Fifty Shades Of Grey - The Serious Thread

koan · Post by **koan** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 5:14 pm

I posted Gilbert Gottfried reading from this book as a joke but I'm actually quite intrigued by the whole sequence of events leading to this being a best seller.

First: The Author, E.L. James, started writing it as a fan-fiction of Twilight. The author is 48-49 yrs old and wrote a story based on teen characters that involves BDSM. Isn't that creepy?

Second: What do people from the BDSM scene think of the book? I know the fan base is considered to be mainly housewives with follow up audiences of college girls and teens. E.L. James' husband claims their personal life is quite bland and nothing like the books. Is there any reality to the BDSM scenes she depicts? I don't know because I haven't read it. My daughter has read it. I suppose I'll have to investigate.

theia · Post by **theia** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:47 pm

koan;1403096 wrote: I posted Gilbert Gottfried reading from this book as a joke but I'm actually quite intrigued by the whole sequence of events leading to this being a best seller.

First: The Author, E.L. James, started writing it as a fan-fiction of Twilight. The author is 48-49 yrs old and wrote a story based on teen characters that involves BDSM. Isn't that creepy?

Second: What do people from the BDSM scene think of the book? I know the fan base is considered to be mainly housewives with follow up audiences of college girls and teens. E.L. James' husband claims their personal life is quite bland and nothing like the books. Is there any reality to the BDSM scenes she depicts? I don't know because I haven't read it. My daughter has read it. I suppose I'll have to investigate.

I was deterred from reading it after I read a review that described it as a badly written mills and boone with added s&m.

I skimmed through my daughter in law's copy whilst I was babysitting and decided that I agreed with the review. However I seem to be in the minority if the hype around it is to be believed.

koan · Post by **koan** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 11:28 pm

I can't find anyone else wondering how a woman in her late 40s takes a username like 'snowqueens icedragon' and perverts a series of books for teens into erotica without being called a creepy, perverted old woman. Surely one should question how she thought of turning Robert Pattinson into a sex maniac. Why was she so obsessed with the stories she wrote fan fiction about them?

Surely it's not because Twilight was so well written. lmao.

I'm not shocked by someone writing erotica, just by an older woman creating erotica from stories written for teens.

koan · Post by **koan** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 12:03 am

The average age of fanfic writers is 15-20, if you take an average of the studies/polls. Narrow that down now to the average age of Twilight fanfic writers and you're probably in the 13-17 yr old range. What the hell was E.L. doing turning these teenagers into her erotic figureheads?

koan · Post by **koan** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:05 am

perhaps I'm misunderstanding fanfic. My daughter was writing on a fanfic site about a Kpop group that she loved at the time. She was 14. Most of the people writing and reading on the sites are tweens. This particular story started as a Twilight fanfic with the tween audience of Twilight. I'm reading the book now and keep thinking OMG is this woman deranged? How could she have put that up on a teen site?

Post by **Betty Boop** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 3:30 pm

theia;1403129 wrote: I was deterred from reading it after I read a review that described it as a badly written mills and boone with added s&m.

I skimmed through my daughter in law's copy whilst I was babysitting and decided that I agreed with the review. However I seem to be in the minority if the hype around it is to be believed.

I'm in the minority too, I can't bring myself to buy it having read reviews. Not even laid my hands on a copy at all, been kind of wishing a friend might have read it and offered it to me to borrow just so I could flick through it. I fear it may bring out my feisty feminist side though. :wah:

koan · Post by **koan** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 4:55 pm

Betty Boop;1403223 wrote: I'm in the minority too, I can't bring myself to buy it having read reviews. Not even laid my hands on a copy at all, been kind of wishing a friend might have read it and offered it to me to borrow just so I could flick through it. I fear it may bring out my feisty feminist side though. :wah:

So far it is badly written, plot wise. The characters do get a bit interesting as far as their flaws vs attributes go. The S&M... while I'll just say that I don't think the young virgins she was writing for should hope to be "deflowered" by a massive member suddenly thrusting into them hard and fast. The 21ish heroine says/thinks some rather dated expressions too that betray the author's age... Also, she seems to think one well placed swat to the twat with a riding crop will make a girl come.

Sorry, it is a graphic book.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:06 am

Not read it. Probably won't.

But just noting that a lot of erotica seems to be written by women. Especially, for some reason, s&m. That's both professionally and in the amateur writing group area.

Don't know if it's the double standard or not...

Don't know if it's a real perception or not - is there loads of s&m literature written by men out there somewhere? A man would be accused of being a pervert, slaughtered in the press, and probably cause the lynching of many innocent paediatricians.

And why is it always s&m? Aren't there an almost limitless number of perversions out there? What's wrong with leather? Or a cute little 57 Chevy? Is that why my epic about sex with trees got pulped?

koan · Post by **koan** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:56 am

Lots of men claim to buy Playboy for the articles. Does that count as erotic fiction?

There are endless "romance" novels that don't involve BDSM. Obviously millions of housewives has spoken up and said they like the SM. I suspect we'll see more novels that stray from Fabio on a horse.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 2:29 am

erotic fiction - books you read with one hand...sorry.

When you get down to it (if you'll pardon the expression) anything other than the way animals do it is a perversion. I really don't think it matters. Recreational sex is about two people having fun together and - ideally - deepening their pair bond. If it is fun, go for it and be damned to political correctness.

I am assuming consent and a trustworthy partner, of course.

Sexual fashions. Very odd...:wah:

pornography. Argh. It's a nice day...I'm ducking. :p

koan · Post by **koan** » Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:05 am

One of the bad things she decided to outright copy from Twilight was the endless descriptions of the hot guy's eyes being "unreadable." Of all the dimwitted things to openly copy... that was the worst part of the books for me. They're not "unreadable"!! You're just copping out of describing it.

Anyway, skim read my way through all three books. Noticed lots of things that I wasn't supposed to be noticing... like calling two body guards "Ryan" and "Reynolds". She got the hots for him too? OK. Could be coincidence.

Summary:

Characters- actually okay. they had likeable flaws.

Plot- repetitive (lol)

SM accuracy - surprisingly good. seems likely she's read Story of O but wanted to give it a happy ending.

Sex accuracy - don't hold your breath... girls usually don't cum that easy, guys need a few minutes to reload, and people don't spring out of their clothes with such grace.

Rating: If you're looking for erotica, this is pretty good as it was written for fan fiction format so she had to keep throwing sex in every instalment so it doesn't follow normal plot progression and doesn't make you wait for the next bit of "****ery" for too long. She also throws in a fair bit of good humour, like the word "****ery".

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 3:49 am

Haven't read it, don't want to. Interesting thread koan, so many people make a fuss over this book(s) and I don't understand why.

Snooz · Post by **Snooz** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 5:40 am

I skim over the "romantic" bits in books where they're just making out... this kind of thing really isn't my preferred genre. I read things like World War Z. When I read the Eve Dallas novels, I completely skip the hot sex with incredibly (and impossibly) handsome Irish husband that's super rich, super intelligent and super sexy.

theia · Post by **theia** » Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:20 pm

Fifty Shades of Earl Grey - A Parody, by Fanny Merkin looks quite amusing

Fiend · Post by **Fiend** » Thu Sep 13, 2012 10:45 pm

Haven't read it, don't think I will. If I was 18 I probably would. It almost makes me sad that I've come to an age where my literary tastes come in the way of my hornyness

What I did hear, though, apart from really bad reviews of course, is a couple of friends who are actually into BDSM complaining how she is confusing BDSM and just plain abusive relationships.

From what I've heard from people who actually choose BDSM as a way of maintaining a permanent relationship, there is a lot more to it then tying someone to a bed and asking them to call you "master"

A proper BDSM relationship apparently, is a complex relationship between the dominant and submissive partner, who, though having different roles, are in the end equal in terms of emotional involvement. From what I heard, this was grossly misrepresented in the book.

koan · Post by **koan** » Thu Sep 13, 2012 11:05 pm

I read them because my 16 yr old has read them and I wanted to know what she thought was "okay" for sexual relationships. This isn't "true" BDSM because, as the book acknowledges, the submissive is not a submissive. It isn't the story of O because the submissive takes all power and "fixes" the Dom. She admits to certain fetishes she enjoys while, at the same time, rejecting anything that requires her to actually submit. It's not a guidebook for how Dom/Sub relationships function, it's an erotic book for people who are bored with vanilla sex. What I liked for that purpose was that she says he hurt someone in the past, so they know they can't just play at something they don't understand without bad results... because people really into BDSM will spend time figuring that **** out on their own.

There is something called "The TRUE Master (or Mistress)" Too often one runs into the dominant who says he wants total control of his sub at all times, together or apart... these are lovely fantasies. At best, these fellows have little experience; they are confusing what they have read in stories for reality. The correct scene term for them is "*******."