Please Don't Get Me . . . Fifty Shades of Grey

I have devoted the last couple of weeks to my top ten list of gifts I really don't want this Christmas. (See "Please Don't Get Me . . . Part #1 and Part #2.")

As I said last week, my number one "Please Don't Get Me . . ." gift is Fifty Shades of Grey, and I so vehemently do not want this gift that I am devoting an entire blog post to it this week.

I wanted people to understand a couple of things before I start criticizing a series I have no desire to read. First of all, I hate it when people lambaste books they have never read. Think of this more as a boycott than a critique. Second of all, I am not a prude nor do I advocate censorship.

Here is my problem: The Fifty Shades franchise exposes a disturbing trend in the regression of women's rights. Apparently, reading about women being abused is now considered awesome and sexy.

I have never been a Harlequin reader because I can't handle reading something so poorly written. (I barely made it through The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo books.) I understand that romance novels often focus on old-fashioned submission of virginal young females, no matter how it is dressed up with career women protagonists, etc. Now here comes a tale of an older, emotionally stunted man who relives his own abusive past on a young twenty-something, simultaneously propelling the term BDSM into the mainstream lexicon.

Keep in mind, this book has become popular during this current culture of defining rape as "legitimate" or "a-gift-from-God," labeling women who want their birth control covered by insurance as sluts and prostitutes, and suggesting that women post their sexual exploits on the web.

Consider the following quotation from the article "'Mommy Porn' Novel Has Retro Message" on cnn.com:

Of course, pornography can be seductive, and "Fifty Shades" is hot. Less enjoyable is the undercurrent about women's lack of rights . . . But to what extent can women enjoy free play in a country where those going by the name of "Christian" mount legislation forcing them to bear children conceived in rape? When poor young women like Christian's "crack whore" mother are denied access to birth control? By enjoying a porn of their own, women can at least indulge the fantasy that their pleasure comes first even as politicians are devising new forms of punishment.

A while ago, Katie Couric interviewed the Fifty Shades series' author, E.L. James.

"When I read it," Couric said, "I felt like I was the most boring woman in the world."

I wouldn't worry about that, Katie. I would worry more about admitting to reading such low-brow, poorly written prose. I could barely get through the excerpts that I attempted to read (for research purposes only, of course).

The question was raised as to whether or not the books have improved people's marriages and relationships.

During the course of the interview, James said of her readers, "They say, 'Thank you very much, and my husband thanks you too.'

James also revealed that the books were written as a result of midlife crisis and that she was inspired to write them by the Twilight series. That explains the poor writing.

So has anything positive come (no pun intended) out of Fifty Shades? The term "Mommy porn" is pretty rad. Also, the irony in hotels replacing the Bible with Fifty Shades is priceless. (I'm not sacrilegious. I just appreciate irreverent humor.)

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