Hello Harpies!
I’m still pulling myself back together after a whirl-wind road trip out to Michigan and back for the Women’s Studies celebration and a visit with family and friends. I’d hoped to have a links list for y’all today, but I don’t. So instead, I’m going to plagiarize my own blog and share two pieces of commentary on the new erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James that really irked me last week.
So I haven’t read this novel. I didn’t realize it was a thing. I only know it’s a thing because Hanna Rosin, writing at Slate, informed me the book is a big hit on the book club circuit and then Ben Quinn, at the Guardian Online, wrote about how “mommies” are falling over themselves to read it. I don’t know whether these two pieces are representative of the buzz surrounding James’ novel, but I’m troubled by the framing of women’s reading of sexually-explicit materials that’s going on here in both of these fairly mainstream publications. This is going to be a “first impressions” post, but I thought perhaps y’all could help me figure out what’s going on here that’s sending up red flags.
First of all, the facts: Fifty Shades of Grey is a sexually-explicit novel that, according to Rosin and Quinn, began life as fan fiction for the Twilight franchise. It was revised by its author and published as a novel about two original characters. The story centers around a sexual relationship with an unequal power dynamic: the young female protagonist is the submissive in a sexual relationship with a male dominant.
Rosin, predictably if irritatingly, sets up the novel’s apparently consensual BDSM themes as anti-feminist, or at least something “feminists” are troubled by. James, she argues, is “writing a textbook female fantasy long recorded by sex researchers but embarrassing to feminists … the very taboo fantasy among women of being sexually overpowered.” As if men don’t also fantasize about being “overpowered,” and as if feminists are the Hive Mind all nodding along in agreement that BDSM in the bedroom is grounds for taking away one’s membership card. I know many self-identified feminists feel this way, but please Ms. Rosin — acknowledge that we’re not a monolithic movement and that many feminists do, in fact, acknowledge and enjoy our fantasies of letting go and being dominated under specific circumstances.
Which brings me to the fact that Rosin also hasn’t done her research on BDSM although she nods to its existence. This seems like journalistic irresponsiblity, given that she was asked (or volunteered) to review a book that deals with kinky themes. For example, she describes the novel as “erotic fiction mixed with Harlequin and just a hint of legal brief (apparently bondage drama requires the exchange of elaborate documents and disclaimers).” Well … yes, in fact. If you’re going to engage in a bondage scenario, it’s responsible practice to negotiate what’s going to happen, at times in writing. Maybe that’s not your cup of tea, but it’s what makes such activities “safe, sane, and consensual.”
Mostly, I’m ticked off by the aura of surprise that permeates both pieces. Both of these pieces present the fact of women reading erotica as transgressive, unusual, as well as slightly titillating and/or troubling. Rosin suggest that “One of James’ goals seems to be to make women the world over fear their own subconscious.” Quinn quotes an anonymous reader (who refused to give her name on the grounds that it would embarrass her employer) as saying that this was the first erotic novel she’d ever discussed openly with friends.
I’m sorry but … women reading erotica is … noteworthy? I mean, okay, document the popularity of a novel that got its start as fan fiction — that’s intriguing industry news in my opinion. But both Rosin and Quinn write about this novel as if it were some weird new trend: Women! Married women! Parents even! Reading porn!! Talking with each other about reading porn!!!
I worked as a bookseller for over ten years. Let me tell you how many women — many of whom were adults, and some of whom were married even!, read and enthusiastically recommended books by Laurell K. Hamilton and Diana Gabaldon (to name just two writers whose books contain lots of explicit and often kinky sex).
In short: lots.
This is just not a newsworthy phenomenon. Women read porn. Women recommend porn to each other. I suppose it’s possible that we’re now more vocal about the fact we read, write, share erotic materials than we used to be. But I’d be very skeptical if anyone tried to claim that this was the novel that was suddenly turning women en masse into consumers of erotic material.
What do you think, Harpies? Have you run across any discussion of this novel either on- or offline? Have any of you read it? What are your thoughts about the cultural discussion surrounding the act of women reading this book?
I haven’t read the book but did read Hanna Rosin’s article a day or two ago. As a feminist who’s into BDSM I was annoyed by the old “But BDSM is anti-feminist!!!1!” trope, but that’s certainly nothing new.
I was also surprised by the discussion of women reading erotica as novel. I mean, has she not ever heard of Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear series? I remember a big deal being made out of the fact that these books were so “smutty,” yet women – even housewives, gasp! – read and shared them. Then there’s the Twilight phenomenon and the books you mentioned, just for starters. Like the “BDSM is anti-feminist!!” trope, this is also nothing new. I’m guessing the reviewers just went with the closest and easiest frame they could come up with. Given the current freakout about women having sex (gasp!), I imagine they figured (probably correctly) that framing this as “this book is making good, upstanding Christian women talk about sex, and kinky sex at that. Oh noes!!” would draw a lot of attention.
1) Have not read it, but I picked it up for a trip I’m taking, so I can report back if there’s interest.
2) It’s always fascinating to me that people act like female submission is really controversial within feminist circles, when in my experience many feminists see submissive play as a productive way to deal with toxic narratives about the sexual role of women. I’ve found that the idea of men having dominance fantasies is much more taboo or difficult for feminists (myself included) to deal with conceptually.
@baraqiel I’ll be interested to hear what you think — if you feel like it’s worth reviewing here at Harpyness, shoot me an email about a guest post!
I was laying in bed last night thinking what annoys me about Rosin’s commentary particularly (Quinn’s is fairly respectful of the author’s success, which frankly I didn’t expect of the Guardian!). I think it’s the way she foists her own discomfort with the novel onto “the feminists” in the abstract. It’s a way of avoiding the complexity of feminist interaction with porn and kink especially — and also absolving herself of any responsibility of being judgy about women reading erotica. She can put her judgy words in the mouths of other people and not risk her own opinion on a subject that is highly contested from all sides.
That doesn’t seem like journalistic objectivity — it seems like cowardice.
I’m strongly reminded of the fact that every time I recommend Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s series (alternate history novels full of varied sex, including BDSM), the person comes back and says “Wow, Verity. Those were really good, but…kinky. I didn’t know you read porn, much less THAT!” and I am equally amused and offended.
Apparently most people still haven’t figured out that sex acts between consenting (adult?) partners don’t have an innate morality and don’t indicate anything about the conduct or character of anyone outside the bedroom. Thus, articles where the writer can’t separate the idea of women wanting to read about/be dominated in the bedroom (BDSM) and women wanting to be dominated in every aspect of life (actual anti-feminist ideals).
@VK … and don’t seem to understand what role negotiation of terms for domination in the bedroom plays in changing the power dynamic significantly from one of oppression to one of active, enthusiastic consent and decision-making …
@annajcook – I think certainly in the UK the reason the book has been presented this way is because it’s supposedly a must-read on the Upper East Side ie it’s a titillation thing (by that I mean that British newspapers are titillated by the idea of Upper East Siders getting excited over an erotic novel that began life as Twilight fan fiction rather than erotic fiction is titillating per se).
btw not to sound snotty but I rather take exception to your comment on the Guardian, and not just because I write for them, why didn’t you expect the Guardian to be respectful of the author’s success? It’s a respected national newspaper of record reporting a story in the news not a snarky website. I’m not sure what your point is.
@emilyanne … my apologies for vague wording. What I meant re: my surprise about the Guardian’s reporting is that I rather expected them to snark about the novel’s beginnings as a fan fiction work. I would have expected the same from the London Review of Books, the New York Times, any other fairly high-powered literary newspaper or magazine. Fan fiction isn’t exactly a darling of literary circles … in my experience it’s seen at best as second-rate and at worst plagiarism. I’m actually quite a fan of the Guardian (I saw the piece by Quinn because I follow their Books RSS feed), but I was surprised that the fan fiction origins of the work were treated factually rather than as an opportunity to suggest that the author’s success was a bit sullied … much like your earlier point that the titillation factor has to do with the fan fiction origins more than the erotic content of the novel per se.
@annajcook For serious. >_<
Disclaimer: I’m a feminist and a bdsm professional. I’m also posting from my phone, so excuse the typos.
I have read the book. As much as I could get through anyway. The writing is horrible. That in itself made me feel dirty for forking out 10 bucks for it. But the real issue I had with the book is that it’s all non-consensual bdsm. There is talk of a slave contract, but she doesn’t sign it. Because she doesn’t want to be his submissive. So it’s all passive aggressive bickering and hot, pretty much vanilla sex with a side order of him being a rich controlling dick. As a friend put it, it’s more wealth porn then bdsm porn.
It’s a really horrible book. I wrote more on my blog if anyone wants to read it. http://Www.deadcowgirl.com
That being said, I’m glad that it has brought bdsm and erotica up as a topic of discussion. Being a bad example is better then no example?
I did read this, actually, and have thought about reviewing it but it sort of…doesn’t have a plot. I mean, I kept waiting throughout the whole 300 some pages for there to be a problematic for them to deal with other than the protagonist wondering if the love interest 1) likes her; 2) loves her; 3) can love her without wanting to beat the shit out of her (this is sort of how it’s framed in the book — there’s a weird distinction drawn between power exchange for mutual pleasure and “the dark side” or whatever of it where he “needs to punish her”). Anyway, I couldn’t really find much purchase in terms of anything to analyze because there’s…no real story arc. But I’m reading the second book now so maybe it turns into something more interesting. I will attempt a review thereafter.