Fifty Shades of Popular

When Fifty Shades of Grey came out in 2011, it rocketed to the top of all the book lists. A movie came out. More books, more movies. Everyone read it, everybody was talking about it. Not everyone loved it; plenty of people hated it. But they all knew about it.

So it's not surprising that from time to time, as a kink educator and an author, I get asked my opinion about Fifty Shades. I think it's usually expected that I will straight up trash it as a Terrible Thing that exists which I'd like to wipe out. However, I'm not typically one to do something just because it's expected.

In fact, I'm really grateful for Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm glad it's out there. I've read it a few times. It's not High Literature, folks, but it's not trying to be. It's BDSM-themed smut. It started as fan-fic for Twilight (we've all heard that story), and it ended up as trashy kink smut. And it's pretty good for kink smut; not great, but pretty good for the genre.

Now, when I've read the book, I've been known to throw it across the room at a wall (this is one more reason why I read paperbacks) in a fit of grammarian pique, I have been so frustrated with this book. The thing that got me last time was that it constantly read 'Mr Grey' and not 'Mr. Grey' - where are all the periods? You don't even need an editor to fix that - a simple spellcheck program should catch it! And that's just the beginning of my editorial gripes. Some variety in expressions, please, and let's drop the whole 'Inner Goddess' thing. The book needs so much editing to become enjoyable reading. But that aside...

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Let's talk about the story. In the kink community, Fifty Shades is generally accepted to portray an abusive relationship that involves some kink-play, and is a terrible example of how any kink-positive relationship should go. This man absolutely railroads this naive girl-child into a relationship that she did not have possible way of understanding what she was getting into. She gives up all agency for herself. She can't honestly consent to what he demands of her because, first of all, he doesn't tell her, and second, she doesn't understand what he does tell her. She's just dropped head-first into a world that she doesn't understand, but is fascinated by. 

The kink community, in real life, doesn't work like that. Some individual relationships might, and we consider those abusive, too. Our golden standard of Consent requires everyone involved to understand what they are getting into, and have the ability to nope out of things at any time. That's what I teach, and what the community stresses. So yeah, the kink relationship in the book is abusive and not realistic at all.

Have you read much smut? The genre is full of bodice-ripping ravagement and kidnapping and heavy pressure on sweet innocent girl-children who don't know what they are getting into when they chase the dark-eyed smoldering dangerous rich man who pushes them away briefly before finally ravishing them for hours at a time. That's what that kind of smut is - a woman's fantasy about having responsibility taken away from her as she get railed by the sexiest creature she's ever seen, but without the guilt because he forced her and she couldn't help herself. Fantasy doesn't stop to have a conversation about consent and limits.

And how often is there a rich 20-something handsome guy chasing the poor-college-girl-next-door, either? I hate to tell you, but if you go to a kink club, you're going to have a hard time finding Christian Grey. I've yet to see a helicopter land in the parking lot. But smut heroes all look like him - because it's fantasy. Fantasies, like porn, don't usually consider condoms and STDs, either, but we know in the real world, that these things are important to think about. 

And while we're decrying the poor consent model of the story, let's not forget to compare it other kinky books and stories. The Story of O, The Secretary, The Pet, the Sleeping Beauty series. All problematic when it comes to consent and realism. Because they are also fantasies/smut. We love them anyway.

So yeah, as BDSM-themed smut, Fifty Shades is fine. With some editing, could even be considered pretty good. So yeah, go read the book. Maybe they've had enough reprintings they've sprung for some editing by now.

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But whether or not you should read the book isn't really the important thing here. Because the really important thing about Fifty Shades of Grey isn't about the story. It's about how it's impacted society. When the book came out, it sprang up out of nowhere to land everywhere. It was in every store, it was discussed on all the talk shows. Suddenly, everyone was talking about kink. And searching for it online and in real life.

Middle-aged women read it in their book clubs and talked about it with each other, instead of just secretly reading smut at night. And then some of them talked to their husbands about it, maybe even pointed out bits they enjoyed and wanted to try!

College kids read it in their dorms and passed copies on to other students, and talked about it openly, discussing the problems with consent and the abusive nature of the relationship. And then looked up kink and BDSM online to find out more about the parts that aroused them.

Nascent kinky people found out that they weren't alone in these desires they had to do dark kinky things. And they found other people who liked these things, too!

People started talking about kink as a thing that happens in the real world. They discussed kink and abuse and sexiness and BDSM and sexual interests as things people do and deal with.

The combination of a popular book that one could openly say they've read, and the internet with information available to research the ideas brought up by the book combined into making an interest in kink a mainstream, acceptable thing. At least to talk about, if not to do.

People found out they weren't alone, that they weren't 'wrong' for their thoughts; they were just kinky.

People found out that there's a lot of kinky people out there, and if it's not for them, it's still a thing for others. And now they knew at least something about it, which made it less scary and bad.

People openly discussed abusive relationships and consent. Which can only mean better relationships, more consent, and more avoiding bad relationships.

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There's been some less-positive results, too. 

With Fifty Shades as the most popular current example of a kinky relationship, all of us kinksters have had to assert that we do it differently, better. And maybe as a community we've worked on doing it differently, better, with more consent. Because an example of abuse is sometimes the best way to reduce future abuse. 

So many people, mostly younger folks, have learned that not only is kink real, but there's a community, that some kink communities have been flooded with an influx of new kinksters who want to Do All The Things, but don't have the education to do so well or safely. And education takes some time, so there's a lag time where there's a lot of people trying kink without knowing what they are doing. That's dangerous, but much less dangerous than all of them trying it in secret, alone.

Kinksters who were around before the Fifty-Shaders appeared - some of them decades before - have been overwhelmed and overshadowed by the crowd of newbies, and aren't valued as the keepers of tradition, knowledge, and skill they are. It's hard on them to see a new 'Master' with six months' experience and some reading under his belt have a following he's teaching poorly, when they spent years learning and working before accepting the title of 'Master'. The scene, the community, has changed. Not all for the better, but for the more open.

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So yeah, Fifty Shades of Grey is not great literature, but it's fine as a smut book. But it's more important as a phenomenon. It's the trigger that gave us an excuse to talk about kink, to drive people to learn about how they feel about kink. It set off conversations about consent and abuse. And it sent people to the kink communities that otherwise might have floundered around experimenting in secret instead. All-in-all, I'm glad it happened.