Unlike my Mother, I am not a radical feminist. Yes, I count myself as one, but I am nothing close to her standards. At age 11, she told me to take off an anklet that I was wearing because she told me that years ago, women wore anklets as a sign that they belonged to men. She gave me a bollocking about sex when I was 14. I never took after my Mother that way, until now.
Fifty Shades of Grey is a book about a young student, Anastasia Steele ('a Mills and Boone name if ever I heard one' - said my friend) who briefly meets a mysterious man for all of twenty minutes and cannot stop thinking about him thereafter. Of course, they end up having passionate and explicitly described sex and Steele falls for him, can't live without him, cries when she leaves him etc. I read the book. I couldn't put it down, but it wasn't because I thought it was well written, in fact, as a writer myself and speaking for other writers everywhere, it's offensively badly written. I couldn't put it down because I was so fervently shocked by how a woman could have written this if she had any sense of 'sisterhood' at all.
The book itself, being described as 'mummy porn' by millions, is no more than a romance novel, granted. But I'm not joking when I say that everyone, and I mean every woman I know is reading it, amazed at it's sauciness and most of them are enjoying it. I have no qualms with women who like to be dominated - it's all down to taste at the end of the day (all God's children). The thing that really bugs me about this book is the absolute desperation in the voice of the female character. It isn't exactly setting an example for the rest of womankind.
In one section of the book, the main character, or Ana, who believes that she can no longer continue her 'relationship' with Christian, drives away, her 'chest constricts', her 'tears start to fall', she 'chokes back a sob'. Christian wanted her, but she she needs more. The line 'I need him to want me like I want and need him' says it all. This book is all about the women needing a man to survive; apart from the very er, shall we say, cutting edge sex scenes, this book is completely backwards in terms of not only masculinity, but also feminism.
I don't want to sound like a bitter old hag. I'm not, I'm twenty years old - this is my point exactly. If the book is enough to shock me, then it should be enough to shock everyone else too. The fact is that this is the noughties, and although E L James might have her own little fantasy, we shouldn't be encouraging this sort of 'world without men is nothing' ideal. I'd also like to add that the fact that James is an English author shows greatly - I knew Americans don't use the word 'leggy'.
The fact is that this book is Twilight (badly written, big advance, HUGE returns) with a few, sorry, a hell of a lot of explicit sex scenes, which yes, are fun to read and, yes, this book is enjoyable trash in most places, but it's also damaging. I've made a conscious decision to throw it out.
Jessie x
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