, to make money off an unfeminist, queer-erasing work
50. People are entering into D/s relationship based off the precepts the learned in this book, which is dangerous and frightening.
Thanks for getting this far.
It's that last one that really scares me. I've met girls who have been abused in such relationships, and this film I fear will encourage more.