E L James.
She is an author. She’s written a trilogy of books that are BDSM lite, and in my humble opinion beyond dangerous. I can not stop reading though, and that in and of itself is dangerous.
The 50 Shades books at their core are Romeo and Juliet. I am reminded of the words of a wonderful friend: something has gone terribly wrong that humanity can not write anything better that what William Shakespeare wrote so many moons ago.
To the best of my knowledge no one dies at the end of this trilogy. I would suspect that the writer is headed for the happily ever after. I say this because as I am pages away from the conclusion of 50 Shades darker….I realize that I am not reading a book that is an accurate portrayal of a Dominant/submissive relationship or a Master/slave relationship. I am reading a love story.
There is nothing wrong with a love story. I am a girl and it is girlie for me want to read a love story. The only book club that I ever joined was one where they would send tawdry romance novels to my home once a month. No matter how many different means and ways I use to deny my girlie nature….toss a historically romantic typical love story at me and I am all estrogen.
The problem I have is that I live this life. I have lived this life. I’ve done it well, I’ve done it poorly, but I live it. I live it still.
These books call out to the little girl in me that still believes in fairy tales, while the 39-year-old in my understands that fairy tales might be real, but that sometimes the wolf does eat Little Red Riding Hood, and no I am not talking about cunnilingus. Even if the image of that is kind of hot.
This lifestyle is nothing to play with. It is not a game and it is not something that you can walk into and be Ana and Christian.
The scenes 500 pages into book 2 where Christian while faced with Ana possibly leaving him reverts to submissive mode as a coping mechanism have had me ready to toss my laptop out of the window. That kind of shit doesn’t happen.
You are not going to watch a dominant man have a borderline psychotic break because he is afraid the woman he met a month prior might be leaving. He is not going to take on your submissive role when confronted and he is not going to be cured of his kink because you are so irresistible that your mere presence is enough for him and he no longer needs the whips and chains that excite him.
I get angry because I am reading this and fundamentally understanding that there is a soccer mom in West Chester that is going to open a CollarMe account and instead of finding Christian Grey she will find John Robinson.
That is a worst case scenario for sure, yet that is not the only damage that can be done.
I remember the girl that I was when I met the ex. I was not unlike Anastasia. Well, kind of I was not a virgin, but I was innocent and I was looking for hearts and flowers and happily ever after.
The meeting with the ex was almost accidental. Everything that happened after was not. Not unlike Anastasia I fell in love far too quickly, far too completely and there was a price to pay for that. It was a price that I would pay twice more before that chapter of my life closed.
He was a man not unlike Christian Grey. Powerful, charming, dominant, with a kinky side that was beyond my ability to comprehend until I was in the middle of it experiencing and learning to love it.
We battled many obstacles in our years together, coming out on the other end of them battered yet still in love.
It took longer than a month for us to admit love, in the end it took less than 10 minutes to deny love. That final confrontation took place in a court of law, with my 6-year-old son on my lap, as my public defender got the case tossed out.
The 3 of us, Clyde the lawyer and myself left that day and I raced out of that parking lot thankful for my freedom and bewildered how things had gone so terribly wrong. I am not sure that to this day I am totally recovered from that day.
That is one of the things that can happen. The scars that you acquire are not always physically visible. Sometimes women lead with their heart and not their head. A lesson I’ve gotten better at but if I am being honest, have not yet learned.
The Man has been able to heal most of my old scars, and for that I am grateful. It is a part of why I write to prevent others from gathering scars of their own.
It is why I work so hard to remind people to slow down and make better choices.
It is also why Fifty Shades of Grey is a dangerous book.
Love can be found in this lifestyle, if that is what one desires. Love can not be found in the method that Anastasia and Christian find it. When you get your first punishment, your dominant may love you, but there is not really such a thing as a sadist no longer wishing to be a sadist because he loves you that much.
There is no such a thing as a dominant so afraid of losing you that he will assume your submissive position literally and figuratively in an attempt to get you to stay.
There are a couple of truths though:
Dominant men do cry. All men cry at one time or another. It does not make a man less dominant if he sheds a tear
Dominant men say I love you. Not all of them, but they do. Love is not a method to tame and control, at least not if it is pure.
I don’t want women looking at this series as a means to find the love that has eluded them so far. That will not happen.
I will encourage women to look inside themselves for love for themselves and when they find THAT, they won’t have to come to BDSM for the kind of all enveloping love E L James writes about. That kind of love will be found anywhere they are if they first love themselves.
