"50 Shades Of Grey" or "Twilight Fanfiction"

[Seil]

So how 'bout that movie/book series/fanfiction objectifying women and manipulative relationships?

Oh, wait, the actors hate it too! (http://jezebel.com/double-crap-fifty-shades-of-grey-stars-cant-fucking-st-1679090998)

So why... Oh. (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/11/02/1414961522113_wps_1_Jamie_Dornan_Modeling_for.jpg) Ohhhh. (http://entertainment.ie/images_content/Outtakes-Dakota-Johnson.jpg)

So I've read all three books. They're not the best. Haven't seen the movie. So what did people think of that Twilight series? Or that other movie series that was based off of romance novels that totally appreciate women and don't objectify them in any way. Hey, Fifth Element! What? Your strong, female lead is actually a magic mcguffin? What? That's cray-cray!

[Arhra]

I am at a complete loss to explain how it even got published.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/16/50-shades-of-grey-speed-read-14-naughtiest-bits.html

(Not really safe for work)

This is not quality writing.

On the bright side, it gave us this:

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(Again, not really safe for work)

[Bard The 5th LW]

Shit gets published fairly often, so its not hugely surprising that its out there, its just the sheer popularity of it that baffling.

[Red Mage Black]

What is hilariously bad? These books, like Twilight and Fifty Shades, are published by... that's right! Women! So is most fan fiction at that. Who are their fans? Young adult women and usually bored and frustrated housewives. Most men find these books and movies abhorrent or downright ridiculous and are usually baffled by how women like this trash.

I highly doubt men, unless utterly psychopathic, are using these books as how-to manuals for how to treat women. It just looks to me like a bunch of women fantasizing and fetishing physical and emotional abuse and the circle of abuse mentality of 'I can change him'.

Wasn't there someone on this forum who said people sometimes fetishize stuff like in Fifty Shades as a coping mechanism for actual abuse they've suffered? It was that or rape/abuse play, something like that. I forget the exact words, but it was something like that.

I did read someone's review, at least someone who claimed to be from the hardcore bdsm community, that even since they signed a contract, it went beyond bdsm and straight into domestic abuse. I'd take that with a grain of salt though.

So, if what people here are saying is true, then the implication is that it's women glorifying objectification, domestic abuse and rape.

Addendum edit: Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the fact this stuff was published by women fall under the purview of "women expressing their sexuality"?

And only now that they made a movie of Fifty Shades they're just protesting it now?

[Kim]

There's already been at least one incident of some dude raping someone and using the book/film as a defense. That he was just acting out something from the book.

It's definitely rape and abuse in the story. There's a massive power imbalance in the relationship and it's clear the man will not respect safewords or saying "No" or anything like that. So, it's a story that fetishizes abuse and rape, written by a woman and primarily for women.

This has to be recognized in the context of a culture where it's very common for women to be raped or otherwise abused. And as much as the threat of strangers raping us is there, we are often far more at risk from the people we know.

And what's more, there are cultural notions that a lot of rape Isn't Really Rape. That it wasn't rape if someone took advantage of us while we were drunk. That it's not rape if we change our minds and wanna stop and the person fucking us doesn't. That it's not rape even if we say no so long as we're married. That it's not rape if we don't physically fight back.

So, we have to cope with a world that pretends a lot of rape and abuse is Normal Healthy Sexuality as well as coping with the rape and abuse we often experience that is recognized as such.

When you recognize that, there's a certain power in containing some of these things in fantasy. Because even a fantasy of nonconsent, where it is abusive and it is rape, leaves a way out (A healthy fantasy with a partner who respects and understands consent). We can still use our safeword and everything is safe and okay and we can be held and get all the aftercare we need.

However, it is important to see fantasies about these things for what they are. Fantasies about rape and abuse. And both the writer of 50 Shades and many in the audience unfamiliar with BDSM and all the consent stuff that's part of the BDSM community don't seem to recognize it for what it is, and that's what's dangerous.

Without that acknowledgement, it teaches unsafe BDSM. It teaches disrespect of consent. It teaches men that things they do to us aren't "really" rape and teaches women that things done to us aren't "really" rape. It's really dangerous.

(Also worth recognizing how rarely porn caters to women's sexuality and how we're pressured to repress our sexualities which could tie into why 50 Shades is as popular as it is)

So, while I think 50 Shades gets a lot of poorly thought out shit that criticizes it without recognizing that het male smut and porn also contribute really heavily to these problems, it's handling of things is dangerous even while it caters to fetishes that merit catering too.

tl;dr: shits complicated

[Red Mage Black]

That particular case with the man using Fifty Shades is an exception, not the rule. It still doesn't make it right. I'll also go so far as to state now that the 1 in 5 statistic is bogus and the studies that came up with it are also unreliable and contradict one another. Since you brought it up, I'll also provide my proof upon request. The numbers are far lower. Still bad, but not the crisis levels being driven through politics and the media.

I'd like to simply point out the reality of porn between men and women and why visual porn is more directed at men than women. It was actually a study done and explains it far better than I ever could in summary, but I can give it a shot and if you want the video, I'll link you by request.

First the simple answer: Men are more stimulated by visual depictions, such as pictures or videos. Breasts, butts, (forgot the third) and yes, even penises, which also explains straight male fixation with porn with transexual women. Yet the last mostly has to do with male competition. Of men comparing to one another. For homosexual men it might be the same or it might be just the attraction to other men.

The video I don't believe explains hentai, but it's a longer explanation with a lot of similarities to real life porn.

Women are more stimulated by fantasy and imagination, through such mediums as literature. Words create the image and fuel the imagination to play it out in their minds. You see, this is why smut books are so popular with women and why some women don't like visual porn.

So, does this mean that men can only get off to visual porn and women to fantasy literature? Absolutely not. Some men like smut stories and some women like images of handsome or gorgeous men. It sort of balances out. Yet most visual depictions of topless men in underwear or jeans ads are more appealing to homosexual men, which I think has already been addressed on this forum.

Anyway, its a bit more complicated than I explained it, but I hope I got this gist of it down for folks. So, like I said before, I'll link the video on human sexuality to anyone who requests it.

On the subject of objectification, some people like being objectified. It gives them a sort of power and agency of their own. From those regarded as sex symbols, to others as status symbols. Like any coins, there are two sides to it. A bad side is the obvious sexual slave market and the other involves children, likewise in both sex slave and porn markets. Snuff porn is also in with this lot, but I don't think I need to extrapolate on that one. Same with animals. From my experience on the net, that last one gets really weird. It verges on creepy pedophilia like behavior, to delusional people who think their animal can feel love the same way and reciprocate it with consent, to outright smut and snuff.

On the side of bdsm, only stupid or truly psychotic people practice it unsafely. Yet, there are also communities online that are rather helpful to newbies. Same as any fetish community, really. On that note, it feels easier to talk with people from those communities, oddly enough. Maybe because they're so open minded, I dunno.

Anyway, like everything Kim stated, its still all pretty complicated.

[Krylo]

That we live in a world where the messages contained in 50 Shades of Grey is something we need to discuss is ridiculous for two reasons.

The first being that, well, it should be obvious that it's rape fantasy, and particularly dark and 'awful' rape fantasy, at that, which has everything to do with rape fantasies and is barely tangential to BDSM fantasies.

The second being that it's just not very good. It's nothing about the content. The dialogue is terrible. The description is lacking. The whole thing is awful, from a purely 'writing ability' stance, and only got popular in the first place as kind of a joke.

Like, when people say it's hilariously bad they don't mean, like, morally or ethically. They mean it's just terrible terrible writing. It's disjointed. The dialogue is completely unnatural. Nothing flows. The description is lacking in the extreme. Even for fanfiction.net or literotica or anywhere else that people post stories with no editorial oversight (sexual or other), even for those places, it is lacking as an artistic work, all judgment of content aside.

It's just bad.

And this is where we get into a problem with media, and corporations, and etc. etc. being run, generally, by older people who don't really 'get' the internet.

They understand the internet enjoys grumpy cat, or did at one time anyway, but they don't get WHY. So they put Grumpy cat smiling at the end of a McDonald's commercial because that fucking makes sense.

And they saw that Fifty Shades was getting a lot of attention online, but they failed to notice it was ironic attention. People online were posting snippets of it because of how ludicrous and badly written it was. Comedians (professional and otherwise) were doing 'dramatic readings' of the lines to highlight how completely awful they are and we were laughing AT it. Not with it.

But for some reason corporate America stopped at 'well the internet likes it', and now we live in a world where a book where "Holy Cow!" is, unironically, interjected as a description--the only description--of a penis.

Where this: " 'When did you start your period, Anastasia?' . . . He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string – what?! – and gently takes my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck. Sweet mother of all . . . Jeez. And then he's inside me. . . ah!""

Is how sex is written. With all the description, realism, and writing ability of a teenage virgin writing out fantasies of how they think sex might go.

Where this book is not only published but has been adapted to a motion picture event and a combination of extremely lonely women who, I don't know, just don't realize there's better erotic fiction out there, whether you want kinks or not? A combination of a few of those, a lot of rubber neckers, and a bunch of people who got caught up in the hype that the corporate machine has spewed out to bring this. . . really badly written twilight fan fiction to the forefront of popular culture.

And it's sad.

To the people of the world who want erotic BDSM fiction, here: http://www.literotica.com/c/bdsm-stories

To the ones who want rape fiction for all the stuff Kim's talking about, here: http://www.literotica.com/c/non-consent-stories

You'll find much better written things there. You'll also find a lot of stuff on, like, the same page, but I mean. That's the internet for you.

You'll also find a lot more variety, and a lot of authors that deserve the 50 Shades treatment more than E. L. James.

[Kim]

I wanted to rep your post Krylo but the forum wouldn't let me, so I wanted to at least make sure you knew it deserved rep.

[Sweet]

I have a few links explaining issues with 50 Shades and breaking down both its massive issues and its inexplicable draw --

Laci Green on BDSM (and how 50 Shades got it wrong):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqNEAMLjC2Q

Laci Green on 50 Shades and Abuse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX1gwgbi6GE

For RMB, several more recent studies debunking the "men are visual" myth:
http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/sex-lies-men-myths-0217137
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-relationships/female-desire

And an entire book on the subject:
At Home with Pornography: Women, Sex, and Everyday Life

Laci also gives some awesome alternatives to 50 Shades that are better written. I've found a ton in my own happy little kinkster research (including porn, though to be honest none of that really has too much plot and I will not link here ever), so if anyone wants reading suggestions or recommendations, I am happy to help!

Also to spare anyone the horror of 50 Shades which made me want to laugh and cry at the same time and I didn't even make it through the whole slog. I put it down, walked away, and my "inner goddess" danced.

[Red Mage Black]

Ugh, Laci Green. Someone who also throws around the 1 in 4 or 5 statistic and completely dismisses any problems men have in this society. Not only that, but she had the gall to say women know more about masculinity than men. She's already a proven idiot. If I want sex advice, it won't be from a feminist. So I'll pass on her videos. She's another talking head using sexuality to sell her videos. Objectifying herself and claiming to be against objectification.

Back on track, they really don't debunk my claims. I even said as much that there are women who also get off to visual. Not all objectification is inherently bad either. Its what models use to sell women's fashion lines. By objectifying their own sexuality. This ties into that whole social thing they mention about men. Hell, social norms even stemmed from evolution, but this isn't the thread for this discussion so I'll leave it there, but its not always just taught. Sometimes people just really like what they see.

The other thing from the first article. She'd have to be talking about conservatives because almost nobody complains about female sexuality anymore.

Video I was talking about:
Ideacity 2012 - Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam (Http://youtube.com/watch?v=sPJQbB2o8Es)
Note: I'm not very appreciative of a certain category of porn he uses, but I hope it is the best case that he is simply using it to the terminology the porn industry uses it.

[Kim]

If you can't bother to watch Sweet's videos, I don't see why anybody should bother to watch yours.

P.S.: Sexualizing and objectifying are different things and you would do well to educate yourself on the difference between them before commenting on them and criticizing someone based on them.

[Arhra]

Woah now people, you're all getting sidetracked and argumentative. Time to talk about the real issue again. I'm going to toss my hat into this link rodeo and talk about how romance should be written.

http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/romance-week-1-create-unlikely-pairing.html
http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/romance-week-2-make-their-love.html
http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/romance-week-3-create-artificial.html
http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/romance-week-4-convey-sensuality.html
http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/romance-week-5-force-happy-ending.html

Well, OK, maybe I'm not going to talk much. You're welcome.

[phil_]

... her delicate and mysterious hoo-ha. Just thinking the word gave her a thrill. It had an earthy sensuality to it, a deep and primal power that spoke to the very fabric of her nature. Hoo-ha. She trembled silently. Hoo-ha.Everyone really should read these links.

[Marc v4.0]

Everyone really should read these links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9kQBz9azy8

[Arhra]

Everyone really should read these links.
I would have just linked the hoo-ha one, but decided the bearded lady references might be confusing out of context.

[Nique]

'oh joy sex toy' had a blog post comparing the much loved 'Secretary' to '50 Shades' unfavorably in terms of how problematic it is.

Although Secretary is clearly of higher quality, it may be dus some of the same criticism. But also, a lot of people find these films enjoyable and, well, they can do that.

Like Kim said. Shits complicated. I was writing off 50 Shades along with everyone else until I realized I was being kind of shifty to people who enjoyed it. Doesn't mean I can't critisize what's bad about it though.

[Seil]

I enjoy aspects of BDSM, however I believe that Ana's relationship with Christian was unhealthy. I believe that the writing wasn't good. I have a bias against the book because it is the second piece of romantic literature that has kicked off in recent years (the other being Twilight), and it was a fanfiction based off of Twilight. (Taking issue with original content there, not Twilight itself.)

Though there's that image making the rounds on Facebook now; 50 Shades of Gray is romantic as long as he's rich. If Christian Gray lived in a trailer, it would be Law & Order.

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