That moment in 50 shades darker

[N2outdoors]

I'm working together with a dozen women (guys, it's not as fantastic as some might imagine), and when we had our company Christmas dinner 2-3 years ago, the book was discussed. I was appalled that at least half of them had read "50 Shades" - not because I'm a prude, but because I thought they had better taste. Since then, I got together with Kissa, who is now my wife, and who proved to have a decidedly kinky side. If my workmates only knew what we are doing in our privacy... Probably hotter and more advanced than what they do, but I guess one can never know...

Well, feel free to enlighten those of us who would like to hear what you and your wife do in your private life

 

[Nezhul]

I would say 50 shades is treated too seriously by the BDSM community. There are books out there that deal in real slavery, scarring women with whips, degrading them to the point of being little more than animals, physical and psychological torture. And people like those. They buy those and give positive reviews.

50 shades got way too much hate for a fantasy story.

 

[Karhukissa]

Well, feel free to enlighten those of us who would like to hear what you and your wife do in your private life

She didn't trust any of the men she met through the years (including a couple of ex husbands) with her secret dream, but when we got together, she bought some restraints. It's nothing advanced, really, just the occasional session with her strapped to the bed, blindfolded and gagged, and me working her over with wand, vibrators, clamps, suction cups, etc, etc...

 

[ElvishKitty]

I could not stand the first 50 shades... I was so glad that they changed directors and screen writers.. The second, while still a meh movie, it was a lot better then the first. I spent the entire moving waiting for the big slap, and a lot of us cheered at that.

 

[Oldenburg]

Soooooooooooo disappointed with the film, it should be called Fifty Shades hearts and fucking Flower not Darker..

I have to admit I loved the books, and first film but the 2nd my review is above

 

[Oldenburg]

I would say 50 shades is treated too seriously by the BDSM community. There are books out there that deal in real slavery, scarring women with whips, degrading them to the point of being little more than animals, physical and psychological torture. And people like those. They buy those and give positive reviews.

50 shades got way too much hate for a fantasy story.

Would have to agree.. It's fantasy..

 

[SimonDoom]

It's about the same plot as Secretary, if you replace "corporate" with "lawyer" and I think the latter is an awesome movie.

Secretary is light-years better than FSOG. It's one of my favorite erotic movies. The plot superficially is similar, but there's a crucial difference.

50 Shades ultimately pulls its punches. Bad writing aside, that was the thing about it that bugged me most, although it might have been the thing that made it so popular with women who otherwise would not have read this sort of thing. It starts out as a BDSM story, but it ends up as a conventional gothic romance between an older, powerful, mysterious man and a young innocent woman. The story ends up being about how she figures out what his mystery is and saves him. It's Pride and Prejudice with crops and sex toys. It would have been more interesting and erotic without the revelation that his interest in BDSM stems from experience with abuse.

Secretary is a lot more fun and erotic and satisfying, because in the end you have two kinky, odd characters who come to accept and appreciate each other for their mutual kinkiness, without a lot of psychobabble explanation and trite romance novel resolution.

 

[NewDomE]

2 Parts in this MOvie

there were 2 parts in this movie which I found to be exceptional:

1. Where he took the gun from her hand, looked at her and said "Kneel!" and the way she did it

2. The part where he asked her not to leave and when it looked like she wouldn't lsten, the way he KNEELED for HER

VERY, VERY powerful the way these were done!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Secretary is a lot more fun and erotic and satisfying, because in the end you have two kinky, odd characters who come to accept and appreciate each other for their mutual kinkiness, without a lot of psychobabble explanation and trite romance novel resolution.

Seconded. Both characters had Issues (TM) but it didn't treat BDSM as a symptom of those issues, or something to be "cured" by the power of love.

It's been a long time since I saw it but the moment at the end still puts a smile on my face: even when they've sorted out a lot of their shit and settled down into a nice conventional-looking marriage, BDSM is still part of that.

 

[Dreamliner]

The 50 shades books are just Mills and Boon on steroids. Some seem to get excited about them and the movies, if that is what it takes, so sad.

 

[NimkiiGrizz]

grey bitch boy

His Head belongs on a pike in my front yard. whinny little bitch

 

[MistressMoira]

I read the books. I've seen the movie. I was curiously unturned on by both. Definitely not my thing.

To what extent should people at least be aware of what is in the books? With their popularity I felt that it was sensible to have read them. Same with the movies. This is what the general public are seeing and perceiving to be BDSM. Worth thinking about and reading and seeing the movie, in my opinion.

So. Perhaps more important than interesting.

 

[lovecraft68]

Seems like i'm the only female in my circle of friends that doesnt like the books or the movie.
I tried explaining what you just said to them but i'm wrong and they're right and it's hot as hell....

Falls under "Nine out of ten women think 50 shades is hot because they're told its hot"

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm so fed up with this crap. The books were horrifically written and sold millions, the movies are horrible by every single account, but people think they're 'hot'

The latest in this awful franchise is that her 'new' trilogy is literally the first series being rewritten from his POV...same story, different angle.

so let's recap

James writes a twilight fan fic called master of the universe even uses the names Bella and Edwin.

James rewrites that into 50 shades

James is now rewriting 50 shades into...whatever she is calling the second series....

The good news is unless there was a cat that saw all the action she is out of eways to rewrite this series and it will die.

Meanwhile the third movie will be made despite terrible numbers on the second one and the same lemmings will say it was 'hot' and claim they now know all about BDSM.

 

[Primalex]

Falls under "Nine out of ten women think 50 shades is hot because they're told its hot"

Hm.

And here I thought we live in a century where women are allowed to have their own opinion.

 

[Farawyn]

Hm.

And here I thought we live in a century where women are allowed to have their own opinion.

 

[gracie920101]

I enjoyed all three books simply because I was absolutely amused by the by play of some of the tiny details in the emails sent back and forth (especially the first book) and the antics of Anastasia's inner goddess had me ROFL at times.
The rest of the books aren't worth taking up space to comment except to say maybe this was a way to open the door to make the lifestyle more acceptable to the masses. Someone has to take that first step.

 

[Blue]

I enjoyed all three books simply because I was absolutely amused by the by play of some of the tiny details in the emails sent back and forth (especially the first book) and the antics of Anastasia's inner goddess had me ROFL at times.
The rest of the books aren't worth taking up space to comment except to say maybe this was a way to open the door to make the lifestyle more acceptable to the masses. Someone has to take that first step.

50SOG makes it more acceptable like the DSM-4 made schizophrenia more acceptable.

 

[Nezhul]

Falls under "Nine out of ten women think 50 shades is hot because they're told its hot"

I would argue that just like that, 9 out of ten people who really hate it - do so because it's popular to hate it.

You never know. I read the books before I became aware of the criticism, and by then it sounded silly to me. Yeah, I can see where it's coming from, but it's WAY overblown and exagerrated.

Again, there are books that are much more abusive towards women and depict real slavery and real jerks as masters. But that's fine. People are fine with that.
It seems to me that the main criticism of the book comes from the lack of "safe-sane-consensual" mantra, which is flat out stupid. People are talking at length that it relays the wrong image of BDSM.

But it's like talking that most of action movies relay the wrong picture of murder (as in, it's totally fine to shoot somebody in the broad daylight and then not have ANY problems with police).
Movies and books are not real. They are MEANT to not be real, to be a hot fantasy world, more than real.

In my eyes, people who criticise 50 shades for the wrong message, for that it's offensive - are just riding the wave of outrage started by some SafeSaneCon-nazi.

In the mean time, a lot of people are enjoying the books. Buying them and sharing them with friends. Talking about them and become interested in fetish and BDSM. And that's fine.
I'm yet to hear about anyone getting hurt because they read 50 shades and get the wrong idea.

Consilience
And it actually DOES make BDSM more acceptable in a roundabout way. It raises the awareness, makes people talk about the controversy and BDSM. Even when they bash and criticize the lifestyle (and book), it spreads the idea. It gets people who were totally vanilla think and imagine fetish stuff, wonder about what good there may be in such relationship.
Bottomline, it gets BDSM into people's heads, and it's not anymore this unknown strange thing. It's a known thing. It's a thing that most people heard about and thought about, in the privacy of their heads. Sure, some people will still be against it, but by raising awareness you take away the rejection of the unknown syndrome.

 

[Blue]

[...]

I'm not denying that it's somewhat beneficial for raising awareness, but that doesn't necessarily mean the outcome of that awareness is going to be good.

(Note: Even though I'm being a bit apocalyptic here, I don't actually believe 50SoG has a net negative effect on the public's views of bdsm)

Like how in both movies (haven't read the books) it's raising that awareness by pathologizing pretty much every aspect of 'B-D-S-M' as a harmful mental problem.
If you haven't seen the latest movie, here's some tidbits I remember:
* The overarching and constantly repeated premise is that being a dom is a product of child abuse and needs to be fixed.
* D/s is defined by Christian Grey as rape.
* A dominatrix as well as Grey both 'admit' that sexual sadism is necessarily abusive.
* Christian says he can only acquire gratification from hurting women who look like his mother. Apparently this movie is a remake of Bates Motel.

So yeah, even though it raises awareness I wouldn't say it does anything to cut through common stereotypes. Reinforces them, actually.

 

[Nezhul]

I don't think there are any stereotypes that can be reinforced. Everybody understand that they wouldn't want to be stuck with mentally ill Christian Grey who does his thing because he associates his girlfriend with his mother.

Everybody get that.

I don't think anybody associates BDSM with Grey specifically. Instead, people would rather thing what it would feel like to be tied up during sex OR tie up someone else.

Again, people are not so stupid as you portray them to be. Everybody understands the difference between movie and reality. Everybody understands that Christian Grey's problems do not define BDSM as a whole.

I don't think that people are stupid sheep, and I don't think that anyone, after watching the movie, would reach a conclusion that you need to be mentally ill to do BDSM, that it's 100% abusive on women and other stuff like that.

If we took everything movies tell us without a huge pile of salt, our world would have been insane. No. People watch the movies as they do fairy tales. No one views 50SOG as a documentary.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Blue]

I'm not in stalwart disagreement either, which is why I prefaced that post by saying I don't think it's had a net negative effect. I'm sure the overwhelming majority of people, even the people who like 50SoG, are aware or have heard at some point that the books and movies are as realistic a portrayal of D/s as Boys Beware is a realistic portrayal of gay men.

Just saying that just because it's a mainstream introduction doesn't mean it's going to actually have positive repercussions. Statistically, there's at least one person out there who watched 50 Shades Darker and developed an irrational fear of neckties from it.

 

[Nezhul]

Every time I defend these poorly written books I feel a little dirty. I'll happily critique the writing, the fact the story is low rate, and it's not high literature .

I agree. If it was criticized for writing, I wouldn't mind at all. It didn't rub me personally the wrong way, but that's just me. Looking back, the story and the writing ARE pretty bad, however I'm a firm believer that even with them the book can turn out to be good.

For example, I hate J.K.Rowling's style (the poor writing). But her books (at least the first 4) are awesome.
In fact, the writing in Harry Potter hurt my eyes, while it didn't in 50 shades.

 

[tryn2Bgood]

I have already commented on this before but I just want to make a couple points. You can find criticism on any piece of art, music, literature, film, clothing...anything. Things that spur contraversy are useful in that they force people to see things in a broader scope. I have not seen the movies, but...

The books caught on like wildfire. The movie industry capitalized on that and marketed them to highlight the BDSM factor so it looked like something new, fresh, a bit taboo and exciting...even though the books were your basic 'love concurs all' romance story.

The main character, Grey, did have an abusive background and he was introduced into the lifestyle by a woman who preyed on young, underage, confused and naive boys. He used BDSM as an unhealthy therapy for his issues. Does that shed a bad light on BDSM? Yes. Does that scenario actually exist in the world? Yes. Want to see BDSM portrayed in a more positive way? Write your own book; make your own movie.

The books spark an interest in BDSM for a lot of people. They were considered 'Mommy porn' and 'acceptable' for mainstream audiences. In turn, it did open the doors for other authors, publishers, and retailers to expand into this genre more easily. That's a good thing. It did 'add a little kink' to some people's sex life, encouraged others to experiment a little and get creative. That's a good thing. It made it 'ok' for someone to openly say, "Hell, I like to get tied up and spanked every once in a while"...whether jokingly or not, they weren't embarrassed to admit it. That's a good thing. It also prompted studies, lectures, classes, and discussions on abusive relationships, female sexuality, and alternative lifestyles. That's a good thing.

Whether you enjoyed reading the books or watching the movies...or you hated it, it's no different than any other book or movie...a matter of personal taste or preference. Nothing more than that.