I am uniquely qualified to talk about 50 Shades of Grey, the best-selling book series based off a Twilight Fanfiction where light BDSM replaces the vampire stuff. Before law school I worked about about a year supplementing my income by writing porn. Erotic stories. Ghost blogging for porn stars.
This work also meant a lot of reading different stories (sometimes I was paid to re-write them, or to add additional scenes to a book). I didn't always do well at this because I can't write passive female characters. In some ways this made writing gay porn easier than the straight stuff because it eliminated the weird baggage people bring to female sexuality.
In female erotica, and 50 Shades, the protagonists are almost always inexperienced virgins. The scene where they lose their virginity is always identical. The guy makes them come with hands or mouth, then penetration happens. There is pain and bleeding, but only for a moment (in that moment the guy will always suggest that he will stop because he is such a nice guy) and then she'll magically get into it and come at the same time as him. It is ALWAYS THE SAME. It is a ritual that happens again and again. So often that the books that don't have it almost seem subversive. Stories with non-virgins in the starring roles, or virgins who don't have their maidenhead, are the minority.
It's all part of the culture that festishizes female virginity as well as denouncing female sexuality. Young teens are shown media figures (Miley, Britney, Lindsay) who are shown in sexually provocative poses and outfits but are also haled as role models because they are virgins. Even if it isn't actually true, the young women can still claim virginity. When they get older, however, the claim no longer can be believed and suddenly they are unlikeable sluts. Does Miley really dress or act differently than she did when she was on Hannah Montana? No, but now the behavior is bad. It was okay when she was doing it because people told her to. It's bad when she starts doing it because she wants it.
Women aren't supposed to WANT sex. And Anastasia in 50 Shades spends pages and pages of the book feeling bad about the fact that she likes kinky (well, the vanilla version of kinky) sex. She talks about her conflicted feelings about sex and ultimately gives in over and over again to the pleasure. Of course, if Ana just openly enjoyed it (or was the one who tried to introduce her male lover to her kink) it would turn off many female readers. Books featuring sexually aware protagonists don't resonate with female readers. Read some of the reviews on Amazon and they focus on not liking the sluts. Women live in a society that tells them that they must walk a balance between being sexually available to men (or risk being labeled frigid or ugly) while also needing to be the moral gatekeepers of sex. Ana walks this balance by spending most of the book talking about the conflict. Seriously. There is more navel gazing in the series than sex.
50 Shades also has one other feature that makes it so popular. The series starts out with Ana being given a no strings attached sexual contract with Christian. But by the second book he loves her. He marries her. She has made him change. How did she do that? TRUE LOVE, I guess. And it is that old idea that a woman can change a man if she just loves him enough. Meet a guy with a huge kink and fucked up issues. Well, if you just stand by him he can change.
But the change is needed for the happy ending. If Ana and Christian didn't live happily ever after then it would be a dark book indeed. Ana would have given up her virginity and her precious sexual innocence for nothing. She'd be left with sex and pleasure, but no husband which would be a terrible fate indeed.
And that's why 50 Shades has been so popular. It is able to tell a story of sexually excitement and introduce a taboo level of kink, but it still fits into the cultural story of how terrible female sexuality is. As for the kink...ugh. It isn't. Handcuffs and ropes and some spanking. Boring. In a world where one of the fastest growing male fantasies is pegging a little light S&M is nothing.
If you couldn't tell I hated 50 Shades. I hated Ana and her constant talking about how conflicted she was about enjoying sex. I hated the fact that we were supposed to believe these two people had true love when they didn't even have very interesting conversations. I hated that the first wildly popular book series in my generation to deal with sex completely reinforces our cultural view of the virgin/whore complex. I wish that 50 Shades was Fear of Flying. I wish that our culture was less repressive than we were in the 1970s.
No comments:
Post a Comment