Fifty Shades

[neveravictim]

I know this has been talked about alot but just wanted some advice. As a victim of rape the idea of submissive sex makes me feel very uncomfortable but all my friends are reading this. So do you think it is a book I should read too. Is t really about women's empowerment? Have nc btw. Thank you x

Yellow - spot on! It sounds so normative and of the status quo, yet women are lapping it up.

'venus in furs' written in the 1800's by count leopold sacher masoc ( where we get the term masocist from) gave us severin, the first known male sub, appalingly abused by his flame-haired misstress, but i'm sure even now there will be many men who would pay good money to be abused by rebbecca brooks

I 'get' BDSM in as much as it turns me on. I don't think it's at all healthy though. It's fetishised sexual violence. It must be bloody awful at the moment for victims of rape and abuse with all this 50 shades of shit in their face all the time. If you can, OP I think you should tell your friends to have some sensitivity. You won't be the only one who's being triggered by this.

this is good on male subs:

When a woman is a ?domme?, she is still serving men. As Sheila Jeffreys points out in Beauty and Misogyny, male masochistic fantasies involving women are based on the amusing pretense that the power dynamic has shifted, an erotic pretense, which of course could not exist without the actual subordination of women in real life. When a man pays a prostitute to ?subordinate? him, it is clear where the real power lies. Jeffreys makes the point that a person with true power out there in the world would not need to spend her time dealing with the bodily fluids of men in exchange for cash. Whether she is a prostituted or a voluntary domme, outside of the BDSM scene nothing has altered: the man?s place in society is set in stone.

Male subs appear to be acutely aware of this fact, whereas women in the BDSM scene come across as being surprisingly ignorant of the true nature of male masochism. They seem to fall for the notion that they are powerful, when in fact their role is to cater to male sexuality. The female domme?s enjoyment is neither here nor there. If she enjoys it, all the better. If he can?t find a woman who enjoys it, well that?s what prostitutes are for.

Why have the become so popular? They're so badly written and BDSM seems like such a niche market.

I think BDSM can be healthy if you're happy in yourself. It's a difficult one though.

Not all female dommes are prostitutes, though, Pubes. And a lot of them do enjoy and are dommes to other women, not just men.

And really, that argument could be applied to anything. A man can do the dishes, but men are still in charge. A man can go and be a nursery nurse but men are still in charge.

That doesn't mean those things shouldn't happen.

Those things don't involve sexual violence though.

As the article says, it's neither here nor there whether the domme is being paid or not. I also don't think it really matters the sex of either the sub or the dom, it's the reenactment of something incredibly ugly that happens for real, without consent, to an awful lot of women.

I understand this is a touchy subject. Criticism of consensual sexual practices always is. I don't believe it should be off limits because of that though.

I do see what you mean, completely. And I also agree that the sex of the sub/dom doesn't matter.

I don't agree that it is a reenactment of rape any more than vanilla sex is though. It's often referred to as "playing" by people in the BDSM community and I guess that's what it feels like for many - sex with extra bells and whistles.

I'm glad that we can discuss this, even though, as you say, it's touchy, without getting pissed at each other.

Yes, I know what it feels like /

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and I find it a bit worrying that BDSM seems to becoming more mainstream. I have no problem with people wanting to do it, I just wonder if some are doing it while not being into it but being coerced.

It used to be a very niche thing, with a lot of older people: now I wonder if a lot of people are going to clubs just because it's a sex thing and ending up doing stuff that they don't really want to do.

I think 50 Shades of Shit might feed into that. And that would be horrible.

It's dreadful.
I didn't finish it and what I did read was exceptionally badly written, and not worth my time.
I have read the Twilight books, and while I think they were lightweight nonsense, albeit with a bad message for young impressionable girls, they weren't nearly as poorly written.

I was discussing it with a friend, and she directed me to this site:
Someone blogging about how bad it is
I've read what she (the blogger) has written so far. It does not inspire me to read the remainder of 50 SOG.
The characterisation is awful, the language is poorly used, and while I dont know anything about the BDSM scene, I don't think the writer does either.

And if you are a rape survivior, I definitely wouldn't read it. The whole book seems to be Ana saying no and the delightful Christian ignoring everything she says. It just made me mad.

It's crept into mainstream porn too, and whereas the BDSM scene is fairly evenly split in terms of male/female sub/dom, suddenly it's nearly all male dom / female sub. This is where our young people are learning about sexuality. I have no doubt that 50 shades will be read by a lot of young girls, too. It's very worrying.

The bizzybiz blog that Melty linked too is great, especially because it is written by someone (seemingly) knowledgeable about BDSM who debunks a lot of the utter crap in 50 Shades. I am resolutely avoiding, although I do find myself having that feeling that I need to read it in order to fully appreciate its awfulness

DO NOT read it!

Someone bought me it for my birthday and swore it wasthe best book in history. It's absolute shite, not only does it make every feminist bone in my body weep, it's really badly written.

being abused, tourtured, humiliated is of course detrimental to the victim. except within the realms of BDSM where the victim activly desires the treatment from someone they trust.

pubes, yes the domme is actually performing a service for the mans sexual gratification, but then so in the dom, for the female subs pleasure, sorry, you cant have it both ways.

lots of women have submissive compulsions , and i have tried to study what types of women and what sort of experiences they might have had to bring them to BDSM. i had some ideas before i started, mabye many proffessional women and business women would like to give up responsability and domminance as a fantasy as escapism? maybe some women were simply weak and desired it? maybe some had a guilt complex and felt they needed to be punished? but my onofficial conclusion is it can be anyone , i know a lecurer at utrect university, a business woman from birmingham , a farmers daughter in kansas and a check-out girl from london, and i could go on. all are subs, all are comfortable with their compulsions and none of them would say their fantasys made them less strong or able to deal with day to day life.

whats for sure is, no amount of philosophy will stop these women from seeking out the treatment they desire.

Are those official studies you are making, TCM ?

Can we look forward to them being published, to enhance all our knowledge about this topic ?

That certainly sounds like a noble and selfless act you are making for the good of us all

quite onofficial observations

but why the sarcasm? does it offend you?

People like all sorts of things that are bad for them and for others. I don't exclude myself in that.

What sort of experiences have you had that make you get off on hurting women? That would be an interesting study.

Absolutely love that blog link, giggling away to myself... but WRT the actual 50 Shades of Shit: It's awful. Don't waste your money. It's another of these shitheap books that are liked by the sort of idiots who haven't read a book since they were 10.

If you want to read erotic fiction there's much better stuff out there. And if you want to consider BDSM from a feminist point of view you could have a look at Bitchy Jones - that link is safe btw as it goes to the Wikipedia entry on the blog rather than the blog itself.

It's crept into mainstream porn too, and whereas the BDSM scene is fairly evenly split in terms of male/female sub/dom, suddenly it's nearly all male dom / female sub.

In this age of Internet pornography, what do you mean by mainstream porn please?

Ooh that blog is awesome and she is a fan of Mark Reads Twilight which I ADORE. I'm finding so many good blogs today

TCM - ew. That's kind of on a par with saying lesbianism is caused by breastfeeding. ie, totally unsubstantiated and ridiculous.

That link of trills to that blog has made my day. What an absolute crock of shit that book is (admittedly I only read a few pages of it standing up in Tesco).

Fair enough grown dullards women liking it, but I am a bit apprehensive that kids my daughter's age would read this as one step up/down from the Twilight nonsense.

Mind you I read Shirley Conran's Lace when I was 12 and have managed to get through adulthood without having a goldfish up my chuff, so who knows.

But I really dislike this and Twilight having an abusive and controlling relationship at its centre all dressed up as something thrilling and wonderful.

Had a nasty choking incident on reading "And how about the eyes ? are they just rolling around loose on the floor, or what?"

Someone at work assured me I should read 50 Shades, she was sure I'd love it. Clearly she doesn't know me very well.

The bit at the end with 'oh come on' and the picture of Jesus made me roar.

SGB, I followed the link through to the blog. I feel like I learnt a lot about what she doesn't like about BDSM and a lot of that is for feminist reasons. It's an entertaining blog and I found myself nodding along. Some of her criticisms seem to be the same as some of those on the radfem blog I linked to earlier.

What I couldn't find anywhere was any sort of analysis of why somebody might enjoy dominating, hurting and humiliating somebody else for sexual pleasure, or why somebody might enjoy being the one who is dominated, hurt or humiliated. That seemed to be just assumed as a given. I couldn't find any discussion of what BDSM might mean in a world where one half of the species dominating the other half is just normal. It looks like she's removed a lot of stuff from the blog though, or maybe I missed it if it's there.