Put away your candy hearts and flowers and pull out your floggers and whips — “Fifty Shades of Grey” is here.
For those of you who don’t know — have you been living under a rock for the past four years? — “Fifty Shades” is the story of powerful billionaire Christian Grey, who is obsessed with BDSM — bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism — and his love affair with the innocent college student Anastasia Steele.
The book series, based off “Twilight” fan fiction, became incredibly popular for its depiction of explicit sex. The movie comes out today, and I have a feeling that it’s already on the schedule for many of your weekend plans. But if you’re going to see the movie because you think it’s kinky, hot, sexy and will spice up your otherwise monotonous sex life, don’t.
Now, I’ll be honest. I haven’t fully read the book. I did borrow my mom’s copy in the dead of night to skim through and read the sex scenes — which, by the way, was eerily reminiscent of 11-year-old me stealing my mom’s romance novels. I’m not here to comment on the horrible writing, which is often criticized, or the repeated phrases the author writes — Ana spends almost half the book either blushing or talking about her inner goddess.
The problem with “Fifty Shades” is that it romanticizes an unhealthy relationship. Ana and Christian’s relationship is far from what a safe BDSM relationship looks like. In fact, I went to a BDSM workshop last week, and people who actually practice domination and submission complained about the bad messages “Fifty Shades” sends.
This is dangerous because as “Fifty Shades” gets more popular, it makes it harder for people to differentiate between BDSM and abuse.
Just to be clear, “Fifty Shades” is closer to abuse than actual, healthy BDSM practice.
Christian Grey exhibits controlling tendencies. He is manipulative, jealous and threatening. In one of the movie clips, he tells Ana that he is “incapable of leaving (her) alone,” which is something a stalker might say. These aren’t sexy characteristics; they’re creepy.
There are many scenes in the book when Ana considers leaving — when she cries, when she agrees to let Christian spank her because she doesn’t want him to leave. One scene reads, “‘No,’ I protest, trying to kick him off.” That’s not something that happens in healthy relationships, even ones that involve BDSM.
One Cosmopolitan writer who got to watch the movie early said it was hard to watch Ana get hit, knowing that she was unhappy. “There was consent in the movie; that’s important,” the author wrote. “But Ana wanted something else from Christian, not what he was giving her — and for her relationship to have been a healthy one, as anyone who practices BDSM will tell you, she needed to really believe in what she and Christian were doing.”
I don’t mean for this to stop you from reading erotica or to discourage you from exploring BDSM. If you’re looking for an erotic novel, I recommend “Story of O.” If you’re looking to get into kink, I recommend attending workshops or talking to people who actually practice it.
But fulfilling and healthy BDSM requires constant communication, constant consent and constant feedback. All participants need to be on the same playing field, whereas Christian is in a power position over Ana. All participants need to get some form of pleasure out of it, and they need to be informed about what they are consenting to. And by the way, said consent should never be coerced out of someone.
So here’s my suggestion for Valentine’s Day: Skip the “Fifty Shades” showing, stay at home, put on the movie soundtrack — which is the only part of the movie that I can fully get behind — and spend the two hours doing something a lot safer, a lot more fun and a lot sexier.
Robyn Smith is a UF journalism junior. Her column appears on Fridays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 2/13/2015 under the headline “Skip ‘Fifty Shades’ this Valentine’s Day"]
