50 shades of mommy porn bullshit

A few people were talking about this in the upcoming movies thread

The books are unmitigated dogshit, the movie trailer looks just as fucking bad. It's bad twilight fanfic and an awful representation of BDSM.

Focus: All of us identify as something. A gamer, a hunter, a black person, whatever. We've all got a thing we identify as - broad or narrow. Perverts are basically my people in my head. Who are your people? Do you hate how they're portrayed, or do you fall to your knees in front of the television and pray for them to have not fucked up again?

Alt Focus: Make fun of 50 shades and discuss how this abomination made turned a talentless woman with wrinkly fingers from a mid level TV studio drone to JK Rowling for middle aged women.

 

I have a problem with 50 Shades on two main fronts.

1) The first, as elucidated by Scootah, is that it's a horrible representation of BDSM in the wider public. The book is not an accurate representation of BDSM, it's a rape fantasy. At points in the story he explicitly violates the safe word, which is straight up rape. It's really bad news that a ton of people are getting their initial impression of BDSM, or what BDSM is "supposed" to be like, from a book that portrays it as the emotionally abused raping the vulnerable.

2) The second, and much less discussed aspect, is its portrayal of and objectification of men. Because of point 1 there has been a lot of focus on how the series is bad for women, and contains misogynist over and undertones, and that's a valid criticism, but at the end of the day it's still a book written by a woman, for women, being devoured en masse by women. There's something more at play than just misogyny. Now when I say objectification, I don't mean Jezebel style "any appreciation of physical attractiveness is objectification," I mean that Christian Grey is not a person, he is a thing. A quick google search reveals that he is:

- A trained pilot (both helicopter and glider)
- A virtuoso piano player
- Multilingual
- CEO of a multi billion dollar company he founded himself
- In peak physical condition as a result of copious running and kickboxing
- All of 27 years old

Horseshit.

Do you know how many self made billionaires under 30 there have ever been? It's basically the Facebook guys and that's about it. And even they, the most financially successful individuals that lack of exercise and sunlight could produce, are not as wealthy as Grey.

This is not a person, it is a collection of (exceedingly shallow) traits that women find attractive, rolled into one astoundingly unrealistic frankenstein for them to masturbate over. And just like the books tell young women that rape is ok if he's hot, it also tells them that this is what a man is: an amalgamation of things that represent power.

 

Alt-Focus

The book is a testament that stupid readers outnumber smart ones. Why a book so unbelievably awful would get published just means that art strictly has a cash value and nothing else. The book is garbage. It's--literally-- dressed up Twilight fan fiction written by a woman who has absolutely no clue what the hell she's talking about. It's just rape fantasy penned at a Dr. Suess level of intelligence, from a woman who played Adam Sandler's twin sister in Jack & Jill. I cannot fathom how many sharper, more intelligent would-be writers must be pissed off that something so intelligence-insulting could get published in the first place.

Can't people clue into the fact HOW stupid this story is over the fact they've cast nobodies in the lead? The DaVinci Code was a not-so-smart book but at least it had star power when they filmed it (even that couldn't save it). So what's going to happen is much like a rom-com where "owned" men are going to get forced to go see this with their other halves, and afterwards the question will be ask "So... Why can't you have that sort of kinky, forced passion with me???" and he'll reply "Because it's fucking RAPE that's why, not BDSM. Try leaving the house once a year."

Harlequin romance novels don't get adapted to film for a reason, and this book is just as bad, if not worse. It's going to make women look like idiots just like Twilight did for teenagers because its aimed at them specifically, and its not fair to females who aren't idiots that refused to buy into this garbage.

It doesn't matter how much money it makes-- nothing can change the fact that IT'S CRAP. As stated above: you violate the safe word, you're a rapist. Remind me again how real-life society views rape again?

 

Have you guys actually read these books, or are you making these complains based on what someone else told you? I'm not asking this question in a bitchy or accusatory tone, I am genuinely interested in the number of people here who read the book and hated it. I think it's important to experience a form of media before one shits all over it.

That said, I have read all 3 of these books because I wanted to see what the fuss was about with the first one, and then the story sucked me in. I'm not going to apologize for my interest in the books, but the people who hate them have a very good point. I found the "BDSM sections" of the story effective if you are into rape fantasies. There is nothing consensual about the sex in these books and it sends the wrong message to women about what to look for in a man. I'm not sure if men would ever read these books, but if they do it also sends the wrong message to them about what is consensual sex.

 

I've read the books and thought they were absolute garbage. The sex scenes were trite and I honestly just found the whole series to be very poorly written. I read it while on vacation, thinking three books would last me the week - I skimmed through the entire series in less than a day because I just wanted it to be over.

I've dabbled in writing erotica. I'm not a pro by any means, but the stuff I write is leaps and bounds above 50 Shades.

 

Focus: I began following football, specifically the Seahawks, at the ripe old age of 10. That was the year they went 2-14 and somehow, Cortez Kennedy won Defensive Player of the Year. When Seahawks fans are portrayed as a lynch mob in a fucking headphone commercial, I get irritated. It doesn't help that there are fans that would do shit like that, but there are idiots in every fan base. Now that Richard Sherman has turned into Deion Sanders 2.0 and Russell Wilson is doing national ad campaigns, the entire fan base is seen as a bunch of extremely loud bandwagoners. Never mind the fact that CenturyLink Field has been 99% sold out since 2001 when it first opened.

Alt-Focus: I'm a little surprised at women's reactions to a character like Grey. Granted, I've never read the books and will never see the movie, but it's my understanding that he's Patrick Bateman with less murder and more stalking. Are women that bored? Obviously, there is some kind of button being pushed to make this kind of a connection with this wide of an audience.

 

I haven't read FSoG, but Cliff Pervocracy's doing a chapter-by-chapter review, and going by that it looks like the book's pretty fucking awful; both from a BDSM perspective and a literature perspective. One thought that sticks into my head, though, is what if the entire book/series was satire? That it was intentionally written poorly to make fun of Twilight, and if Ana was written intentionally stupid and Christian intentionally stalker-abusive just to mock Bella & Edward? I'm sure E. L. James is playing it completely straight, but the potential for satire seems there.

Focus: I'm a gamer nerd, but frankly so many other gamer nerds disgust me that I refuse to participate in the culture. Every time I've tried going to a convention it was a complete failure; I don't give a crap about panels, so much of the humor the culture considers funny is garbage, and there's enough sexism & misogyny within the culture to make a frat house look like a Feminist hotbed. It's just a complete and utter embarrassment all around.

 

The women I've found to be into these books are mid 30's to mid 40's housewives whose dunderhead husbands have given them nothing more than 4 minutes of missionary sex at a time. I've heard these women talk about getting fucked from behind like it's extremely risque. I've seen a few younger women in their twenties raving about it on Facebook, but I've noticed that none of them are under 300 pounds, which may or may not have something to do with it.
I'm no scootah, but I am dominant in the sack and do enjoy rough sex. That being said, two fwb's of mine have read the books and thought they were really fucking stupid.

 

My girlfriend was reading the books and that got me curious so I read them. I can see how it could become so big. Don't take that as me saying it was a good piece if literary work. It's a simple poorly written porn targeted at women. It's a quick easy way for a woman to get away and slip into a world where you're a young, innocent, beautiful girl and the world is full of possibility. Everything someone reads doesn't need to be a great classic. Every movie someone watches doesn't need to be award winning. Every item in that story doesn't need to be 100% accurate. To me there is nothing wrong with wanting to get away in a simple story where you don't have to put too much effort into it.

 

I read the first two books - mainly because I wanted to see what the hype was all about and my neighbor had them so I borrowed and read them. My biggest issue with the story was that you have this girl who is an inexperienced virgin (very little to no experience), yet she magically knows how to give an amazing blow job to the "sex professional" character? Plus she had mind blowing multiple orgasms on her first time. Really!? Along with the other points people have made here, I just found it beyond unrealistic so it made it difficult to enjoy it as the "fantasy" it was written to be.

 

That's just the thing, though - like you said, BDSM and BDSM literature has been around for a long time. So why does FSoG all of the sudden get all the attention? Perhaps it's elitism, but I think that's why a lot of people are bothered by it - that of all the trashy romance/smut novels that have been around for forever, FSoG becomes the thing.

On the other hand, to quote something someone once said about shitty erotica, "Funny thing about erotica: it doesn't have to be well written to get you off. It just has to press your buttons." So I suppose there's that.

 

I think the reason this hit mainstream is that for the whitest of white bread folks, alternative sexuality has been shoved into the mainstream in ways that they find uncomfortable. For the "missionary with the lights-off" crowd, all of the sudden people's bizness has been front-page news and not in the scandalized form they approve of. It's hard to turn on the tv and NOT see something sexual these days, even if it is as tame as an update on LGBT rights. These are people who are aghast at having to explain terms like LGBT/BDSM to their kids and are outraged easily. Their outrage is now irrelevant and not effective at censoring the mainstream discussion (and perspectives) on sexuality. Thus, they have been confronted with sexuality and for the first time in history, can explore it anonymously through the internet. This crowd is the "mommy who worships Oprah" and came to the internet later in life.

They are now seeing the positive side of this via the socially-acceptable dabbling into sexual fantasy. Doing it in literary form is acceptable and as previously mentioned utterly safe, and FSoG is one form that panders to a fantasy the hardest. It's low-quality art because it panders to this fantasy so....fucking...hard.

 

Most of them do, they just haven't realized it yet.

 

Watch much snuff porn before you decided you weren't a fan? Videos of people beating dogs? I'm just saying, some things I don't need to watch to realize that I'm not going to be a fan.

When 50 shades first hit cultural awareness for kinksters, I went and got a copy, I knew it was going to be crap but I figured I'd brush up on the details, practice my smouldering look and carve a swathe through the incoming tidal wave of cougars and milfs at fetish clubs. I got less than 100 pages through before I hit a wall for just dreadful writing. Before the abusive, misandry tirade of awfulness, the writing would get red dotted into oblivion if it was a forum post around here, just for violating the english language and inflicting gross indecencies on the fine art of grammar. I have no idea how that book ever got over a fucking editors desk, or how her screen writer husband shows his face in the writers room afterward.

After my migraine from the god awful writing subsided, I went and found best of quotes on the internet, cherry picked by fans as the best examples of literary talent and wordcraft, which read like they were written by a 6 year old with a learning disorder (and an inappropriate uncle). I found the synopsis of the plot written by horny cougars recommending the book and assumed it was a lie because who would write crap that stupid. I skimmed the "My inner goddess" and "down there" laden crap enough to confirm that they were in fact accurate and I felt myself get dumber with ever paragraph.

I also read the first twilight book, and then followed the same vague approach for the followups to determine that it was a work without literary merit and that the portrayal of the female lead as an invisible shell who engages in an abusive relationship with a pedophile and then rampantly self harms and behaves like a severely maladapted stalker probably wasn't going to do it for me as recreational reading.

fundamentally, the difference between BDSM and rape/sex-torture is the informed consent of the parties involved. 50 shades glorifies ignoring the female protagonists consent and using her ignorance both as a point of attraction, and as a means of levering her into situation to which she did not consent. That shit is straight up the difference between some freaky shit with a partner, and being a predator.

Rape culture in mass media is gloriously fucked up, 50 shades is mostly enraging to me because a lot of people are taking it as a guide to reality. When you read The Story of O or Beauty Unchained or The Marketplace - it's clearly not a model for a real relationship unless you're a fucking whacko. The story behind The Secretary or 9 1/2 weeks is also about gloriously fucked up people and that's really obvious when you read them. Venus in Furs or The Marquis De Sade's works are all also generally not resonant with people as things to go and try next date night. But 50 shades portrays this fucked up abomination of a relationship in a happily ever after sort of way. It seems from the writing like it could be a guide to how shit is done and there have been a number of court cases to date of people doing shit they read about in 50 shades and having it go wrong. Fuck knows how much more hasn't hit the news.

Slave and Master dynamics when you include ethnic groups is always a fucking challenge. There's a huge objectification of black men in terrible porn already, and on sites like Fetlife - you'll see a lot of conversations talking about the problem that is the objectification of african american men as just 'big black cocks'. I'm told that conversation happens in a serious tone in other places, but fucked if I can find them - but assuming you're not busy bashing one out at the thought, most dudes object to being reduced down to their cock, the same way women object to being reduced down to their tits when it actually happens in real life. I'm sure the racist element would have been out in arms about dominant black men in pornography, but if you wanted to see real rage, have the female protagonist as a woman of color (who isn't Asian) being submissive to a white dude. Even porn producing studios that specialize in extreme BDSM porn are wary of touching that topic.

Since the seahawks drafted Jesse Williams last Season, and since he and I have mutual friends in Real Life and he played on state teams with my little brother, I'm kind of a fan by default now just because I don't really care about any of the other teams. I'll get more interested if he actually steps on field this season.

Remember that it's twilight fan fic, these characters are essentialy edward and bella, renamed to avoid copywrite infringement lawsuits when she started selling copies of this crap. He is meant to be an impossible, immortal fantasy of a man while she's meant to be an empty shell that every woman can insert her own identity into and live vicariously through. There's also huge appeal in the kind of direct, personal lust that Grey has for her, he wants her to the point of being a psycho about it. A few years in a mediocre marriage where sex is about him having an erection and her being the hole he's allowed to put it in makes that seem romantic instead of creepy.

I go to men only and pansexual kink events. The most fucked up and dark shit I've seen talked about online? totally from dudes. The most fucked up and dark shit I've seen in the real world? Conceptualized and suggested by a girl every single time. Done by a girl almost every time. Trust me, women pursue their fantasies if anything more vigorously than men. Men tend to in be more vocal about unmet fantasies - but for every dude who imagines fucking two women? There's a woman who imagines being air tight. There's a view of men being the weirdos who come up with the really exotic weird kink shit? Absolutely not my experience - the stuff that I watch open mouthed going 'what fucked up weirdo came up with this shit?" Overwhelmingly it was a girl's idea.

Online BDSM types tend to talk a lot about long duration BDSM houses and secret BDSM societies. But honestly? in the vast and overwhelming majority, BDSM prior to the 1970's was abuse of power and domestic violence or if you go back a bit further, slave ownership/aristocratic privilege. Marquis De Sade is much closer to a serial rapist than what you'd find in any kind of modern kink venue. It's also important to note that in the 70's and 80's the leather scene that spawned what a lot of people talk about as the 'old guard' and the rigidly tradition oriented BDSM societies that internet dwellers babble on about were for all effects exclusively for homosexual men. Anyone who claims to be a straight dude, or a woman who was involved in the old guard or public kink scene in those decades is almost certainly full of shit. There are a few exceptions - but they're insanely fucking rare.

For some people, super amazing orgasms are an easy thing. It's a genetic lottery and I've had to explain to winners of that lottery before that if they keep gloating about it, they'll get the shit kicked out of them by angry women who struggle with orgasms and hate them. But blowjobs? Fuck genetics, that shit is a learned skill. If you get an amazing blowjob from someone? It's because they've had practice. Dating girls who've sucked dick for a living makes this incredibly clear. Some people might have a genetic advantage - but for truly great blow jobs? Experience wins every time.

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I almost missed this. Japanese rope bondage (Kinbaku/shibari) is INSANELY popular at the moment in the kink scene, and the lines, literal fucking lines of hot nubile college girls who want to be tied up in aesthetically pleasing rope are unbelievable. Just fucking unbelievable. You have no idea how many insanely hot girls will contort themselves into human pretzels to look like the pretty tied up girls from tumblr porn. Or the depraved shit they'll also be up for if you know how to tie them up like that.

Here's a couple of my rope bondage photos that I have standing permission to repost - for the most part I don't bother with photos, and the other ones I do have, I'd need permission to repost - Tumblr is jam packed with rope bondage porn though and it's nuts.

NSFW