slaves, tell me about 50 Shades of Grey

I think we can all agree with that, but I think the larger point is that people are not reading to see if the depiction of sexual power is accurate; people are reading so they can fantasize about a rich man playing with their butt plug

hahaha, otm

A very large number of women apparently find this particular "incorrect" and "simplistic" depcition of BDSM power dynamics hot.

And blogging that trash fan-fic turned bestseller porn represents a "missed opportunity" to challenge sexual politics and gender roles is just, wow, BORING.

also fwiw a commenter on that blog says that the sequels do address some of the very issues mentioned in the blog so w/e.

xp it's a lot less boring than the book tbh

I'm sure the book is completely terrible and I will continue to enjoy its mockery

as long as we're all on the same page there.

i just think the success of this book, judged against its actual content, has a lot of ppl scratching their heads because it's boring, not-sexy, and not anywhere near as thrillingly transgressive as the fans would have you believe, i mean "controlling bastard spanks college co-ed" is not exactly breaking new ground

Fiction book found to be largely incorrect & simplistic, film at 11

Guys, I am gonna have to not go on occasional dates with a girl anymore because she bought this :(

depends on what you're into really

xp yeah if anything I think the curiosity is "why THIS book about a controlling guy spanking a co-ed"

I mean I assume there are a lot of *romance* novels about rich dominating guys, no?

boring fiction deserves buttplugs too

the lana del rey of books

lana del grey

Guys, I am gonna have to not go on occasional dates with a girl anymore because she bought this :(

― mh, Tuesday, May 29, 2012 4:52 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't not go on occasional dates because of this

on the plus side, soon she'll be hesitantly asking you to put a dollop of ice cream in her navel

Unless your occasional date is reading it for some kind of other purpose or can at least admit that it's loathsome, do the right thing and dump her. Do you want to date someone who thinks this is titillating?

lactose intolerance

as he ponders this mh's eyes gleam like an inner tube.

my wife reads some really really dumb romance novels. she knows they're dumb, and has good taste in actual literature (and has avoided 50 Shades specifically because of the Twilight connection), but she enjoys them, and i sometimes get laid as a direct result of that, so the idea of saying to her or someone like her "oh you find that titillating, how BORING" and dumping them or just being condescending because of that is pretty ridic to me.

likewise if they don't waka flocka

Well then clearly your answer to my question would be "yes." I mean I don't know, maybe mh DOES want to date someone who finds whatever this is titillating.

I don't have any desire to read 50 Shades of Grey, and I'm not thrilled with it as a book but I'm seriously not going to stop associating with people just for reading it.

I really hope this isn't a serious line of conversation because wow.

some dude and vg otm

soccer moms are the worst

it's boring, not-sexy, and not anywhere near as thrillingly transgressive as the fans would have you believe, i mean "controlling bastard spanks college co-ed" is not exactly breaking new ground

What makes me reflexively hate this tril just like I hated its progenitor series is that people who read other typical shitty romance novels DON'T think they're being transgressive, where as people who have made Fifty Shades famous are all "Ooooh this is so DARK, it's even more exciting because it's NASTY and transgressive, that's so hot, just look at all these things I would scorn and/or be disgusted by if a real-life practitioner brought them up to me."

You don't understand this whole other world now that you've read this, you just brought it into YOUR world that's safe and all cleaned up for you and made it safe and clean, too.

It gives me Outsider Rage somehow.

I mean have these people never heard of that Anne Rice pseudonymously-written shizz or what

so what you're saying is you don't like the kinky fuckery

It's like that band Fuck Buttons, man! They act like they're all avant-noise, but they're really tuneful!

when you download this book it should first automatically play the cream of wheat vid imo

as an intro to the real world

Or like, alt.sex.stories.text

lol

Hurting, don't you diss Fuck Buttons. ;(

so many verbs in that post

kink buttons

Or like, alt.sex.stories.text

lol

― mh, Tuesday, May 29, 2012 4:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha i tried to make this joke/point a couple different ways

there is some kind of tipping point here going on re: the internet's reach into certain subcultures (slash fic, bdsm itself) and being a bridge into wider square culture. james is internet-literate, started as a slash fic writer, "researched" her subject therein, but the masses of purchasers of this stuff must be very un-savvy about either, or they wouldn't be buying it

Unless the book's success provides a kind of permission that otherwise wouldn't be granted. Doesn't 'Twilight' have zillions of middle-aged fans? Now we have 'Twilight' with kinky fuckery. I guess I will not condescend to even critiquing this. If this gets you off, so much the better for you. It's no worse than standard porn imo.

agreed, but there's a nice little blind where I don't have to see the people I work with looking at standard porn and all day long they're walking around with their noses in 50 Shades

yeah, i don't see anything particularly objectionable about this book, its audience or its success. as a "phenomenon" it's strange and a bit surprising, but no more so than any other internet enabled pile-on.

plus people like porn

Thanks for the insight

and for the sarcasm

I know it's not the same thing, but: I read all of the Twilight books. And hated them. My best friend was read them too...and while she mostly hated them, there was something about that world that she kind of liked...and she ended up joining an online community for Twilight fans, started reading all kinds of horrible fanfic, and made a few online friends. It didn't change her intrinisically except this was now a thing she liked, that she talked about with other people who liked it too. She was still the same person I was friends with before. You know? People can absorb themselves in really crappy things and not be horrible people for it.

It's a Twinkie. You're not eating it because of its nutritional benefits. I'm sure half the people who read the dumb book know how bad it is. I don't know that we should assume that we're the only ones who know better.

Sorry I'm journalling now, I'll shut up

Still really thrilled that estela mentioned me.

No, that's a good point. I doubt very many people think that 50 Shades is good, but they read it, nevertheless. I'm only turned off by its cultural ubiquity – I find its popularity mildly distasteful in the same way I'd find public Penthouse oogling distasteful. That probably marks me as a prude, and so be it.

i wasn't being snide towards you, i hope you know, i'm just enthralled by the all terrible similes in this book. xp

I doubt very many people think that 50 Shades is good

Now, see, I've seen multiple people on my FB timeline post that they do indeed find it "good" and, in some cases, "the best book they've ever read", unironically. Those people are out there. And, y'know, I don't begrudge my friends for liking what they like, but if one of them told me, in complete sincerity, that this was the "best book they'd ever read" - well, I'd have some thinking to do about how much I'd ever trust them again wrt to book/music/film recommendations.