It’s inescapable, isn’t it? The grunting, lunging, lashing and lip biting everywhere. Yuk.
Mr Grey will see you now. Whatever.
Lots of unappetising double entendres and pictures of improbably perfect people looking intense, moody and bloody uncomfortable. Might account for the mood though.
In case you hadn’t noticed 50 Shades of Grey the movie is out. And it’s everywhere.
Cast your mind back a couple of years to the badly-written Twilight fan fiction that was being sniggered over by, well by lots of people, who had it on their Kindles. (Oooh look I can read smut on the train and no one will ever know.) It was just a bit of harmless fun… after all how sinister can something be when the protagonist’s most engaging dialogue is with her unruly hair? Fluff, fumbling, fornication, flagellation and more fluff.
by Ed Oliver via Flickr |
Yet now we hear that B&Q has had a run on cable ties. Imagine the breathless Anastasia and Christian fans nipping into the disabled bay and leaving the engine running while they stock up on cut price bondage gear. There must have been some very bewildered hardware sales assistants in orange pinnies shaking their heads.
Emergency services are bracing themselves for a spate of neophyte BDSM adventurers who learn that there was probably a really good reason why that thing isn’t normally used for that purpose. And they won’t be doing it again in a hurry.
It could be funny if it wasn’t so, well, so horrible. Please, everyone get a grip. (But not a hard grip and not on that… or that.)
There is nothing sexy about a big old bully who tries to control someone and won’t tell them what’s going on. “Wear this, do this, turn up here,” I don’t flipping think so.
Sure, if a bit of slap and tickle and more slap floats your boat then don’t let me stand in your way. Or actually don’t let me stand anywhere near you. It’s like the fact that I know Primark exists, but I don’t want to actually have to go there and touch the man-made fibres.
Sex lives – vanilla, choc chip or Heston-esque beans and bacon flavours – should be private, between those involved alone. And even behind your own locked door they should be safe and consensual.
I don’t want to watch Mr Grey and his latest victim on the job under any circumstances, particularly not in a cinema seething with lambrini-fuelled lovers straining to get home and improvise with a fish slice and the curtain tiebacks.
The whole point of the 50SOG in the first place was as a fantasy – that’s something that isn’t real, that exists in the head of the fantasist (albeit inserted there by EL James and inspired by a sparkly vampire…or something). And that’s exactly where it should stay. 50 Shades of No Way Jose.
Muddling Along says
Well said !
The whole borderline abusive relationship, trying to make BDSM mainstream, valentines thing makes me feel rather queasy if I'm honest
Violet Fenn says
I don't see a problem with BDSM becoming more mainstream, for the simple reason that 'proper' BDSM involves willing, consenting adults who are entitled to do whatever they choose to do between themselves – it is just a different facet of sexual normality.
It's not the sex that's the problem in this movie, it's the abuse – which is an awful Thing in itself, set apart from the (frankly tedious, if the book's anything to go by), kink.
Ellen Arnison says
It's probably quite important – and certainly doesn't happen here – to separate BDSM from abuse.
Ellen Arnison says
Spot on, Violet.