To think that the fact that 50 SOG is so popular is a bad reflection on women or at least the woman who like it?

[Jiggleballs123]

I've read all 3 of the books and they are awful or so many reasons which I think most of us here agree. I bought the books thinking it was going to be about a sub dom relationship and wanted to read some porn.

But what really bothers me is that so many women are swooning over Mr Grey. He is their 'fantasy man'. The amount of times I've sene facebook posts about 'going to curl up in bed with Mr Grey'.

To me he's an abusive partner with mental health problems. I realised this when he told Ana he likes to spank women (or in his words beat the shit out of them) because they remind him of his neglectful birth mother. Yet she still continues to allow him to 'punish' her. The abuse continues throughout all three of the books and ends with her somehow managing to 'change' him ans they all live happily ever after.

Is this really every womans fantasy, take a rich, controlling abusive, abused lost soul and change him?

The books are shite. I worry that they would make an impressionable young girl think it was ok to take on a relationship like this. Already today, too many young girls think it is ok to be physically abused by their boyfriends.

I didn't find it titillating or erotic. I wanted to punch Ana every time she said Holy Shit or Holy Crap...

I read all three and giggled throughout them.

DD 14 said today mum was is this book everybody is reading I said oh i dont think you should bother readng it , I had enough bother trying to explain that Edward Cullen was a crazy stalker and Bella was a right drip for going anywhere near him

i admit i have only ever read Harry Potter and atm i am addicted to 50 SOG, i am very shy when i comes to sex (even writing that i am blushing) but i have now found a gendre i like reading.

I have now ordered Lady Chatterley?s Lover by DH Lawrence due to its good reviews and i hope i finally found a passion for reading something other than take a break, thats life and chat magazines

Well thats something McHappy :) I did think the same, i have friends ad family who just never read. This has got them reading. OK so its not classic literature, but well we all have to start somewhere! Maybe Lady Chatterly's lover might be a bit of a disappointment though as its heavy going and just got me all wound up over class issues . Read "Gordon", its very sexy and certainly doesn't depict the "dom" as a hero!

who is the author, i will order that too.

as a child i was never encourage to read, when the hype started i got sucked in and i am glad i did.

McHappy I think it's fine if you enjoy the books, which is probably a bit of a contradiction to the title of my op. If it spices up your sex life for a bit. I bought the books as I love reading erotica especially sub / dom dynamics. I usually read short stories on the net though for my fix.

Wasn't what I expected though and just left me thinking that the author hs totally missed the point, not a healthy relationship which is fine but not when it's being portrayed as romance of the year. And of course it's bound to get into the hands of teenage girls. Author seemed to get dominance and abuse mixed up.

Fantasy isnt my thing. I'd rather have a real man than one on pages. 50 Shades of Garbage. Such a top seller that sainsburys have it from 9.99 to 3.99. & thats all 3 books. Big seller eh.

McHappy try Diary of a Manhattan call girl by Tracy Quan.

i will do :)

I have to say that 50 SOG was so shit that I just couldn't persevere past about a 3rd of it. I certainly could not have managed all 3!

I read all 3. I'm still not entirely sure what Ana sees in him.

I read the Mumsnet version first though and was when I read "kinky fuckery" in the book - I thought someone here had made that up

afternoon a friend of mine sent me a copy of this, she wrote "enjoy the kinky fuckery" and i coudlnt help but wonder if she is a mnetter! Oh and for the record, my friend is young, sexy, intelligent and newly married so missmiss that rains on your theory.

I am glad too McHappy :) I love reading and get so much from it. I do prefer something a bit more meaty than 50 shades of shite. It really depends what you like. I normally hate chic lit myself and prefer mysteries and spooky stuff. Used to like horror but since having children i can't go there!

Not actually read it, and to be honest not going to read it either as I'm seriously stuck into the Game Of Thrones series of brick thick doorstop books which should do me nicely all summer ... Also Jon Snow is unassailable fantasy-shag fodder so I'm not about to confuse my inner slut with some spanky-panky malarky!

YANBU. I've been in a D/s relationship and it was NOTHING like this book portrays it! I've not even finished the book yet (By God I'm trying) and already I can see that Grey is an abusive wanker.

I couldn't read them, for exactly the same reasons I couldn't bring myself to read the Twilight books. The fact that they are Twilight fanfiction just makes me despair!

In my early twenties, when I was more inclined to kinky ways, I read the Story of O. Even that, which the BDSM community held up as the tour de force of master/slave, dom/sub love story, irritated me.

But I don't know what irritates me more - this awful scenario when a book starts trending inexplicably, despite it's obviously shit contribution to anything (the Davinci Code - just so, so badly written!) or when a book starts trending that has very dubious messages in it - Twilight, Bridget Jones's Diary etc

I rather liked Bridget Jones, I don't think she's any more of an insult to thirty-something single women than Bertie Wooster is to terminally thick posh blokes ... it's humour, not social commentary.

Mind you, you're bang on with Twilight!

True Feckless...but how many men say they identify with Bertie, and to add - like it's a good thing? I worked in a cinema when the film came out, and I wanted to shoot myself from the sheer volume of women leaving the screening saying "Oh god that's just so me!"

And BJD perpetuates the age old damaging lie that we're all just sat around waiting for our prince. Yes on a very superficial level it's just a bit of fun, but an awful lot of women seemed to proudly identify with it and in the end it was just depressing.

Quite annoyed that you gave the ending away.

I chose to read them to see what the hype was all about, and my original view was that I couldn't critise something I haven't read.

Yes, they are badly written (although I will admit to loving the quips about the internal goddess), but surely anything that makes people who normally wouldn't read, pick up a book and enjoy it, is a good thing? Maybe they'll go on to read more and better written books.

And maybe, just maybe, it is a bit of sexual escapism, don't judge them just because they're more vanilla than you might be. If it gets people to be a bit more open and adventurous in their own bedroom with their partners - where is the harm in that?

And finally it's fiction - you know as in not real, why is everyone taking this so seriously, it's a story. There is plenty of horrors, thrillers, and [gasp] books where children are brutally murdered and beaten, you don't see people getting up in arms about that.

If you don't like it fine, but don't ruin it for those that do, and no one held a gun to your head and forced you to read it.

I don't get all the complaints about grey being abusive. I only made it halfway through the second book (got too dull and I gave up on expecting any interesting sex) but he seemed completely wet (and not in a sexual way) in the second book. He only hits her properly once, when she asks him to. She doesn't like it and he never does it again.

Wow, so dictating to your girlfriend what they wear, when and what they eat, who they speak to isn't abusive? Having jealous mood swings when she speaks to friends, goes to work, turning up unexpectedly at all times of the day and night to check up on your girlfriend isn't abusive. Forcing her to sell her beloved classic car, isolating her from friends but then running to have intimate moments with ex girlfriends yourself. If all that's not abusive then I don't know what is.

If you actually read on there is more plus the Ana character in the book expresses real fear of Christian and his moods and temper.

I have no problem with fiction I'm not saying everyting has to be fluffy and lovely. The problem I have with this book is an abusive relationship being disguised as romance and that you can 'change a man' I think it's a bad message and too many women like yourself are missing the point.

jingle after reading what you have just said I know i don't want to read it

Oh come on Mrsjay, he may be a sociopath and narcissist but he gives good orgasms? Surely that's got to be worth it no?

He must be good she was a virgin and then had three orgasms in one night with no clitoral stimulation.

Made me wonder if the author has ever actually had sex or just read about it.

I just thought it was shite to be honest.

A frient lent me all 3, I got half way through the 1st one and gave it up as a bad job