"50 Shades": A feminist/BDSM Guide to Why it's Skeevy as Hell [View all]

[TygrBright]

Probably a NSFW link, BTW, not for imagery but because it features plenty of Banned in Boston topics and text:

Cliff Pervocracy Reads 50 Shades

Some quality excerpts:

On the creepy stalker thing:

Saturday at the store is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. [...] I glance up… and find myself locked in the bold gray gaze of Roll FizzleBeef who’s standing at the counter, staring at me intently. Heart failure. “Miss Steele. What a pleasant surprise.” His gaze is unwavering and intense.

Gahhh! She lives a hundred and fifty miles away from him! And she never told him where she works! This is not okay!

On the nonconsensual assault thing:

“Have you applied to my company as I suggested?” I flush… of course not. “Um… no.” “And what’s wrong with my company?”

"The massive conflict of interest and sexual harassment situation this would create."

"I’m not going to touch you Anastasia - not until I have your written consent to do so.”

Well, except for when he took her pants off while she was unconscious.

On the rape-y aspects:

I think it's Ana's reactions that push this from "non-con fantasy" to "E.L. James what the FUCK are you doing?" Like, if Ana were secretly delighted to see him, that would be unrealistic and problematic, but not totally unexpected in a bodice-ripper. But no, she's panicky and scanning the room for exits, and it's fucking terrifying.

“So, it was nice knowing me?” Holy cow, is he offended? I stare down at my fingers. How am I going to dig myself out of this? If I tell him it was a joke, I don’t think he’ll be impressed.

I'm just putting this in to establish that Slam ThudBoom genuinely thinks she broke up with him. He's not punishing her for a bad joke (not that this would be okay either). He is, as far as he's concerned, raping his ex.

...But no worries, because it was a joke, so he's really just raping his girlfriend.

I think this is that point where I have to stop making jokes, except perhaps the saddest and bitterest kind of joke, like, "ha ha, and she's genuinely afraid of talking to him, sounds like the ideal romance, what a fuckin' kneeslapper."

And plenty more.

This is not a book about adult, consensual BDSM. This is a fantasy (and not a terribly well-written one) about how the author imagines BDSM works. And it's full of skeevy, creepy, misleading, he-dom-she-sub stereotypical patriarchal cliche's, to boot.

It's not "sexually liberated."

It's not about "freedom from stuffy traditional sex."

It's about as traditional as chastity belts and Donna Reed with buttplugs.

irritatedly,
Bright