"Fifty Shades of Grey"

[intothewoods]

Actually, I think it's kind of legit. At least for yourself, not them. I think that, for myself, my irritation is legit.

Could you write Romance Porn? That would be awesome, because the only reason this is getting so much press is that there's so little of it out there.

I can't.

Well, on the irritation, I mean, it did cost me a lot, ya know, for a straight white chick.

But everyone is probably writing it now, right? I could write something that's a joke. Actually - I really like this domme porn idea. It's the next thing, I think.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Mwuah!

And also, here-- you are genuinely your own self and no part of any demographic. For what that's worth...

 

[intothewoods]

Mwuah!

And also, here-- you are genuinely your own self and no part of any demographic. For what that's worth...

Thank you, Stella. Back atcha!

 

[desertslave]

But you know -- and I know I keep going on about this but I have not figured out why this is bugging me -- it used to be all about how no one wants sex and ohh won't my husband leave me alone already! Remember that Ayelet Waldman piece where she was all I'm the only one in the mom's group who is getting any? I mean, p.s. she's fucking Michael Chabon so maybe that helps. This seems to me one of those new twists on the supermom thing -- I'm hip, I cook amazing vegan cupcakes from Pinterest and I like to be tied up too!

Though to be fair my friends are reading it to be up on pop culture.

I always figured that the moms who were getting laid were staying quiet so they didn't angst out the (prevailing) spirit of leave me alone. I always felt a pressure to complain "like the other girls" to fit in. If I disagreed, I got weird looks. Easier to not talk.

 

[MistressAlice88]

Mistress from behind the book store cash wrap....

What a sensation this book has been! I am a cashier at a very large and busy bookstore in NYC and Fifty Shades of Grey seems to comprise about 50% of the transactions I make each day! Most customers who purchase the book will say something like "I just want to see what all the hype is about" "it was not my idea, it was a recommendation" or, my favorite, for my male customers, it is almost ALWAYS "I'm picking it up for my girlfriend". I do not solicit customers' reasoning for purchasing any book, yet, people seem to find the need to justify their decision to purchase it (to a cashier, no less!). I have not read the book and have only heard certain passages after hours when my coworkers sift through it for ridiculous-sounding passages and a good laugh.

I can't make a judgement about the book itself but as a dom and aspiring freudian analyst I find its reception very interesting. I've been reading BDSM erotic literature for years (some even have the exact storyline of Fifty Shades). Our community is, for the most part, underground, with gatherings taking place in the late hours in underground nightclubs, private parties, and bedrooms. It has to be disguised among popular romance novels in your local chain bookstore in order to be publicly acceptable. And each of my customers feels the need to point to factors beyond their control to even purchase the book. This Fifty Shades Phenomenon is proving that, even in 2012 our culture at large cannot admit to their own sexuality.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The reason people act goofy when they buy it is because it's porn, and everybody knows it's porn.

Specifically, 50Shades is Romance Porn. It features a lot of magically perfect (and relatively graphic) sex and a magically perfect love affair with a guy who magically reads her mind in bed.

It's not about BDSM. BDSM is a plot point, something for the protags to have a (very gentle) conflict about.

...as a[n]... aspiring freudian analyst...

How did you get into Freudian theory? That's really interesting to me.

 

[Vixen96]

It features a lot of magically perfect (and relatively graphic) sex and a magically perfect love affair with a guy who magically reads her mind in bed.

This.

I am new to the forums and was looking for some threads I could contribute to and I couldn't resist joining in the 50 Shades discussion, I hope you don't mind.

50 Shades started out life as Twilight fanfic, I believe, another unrealistic romance with an uninspiring lead female, giving credence to the 'impossible' romance and subsequent immortal marital bliss to which young readers can aspire. Ugh.

What infuriates me about 50 Shades is the quality writing I have been exposed to by various authors and the fact it is the fluffy 'acceptable face of BDSM' which breaks into the mass market and which isn't really 'about' BDSM at all.

That being said, I do not believe a harder type of sexual encounter and romance are mutually exclusive, largely because what someone considers 'romantic' is so subjective.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

So so true

Also late into this discussion - probably don't even want to grace the book with any more reference to it at all. But I just have to say thanks to Lovecraft68 (did I get his name right?) for his pithy and spot-on earlier comments - and oh yeah Vixen69 you are so on the money here too. Hey guess what? Writers not in the 'Murdoch mainstream rubbish let's pretend we have a newspaper and a publishing house' are WA-A-A-AY better than the 'writers' doing the stuff that is dished up to the poor unsuspecting ordinary public.
Slowly but slowly though, the world of reality is closing in on the fantasy world spun around the public's eyes and ears.
Fifty years from now - hopefully sooner - it will be realised that the class acts were all in places like right here. The cachet among those who know, is certainly with the real writers hereabouts, and not with any of the puppets out on the supermarket shelves - which is a declining market anyway. Any mainstream publishing house that ever asked me to publish with them, is going to be told you are certainly, CERTAINLY, looking at a $500 leather bound volume that you have to pre-sell. Otherwise, sorry, I'll use this venue for nix and for those who want to read what I actually want to write!!
Best, 'J.'

 

[intothewoods]

The following is a thread hijack, is that okay?

So if I were to write something that is a romantic look at hetero D/s with the woman as D, what is her male sub like? What does he do for her?

I remember this domme at a class on ritual talking about her husband slash sub making tea the way she liked it. I think the challenge would be to make sure he's still very masculine.

I feel like women in the power position are generally portrayed as comical or crazy.

 

[Stella_Omega]

You could go two ways; one, have him be a big hunk who can get gorgeously sweaty for her in the back yard-- digging out the petunias and stuff-- and who has a real struggle to learn her methods of doing things, but does-- and it's very entertaining to watch his big, scarred fingers fumble with the delicate china, all for love of her.
or, he could be an engineering type, who applies his customary thoroughness to any tasks she asks of him.

There's a story about Sir Lancelot, who was walking with Guenevere, and they passed a tumbril cart that was used to bring prisoners to the gaol. She told him to get on it, and he did so without hesitation because she had asked him to. Yes it was dishonorable in the eyes of passers by, but it would have been a dishonor to her if he didn't do her bidding. She was more important than his reputation.

Or maybe I made that story up.

 

[intothewoods]

You could go two ways; one, have him be a big hunk who can get gorgeously sweaty for her in the back yard-- digging out the petunias and stuff-- and who has a real struggle to learn her methods of doing things, but does-- and it's very entertaining to watch his big, scarred fingers fumble with the delicate china, all for love of her.
or, he could be an engineering type, who applies his customary thoroughness to any tasks she asks of him.

There's a story about Sir Lancelot, who was walking with Guenevere, and they passed a tumbril cart that was used to bring prisoners to the gaol. She told him to get on it, and he did so without hesitation because she had asked him to. Yes it was dishonorable in the eyes of passers by, but it would have been a dishonor to her if he didn't do her bidding. She was more important than his reputation.

Or maybe I made that story up.

You know I originally envisioned the sexy gardener type! I really love the Lancelot-Guenevere model though. I mean women love that shit!

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

$5 mil for the film rights.

Where will it end?

Gaming? Happy meal toys? 50 Shades Extreme Doritos?

And I am having a hard time plowing through this book. I really am.

 

[Etoile]

On our last webcam chat, my wife held up the third book. Seems she got it from...her mom.

My wife said it was absolutely awful.

 

[Netzach]

The following is a thread hijack, is that okay?

So if I were to write something that is a romantic look at hetero D/s with the woman as D, what is her male sub like? What does he do for her?

I remember this domme at a class on ritual talking about her husband slash sub making tea the way she liked it. I think the challenge would be to make sure he's still very masculine.

I feel like women in the power position are generally portrayed as comical or crazy.

Me? Gardens - kind of hot. I have a more action/adventure streak. The following is all pretty stupid, but it works for me. I don't have time to write anything lol.

Domesticity puts me to sleep in real life, it definitely does it even more reading. Then again, you're talking to someone who reads and periodically writes gay male.

He's like a hot sex robot, really really sexually gifted but maybe in kind of a raw animal way. I don't want tea, I want someone who's maybe a semipro boxer who gets the shit beat out of him with a smile because he's bleeding for me, like some kind of tournament knight.

OR - the hardboiled storylines where the dick has to protect the dame from - whatever? THAT is hidden femdom joy.

There's always the prodomme where it starts to get personal oh noes drama, some nice tension in that situation always.

Lately I fantasize about a pick up artist kind of guy who meets a mostly-lesbian who volunteers to teach him for real how to get girls in the sack and gets him wrapped around her finger.

Lancelot/Guin is also a cuckolding story. Wonder if you could work a story where the husband is a controlling douchewit and the love interest shows her she is better off in charge. Or maybe she's the agent of rescue, he's a total pussypants, and she builds him up into something else - it could work if you make sure those first pages prior to the transformation move fast.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I prefer the version where Arthur is a wittol-- happy that his wife and his best friend, the two people in the world that he loves most, love each other.

my hippie roots showing there, I guess.

 

[Netzach]

I prefer the version where Arthur is a wittol-- happy that his wife and his best friend, the two people in the world that he loves most, love each other.

my hippie roots showing there, I guess.

Oh wow, in the "there's a word for that" department - cool.

 

[thesweetsweetness]

Thought I'd chime in with my two cents.

After skimming this thread it seems I am an odd one out.. I've read the first two books and just started the third. I really liked the first. The second was okay too, but it dragged in the middle...fight, sex, fight, sex, repeat. It got boring. Overall, it's not at all what I expected. It's much softer and more romantic.

I admit, I know very little about BDSM, but there doesn't seem to actually be much of it in the books. I dislike that the book seems to blame Christian's BDSM fetish on his abusive childhood. But if someone is going to get a negative taste in their mouth about BDSM from this one series, then those same people will most likely be just as easily swayed into some other rant soon enough. No sense worrying about someones opinion based solely from a romantic fiction series.

Sure, so much is completely unrealistic, but aren't a lot of fiction books? (My favorite, learning Christian earns one hundred thousand dollars-- an hour. buahahaha!!)

I think its a fun easy read. Or maybe I'm just another one of the mommy's, enjoying her mommy porn. *shrug* I never said I was opposed to porn in the first place.

 

[cruzn2u2]

Mature girlfried enjoys the book

My girlfriend has read the first two books and is about the read the third. Her sexaul experience is very very limited. I started using some of the books techniques like blindfolding, tying her up, control sex and she cannot get enough. She now has massive orgasms and wants more. We don't need to do the dom/sub bit but everything else is great.

 

[Stella_Omega]

My girlfriend has read the first two books and is about the read the third. Her sexaul experience is very very limited. I started using some of the books techniques like blindfolding, tying her up, control sex and she cannot get enough. She now has massive orgasms and wants more. We don't need to do the dom/sub bit but everything else is great.

That is awesome, and what I like to hear.

 

[thesweetsweetness]

https://s-media-cache-ec7.pinimg.com/upload/276689970827027421_W7UZhdkE_f.jpg

 

[Cattypuss]

I prefer the version where Arthur is a wittol-- happy that his wife and his best friend, the two people in the world that he loves most, love each other.

my hippie roots showing there, I guess.

Stella, you should read "The Once and Future King" by TH White. The treatment of the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle in it is beautiful, emotionally real, and makes me cry every time I re-read the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-T...r=8-1-spell&keywords=the+once+and+suture+king

 

[midwestyankee]

That is awesome, and what I like to hear.

What do you bet that had she been given a book that included scenes of excessively sexualized use of food she would be having orgasms over corned beef hash at the local diner?

 

[PrincessAmelia]

I've only just started reading it but I love it so far I'd love to have my own mister Grey I'm a sub so this book is way up my street.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Stella, you should read "The Once and Future King" by TH White. The treatment of the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle in it is beautiful, emotionally real, and makes me cry every time I re-read the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-T...r=8-1-spell&keywords=the+once+and+suture+king

Yes! That's what I was thinking of when I said it.

What do you bet that had she been given a book that included scenes of excessively sexualized use of food she would be having orgasms over corned beef hash at the local diner?

That would be awesome and what I like to hear.

Really what difference would it make to me or you?

 

[Ropebunny]

On our last webcam chat, my wife held up the third book. Seems she got it from...her mom.

My wife said it was absolutely awful.

If you want a taste of just how awful it is without having to buy the bloody thing, have a read of this http://jenniferarmintrout.blogspot.co.nz/p/jen-reads-50-shades-of-grey.html

I'm finding these recaps pretty funny, and now I REALLY don't understand how ANYONE could put up with the poor writing in the book. Truely painful.