Count me among the chaste minority. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I have not read Fifty Shades of Grey. Not a big deal you say smugly. Well, that’s easy for you to say. You out there who have wallowed in porn and titillation for the past four years; you who have waited breathlessly for publication of books that complete the trilogy; I salute you. (Maybe not in the same manner that Christian Grey would, but then I’m not built that way. )
I’m not a prude mind you. I still have my dog-eared copy of Forever Amber, which I read in the privacy of my bathroom after everyone else in the house has gone to bed. Since everyone else is a pussycat, I’m pretty safe from discovery but old habits die hard. Or some other unintentional double entendre which apparently cannot be avoided when writing about “Grey.” I’ve read The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, and I’ve even sneaked a glance at the Kama Sutra, considered by some to be the most salacious book of all time. That is, until E.L. James came along and set the literary world on its ear or whichever body part is appropriate in this particular case.
My morals and I pre-date the sexual revolution from which I emerged relatively unscathed. Unlike my younger relatives who jumped into the fray with both feet and other parts of their anatomy, I did take sex education in the seventh grade, a required but daring course for that time. I remember coming home from school and offering to tell my mother what I had learned that day in sex ed. She appeared about to faint until I told her we had learned how to make cinnamon toast. It was a revolutionary, culture changing moment because neither of us had ever heard of cinnamon toast. Our family was more into French toast made with challah bread. That by the way is a true story and it spelled the end of sex ed. in the junior high school curriculum. I guess it was also the end of the timid young teacher and bogus “sex expert” whom I strongly suspect was virgin in a way that had nothing to do with olive oil or cinnamon toast.
I confess to being happy in my ignorance. Like other girls of my unliberated generation, I thought hymen was the name of at least twelve boys in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Right, wrong? Yes and/or no. And then things changed. SEX reared its ugly head and became part of the culture, a fact of life for the married and un — except in my little circle of young couples, where dirty jokes were frowned upon and beds were mentioned only in the context of buying a new mattress.
And that’s how it remained through the years, until Fifty Shades of Grey made its appearance on the local societal scene. The novel was discussed openly and unashamedly at adult education courses, book clubs and any place where women gathered. Everyone had something to say about the books – everyone but me, that is. I remained morally pure, abstinent and Shadily ignorant. I stubbornly refrained from reading Ms. James’s book. And I have suffered terribly because of it. I have been shut out of luncheon discussions when the conversation turns to FSOG. My membership in the local book club has been canceled due to my lack of contribution. Once a major intellectual force in my suburban neighborhood, I am now regarded as a relic, a has been, a reminder of a long gone era when women were women and not sex slaves.
There are times when I find myself weakening; but so far I have resisted temptation and withstood the urge to buy a copy of ‘Shades’. Oh well, there’s always the Kama Sutra. And besides, it has pictures.
Copyright 2015 Harriet Posnak Lesser
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Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’s The South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.