fifty shades of WEEPING FOR HUMANITY
Since I have nothing better to do until my fanfic beta editor gets back to me with the latest chapter, why not use my journal to rant about something that pisses me off the more I learn about it.
Not politics, not religion... but a book series, "Fifty Shades Of Grey."
For those of you who don't know (And I apologize to those whom I am about to inflict this terrible, terrible knowledge upon) , E.L. James wrote Twilight fanfiction. It got popular, and so with some changes, she published an original novel about a twenty-something naive virgin named Anastasia becoming the sub to her boss Christian's dom. The trilogy is about their kinky love life. There are rumors of a movie development. If you'd like to read some passages, help yourself.
So, here are my problems.
Twilight fanfic. Do I need to really add onto that. Moving on.
The so-called erotica is plain vanilla. If you're going to write kinky stuff, go for full on kinky. The book describes bondage, whips, and licking food off of each other, but really, go to any magazine, flip around TV, watch movie trailers - we get stuff like that thrown at us all the time. It's nearly blase at this point. So if you're trying to titillate readers, do some research, go into some fantasies, bring out toys. Just tossing around the word "fuck", "ass" and "dick" every other line isn't helping anyone's boner.
The writing itself is terrible. Grammar problems, sentence construction, this is the kind of stuff that would make an English teacher want to beat your face in. For example, this sentence "Though I was never cheerleader-the bitter thought crosses my mind." That's the kind of writing that would make me profoundly apologize to my fanfic beta writer for letting something so stupid go unnoticed.
The plot is really, really dumb. Anastasia decides that in under two days of knowing Christian, it's true love. Now everyone knows I'm a huge Disney fan, and that kind of thing is the norm. But Disney is a land of fairy tales and talking animals, logic and sense don't have to factor in. This author is trying to write reality and failing on epic levels. Anastasia is a twenty-something, no longer a teenager, no longer in high school, so she should have some notion that true love takes some damn time and is not so easily discovered.
The characters themselves. Let's start with darling Anastasia, the naive virgin who stumbles into a world of BDSM. She is completely and totally surprised by every single act of sex they have. Look, there's a difference between being a virgin and having your eyes and ears shut for twenty-odd years. As mentioned before, we constantly get sexual imagery thrown at us from all types of media. An accidental typo on google can get you plenty of porn. How the hell do you get to that age and be suddenly startled by the idea of someone tying you up?
And then we come to Christian. He's an asshole. He clearly does not know how healthy BDSM works. BDSM can be fun and erotic when it's consensual to both players. They don't revolve their entire lives around sex, and when it is time for sex, there are safety words in place for a reason. Christan does not use safety words, a dangerous practice of itself, but completely dominates Anastasia's life so that she is nothing but a sex toy for her entire life. She's not allowed to have a life outside of him and sex. He makes her cut off all ties from her friends, tells her what she can and can't eat, whips her stomach when she gets pregnant, and - this is the scene that causes the big controversy, a.k.a WHAT THE FUCK -when she's on her period, he takes out her tampon without her consent.
I remember that I have my period.
“I’m bleeding,” I murmur.
“Doesn’t bother me,” he breathes.
“I noticed.” I can’t keep the dryness out of my voice.
He tenses slightly.
“Does it bother you?” he asks softly.
Does it bother me? Maybe it should… should it? No, it doesn’t.
He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string - what?! - and gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck.
Holy fuck indeed. Now, I have no problem with people who want to have sex on their period. Doesn't affect me, why should it? But read it again - he took out her tampon without her consent. He could have broken the string, he could have hurt her, that's not fucking okay. Consent is the number one important factor in any relationship, and Christian, our romantic hero, doesn't give a shit about such things. And remember before how I said he whips her pregnant stomach? Somehow the kid survives, and somehow suffered no damage for it. But that's not the thing. When they're out and about with their kid, you might relax and think "Well finally, they have something in their lives besides sex." Nnnnnope. They use the kid to send sexual massages back and forth to each other. Classy.
I could go on and on about this, but a day being pissed off is fun for no one. So I'll leave this here, and hopefully never subject anyone else to this horror.
Not politics, not religion... but a book series, "Fifty Shades Of Grey."
For those of you who don't know (And I apologize to those whom I am about to inflict this terrible, terrible knowledge upon) , E.L. James wrote Twilight fanfiction. It got popular, and so with some changes, she published an original novel about a twenty-something naive virgin named Anastasia becoming the sub to her boss Christian's dom. The trilogy is about their kinky love life. There are rumors of a movie development. If you'd like to read some passages, help yourself.
So, here are my problems.
Twilight fanfic. Do I need to really add onto that. Moving on.
The so-called erotica is plain vanilla. If you're going to write kinky stuff, go for full on kinky. The book describes bondage, whips, and licking food off of each other, but really, go to any magazine, flip around TV, watch movie trailers - we get stuff like that thrown at us all the time. It's nearly blase at this point. So if you're trying to titillate readers, do some research, go into some fantasies, bring out toys. Just tossing around the word "fuck", "ass" and "dick" every other line isn't helping anyone's boner.
The writing itself is terrible. Grammar problems, sentence construction, this is the kind of stuff that would make an English teacher want to beat your face in. For example, this sentence "Though I was never cheerleader-the bitter thought crosses my mind." That's the kind of writing that would make me profoundly apologize to my fanfic beta writer for letting something so stupid go unnoticed.
The plot is really, really dumb. Anastasia decides that in under two days of knowing Christian, it's true love. Now everyone knows I'm a huge Disney fan, and that kind of thing is the norm. But Disney is a land of fairy tales and talking animals, logic and sense don't have to factor in. This author is trying to write reality and failing on epic levels. Anastasia is a twenty-something, no longer a teenager, no longer in high school, so she should have some notion that true love takes some damn time and is not so easily discovered.
The characters themselves. Let's start with darling Anastasia, the naive virgin who stumbles into a world of BDSM. She is completely and totally surprised by every single act of sex they have. Look, there's a difference between being a virgin and having your eyes and ears shut for twenty-odd years. As mentioned before, we constantly get sexual imagery thrown at us from all types of media. An accidental typo on google can get you plenty of porn. How the hell do you get to that age and be suddenly startled by the idea of someone tying you up?
And then we come to Christian. He's an asshole. He clearly does not know how healthy BDSM works. BDSM can be fun and erotic when it's consensual to both players. They don't revolve their entire lives around sex, and when it is time for sex, there are safety words in place for a reason. Christan does not use safety words, a dangerous practice of itself, but completely dominates Anastasia's life so that she is nothing but a sex toy for her entire life. She's not allowed to have a life outside of him and sex. He makes her cut off all ties from her friends, tells her what she can and can't eat, whips her stomach when she gets pregnant, and - this is the scene that causes the big controversy, a.k.a WHAT THE FUCK -when she's on her period, he takes out her tampon without her consent.
I remember that I have my period.
“I’m bleeding,” I murmur.
“Doesn’t bother me,” he breathes.
“I noticed.” I can’t keep the dryness out of my voice.
He tenses slightly.
“Does it bother you?” he asks softly.
Does it bother me? Maybe it should… should it? No, it doesn’t.
He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string - what?! - and gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck.
Holy fuck indeed. Now, I have no problem with people who want to have sex on their period. Doesn't affect me, why should it? But read it again - he took out her tampon without her consent. He could have broken the string, he could have hurt her, that's not fucking okay. Consent is the number one important factor in any relationship, and Christian, our romantic hero, doesn't give a shit about such things. And remember before how I said he whips her pregnant stomach? Somehow the kid survives, and somehow suffered no damage for it. But that's not the thing. When they're out and about with their kid, you might relax and think "Well finally, they have something in their lives besides sex." Nnnnnope. They use the kid to send sexual massages back and forth to each other. Classy.
I could go on and on about this, but a day being pissed off is fun for no one. So I'll leave this here, and hopefully never subject anyone else to this horror.