DOES FIFTY SHADES OF GREY PROMOTE SEXUAL ABUSE?
A New Study Says Yes
When I was in college and taking a Women’s Lit course in the earlier but post bra-burning days of the Women’s Lib Movement, we were assigned to read The Story of O by Pauline Reage. In a nutshell, it’s a story of sexual domination loaded with graphic scenes of bondage, sexual discipline and control. And, the ones in control were men. The women, as I perceived them, were victims, forced to submit to the men’s sexual and power needs. On the day of the book discussion, the professor asked how many of us finished the book. Mine was the only hand in the air. “I didn’t think any of you would finish it,” she proclaimed. “It was difficult to read.” It was. The sexual control, domination and humiliation of women was not fun to read. I’d rather read about an adulterous woman’s suicide by moving train. (We read that too. But it’s a classic so the entire class finished the book.)
So yeah, I read every page of The Story of O. It was an assignment and this straight A student always did her assignments. This one led to discussions about the submissive state of the women in the book, the questions of abuse versus consent and issues of control versus choice when it comes to sexual dominance. Every one of us was of the opinion that The Story of O was evil, probably written by a man using a woman’s name as a pseudonym (we were wrong about that part) and that it demeaned women. We had many discussions about O’s name. Is she an empty hole? A trio of orifices? But in the final analysis, at least in my final analysis at the time, the book didn’t promote violence against women as much as it described it. It was someone’s pornographic fantasy and our discussions were much ado about porn.
Cut to several decades later. Different time, for sure, and women, while we’ve still got a long way to go to achieve parity with men, especially when it comes to wages and childcare, have made great strides in so many areas. And then there’s sex …
The recent study, entitled “Double Crap!” Abuse and Harmed Identity in Fifty Shades of Grey, undertaken by researchers at Ohio State University, was led by Amy Bonomi who will serve as a professor and chairperson of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University. She says, “This book is perpetuating dangerous abuse standards and yet it’s being cast as this romantic, erotic book for women. The erotic content could have been accomplished without the theme of abuse.”
Fifty Shades of Grey chronicles the development of a sexual and emotional relationship between Anastasia Steele and the irresistible (to her), excessively rich and fantastical Christian Grey. For the purpose of the Ohio State U study, researchers applied guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that are used to identify partner violence and symptoms of abuse in women. Researchers found evidence of stalking, threats, punishment, intimidation and other behaviors consistent with “intimate partner violence.” The study analyzed Book One of the trilogy and there is no question, at least for me, that abuse lives within these pages. In one of their sexual encounters, Christian’s sex “play” becomes out of control to the point of violence, prompting Ana to leave. She comes back to him and willingly engages in Christian’s kinky sex games. But it’s what happens outside of the sex room that raises questions about partner abuse. Christian stalks Ana. He threatens to punish her and, even though she is titillated, she remains under his control.
But does the book promote violence against women? I’m not so sure and can easily argue both sides of the issue.
The first thing one has to remember is that the book is a fantasy. It may not float everyone’s boat, but, it’s a fantasy nevertheless. One might argue that, because Ana comes back to Christian, knowing his sexual proclivities and despite (or perhaps because of?) his controlling personality, she is not a victim. She chooses to come back of her own free will and she willingly stays with him.
Christian is controlling, out of control and punishing. He’s not my type of guy. But he is Ana’s who willingly plays a game of sexual and emotional dominance. It’s a dangerous game – but one she’s free to walk away from at any time. Some experts argue that Ana is a victim who does not know what she wants, that she no longer has free will. Ana is naive and maybe a little bit stupid, but she’s aware of and engaged in the trappings of her own relationship.
I didn’t like the book. Friends warned me, saying the writing is so poor, it would kill me to read it. I read it anyway. Ok, I skimmed, mostly for the dirty parts, but I got the gist of it. Ana’s and Christian’s relationship is disturbing. I wouldn’t want it for myself, but does the book promote violence against women or does it only describe it – and then in terms of a consensual relationship?
Bonomi says she doesn’t want to ban the book. She wants people to understand and recognize the patterns of abuse. I applaud her for that. I’m not a proponent of censorship and, instead, staunchly support information, education and responsibility.
The question is not whether violence against women exists. Of course it does. According to statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:
*One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.
*An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical violence by an intimate partner each year.
*Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.
*Most cases of domestic violence go unreported.
*One in six women have experienced a completed or attempted rape.
*One in 12 women have been stalked in their lifetime.
The statistics are chilling, horrible. Most of us know of a loved one or friend who’s involved in an abusive relationship from which they want to escape but, for various reasons, can’t. They are the true victims. Is Ana?
Many women who love the book – and there are legions of them; the book has sold more than 70 million copies worldwide – say it improved their sex lives, even if they didn’t engage in kinky sex games. And therein lies the real power of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Porn, erotica, call it what you will, has been around forever. And, at times, it dealt (and deals) with themes of bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism. The Marquis de Sade, who wrote Justine in 1791, inadvertently lent his name to the sexual practice about which authors as popular and prolific as Anne Rice have devoted whole novels. (Anne Rice wrote her erotic trilogy, The Sleeping Beauty Chronicles, under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure.)
But, prior to E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, pornographic literature was mostly the provenance of men. Good girls didn’t read it. Do I think that women sneaked peeks at their husband’s Victorian porn a century ago? Hell, yeah! But nice girls didn’t talk about it, even if they wanted to be carried up a flight of steps in the middle of the night, have their bodices ripped off and ravished by a rutting beast of a man with whom they’re in love. Did I just describe that scene in Gone with the Wind when Rhett Butler sweeps Scarlett O’Hara off her feet and up the stairs and, yeah, you remember. Margaret Mitchell outlined the scene and let our prurient minds fill in the blanks. And we did, happily. Gone with the Wind is one of literature’s most beloved and classic love stories. But does it, and the scene I just described, promote rape?
One of my friends who, incidentally, didn’t like Fifty Shades of Grey because of what she feels are abusive elements of the characters’ relationship, says this about the phenomenon of the book. “I’m all for women taking back the bedroom. And by that I mean taking as active a role when it comes to sex as they take when it comes to other aspects of their lives. Because Fifty Shades of Grey captured so many women’s attention, it enabled us to at least start a dialogue about sex. Women are openly talking about sex, what they like, what they don’t like and how to get the former.”
The way I read it, Fifty Shades of Grey is the story of a BDSM relationship between two consenting adults where the parameters of the sex play are defined. The relationship may make the reader uncomfortable (even as the sex scenes may titillate) but, ultimately, Ana is not a victim. It’s always within her power to engage or not, to stay or go.
E.L. James has not discussed the study to my knowledge. But last year she did address the issue of whether or not her book promotes sexual abuse. She said, “What people get up to behind closed doors — providing it is safe, sane, consensual and legal — is completely up to them. It’s not for you, I or anybody to judge.”
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