[ SECRET POST #2137 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2137 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #305.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Oh damn, he's a rapist too? Never read the books, but I'm aware of some women I know proclaiming him to be their "dream guy," so this disturbs me. What does he do, exactly?

[(Anonymous)]

I've never read the books, but according to my friend, who has and was greatly disturbed, I'm like 75% sure he a) doesn't explain safewords right off the bat and b) ignores her when she does safeword. I'm also about 90% sure that she wants to safeword several times but convinces herself not to because she doesn't want to be "weak" or some such idiocy, and I know for a fact that he has this contract she's supposed to sign, and she never does, even though he does basically everything to her that's in it.

All of that adds up to a guy I wouldn't want to let near me with a box of chocolate, let alone a whip.

[truxillogical]

Okay, I'm vanilla as hell with a v-card, and even I know that is not how you do safe words. Sweet jiminy sea biscuits, did she do no research? Or does she just think it's hotter without enthusiastic consent?

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I've heard that she's said she wrote it because she and her husband were dabbling, and she liked it, or some such. And the thing is, it does read very much like someone's rape roleplay fantasy - her being a "good girl" and "clean" and "pure" and so on for not wanting it (Ana's a virgin at like 24 or something, and, rather more unbelievably, has never masturbated), and him showing her what she "really wants".

Which is great if that's what's been negotiated, but dammit, real life doesn't work like that.

[truxillogical]

na's a virgin at like 24 or something, and, rather more unbelievably, has never masturbated)

...*side eyes* It's...not entirely unbelievable, y'know.

That said, the idea of being "shown what she really wants" makes me kind of want to vomit.

[(Anonymous)]

No, but it would be much more believable in, say, the 19th or 20th century, and not the 21st. She seems unaware that she possesses a vagina.

And, like Bella, I was under the impression that Ana was supposed to be a generic everywoman. Unless a lot less adult women masturbate than I previously thought, in which case I'm wrong.

NA

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's less that she's a virgin who's never masturbated, and more that the narrative kind of put this forth as something that makes her good and awesome and superior. At least that was my feeling on it. I have a good friend in her 30s who is a virgin and very rarely masturbates, but it's because she just has a rather low libido and it doesn't do anything for her. But the way the book presents it with Anastasia, it's this really weird kind of Victorian ideal about a ~pure woman~ that led to her being all of these things, not just a lack of interest (although there is an argument for her just lacking knowledge, which isn't completely uncommon, but it's not really presented as no one told her and more that she didn't do it because it was wrong and icky and she needed the right person to ~teach her). And her friend in the book, who's pretty sexually active, pretty much gets the "lol what a slut" attitude. It's frustrating beyond belief.

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously. I'm 30 and a virgin...

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Virgin? Yes. Never masturbated? Seems rather unlikely to me.

(I speak as a virgin at 34, but masturbation? Umm... I think I figured that out at 11.)

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I'm only about 2/3 of the way through the first book (I'm reading it extremely slowly, because I'm liveblogging/snarking as I go), and so far the most obvious one is that he stalked her back to her house after she sent him an email saying, in essence, "I don't want to get into BDSM, goodbye" (it was a joke, but he didn't know that at the time). He then trapped her in her room and had sex with her. While she was saying "No!" and trying to kick him off. I actually triggered myself snarking that one, because it was pretty close to the bone.

But he's also had kinky sex with her without her agreeing to safewords, and pressured her into kinks she's said she's not comfortable with, and felt her up while they're sitting at the dinner table with his parents and she's clearly uncomfortable with it, and told her that if she doesn't have sex with him his way he'll dump her, and basically every kind of rape/dub-con you can think of that Todd Akin wouldn't think was legitimate.

(my topical humour is a bit out of date)

[(Anonymous)]

He then trapped her in her room and had sex with her. While she was saying "No!" and trying to kick him off.

Oh HELL NO. My God, this is sickening. Thanks for the info (and for giving me more legitimate reasons to judge the next person that tells me they want their own Christian Grey). Ugh.

[liveoddly]

(Same anon - replying on an RP account because they're the only DW accounts I have. Keep forgetting F!S isn't on LJ any more.)

Yeah... there was some bullshit reason she was saying no and trying to kick him off (iirc, it was that he was taking off her socks and she was scared her feet smelt), and so it's all passed off as ~but I wanted it really~, and I was just like UM DUDE NO HE LITERALLY STALKED YOU TO YOUR HOUSE (having already stalked her by tracked her cell phone. after one conversation outside of work. Just adding that) AND GOT BETWEEN YOU AND THE DOOR AND TIED YOU TO THE BED AND HAD SEX WITH YOU WHILE YOU WERE SAYING NO AND TRYING TO KICK HIM OFF. Like. It's like the ultimate in rape apologism, because it's from her POV and of course she always ends up enjoying it, so it's surprisingly easy to forget that he has no way to know she's not enjoying it.

It's what really disturbs me about the book, even more than how it keeps presenting BDSM as a mental disorder or a symptom of trauma (even going so far as to say that the woman who introduced him to BDSM "ruined him") - it is constantly, even more than most terrible porn, glorifying rape and abuse.

Gonna plug myself a bit here, but if you want to pick up on the sense of it without actually reading it (and, honestly, 300-odd pages in I can just about feel my brain leaking out of my ears) my liveblogging-50-shades tumblr is here. (That's basically just quotes+commentary, plus there's summaries of each chapter)

[timespanned]

... Is that a Sandman muse I see? *A*

[liveoddly]

I answer your question with one of my own: IS THAT AN EIGHTH DOCTOR?

(Yeah, I played Hob briefly. It was fun, but the game died, so... I was far too tempted to make these responses IC)

[truxillogical]

I work at a library, and the only thing that makes me feel worse than checking this out to people is checking out blatant slandery rightwing books (did you know that the Crusades were a defensive war and that all American Muslims are in on a conspiracy? Read The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam and you will!).

And every time someone tells me or their friend that they're romantic or hot or that they just love them, I really want to look them in the eye and ask what is wrong with them. Lay it out as literal rape. And ask why they think that's desirable.

People read anything that becomes popular, and never really objectively think about if it's good or not.

[(Anonymous)]

On the one hand, if the books get people out of their sex is dirty and wrong and all smut is bad mindset, that's a good thing. But on the other, I just want to take people who love the books and don't seem to realize how over the top creeptastic Grey is or how badly written they are and sit them down and be like, "Let me introduce you to erotica and online fanfiction that is actually written WELL and doesn't have a stalker for a protagonist or super sketch portrayals of 'BDSM'."

And really, the sex scenes in those books are SO BORING. Like, it's not even an issue of blatantly bad writing and dubious premises, but hot sex scenes.

[teenybuffalo]

did you know that the Crusades were a defensive war and that all American Muslims are in on a conspiracy?

"It was self-defense, your Honor! He head-butted me in the sword! He head-butted me in the sword TEN TIMES!" --Godfrey of Bouillon.

[liveoddly]

I think the issue is that the rape and abuse is so phrased (because she always enjoys it because he's hawt) that it does sound like something desirable and something loving. If you're reading it without thinking about it, I suspect it would be very easy to find them romantic or hot, if all you're taking in is the surface perspective. Which says in so many words that it's romantic and hot. Like... it's disgusting, but if you read it mindlessly, I can see why it would appeal? idk. Making excuses for people now.

[stainless]

And every time someone tells me or their friend that they're romantic or hot or that they just love them, I really want to look them in the eye and ask what is wrong with them.

You know, I don't like these books... but as someone who finds well-written dubcon (or even well-written fantasy noncon) hot, I'm really uncomfortable with "ask what is wrong with them."

Lay it out as literal rape. And ask why they think that's desirable.

People with those kinks don't think rape is desirable. (Well, I'm sure some do. But saying most people are like that? Is very ignorant, and quite insulting.)

I don't think 50 Shades is any kind of good writing, or even sexy. But as someone who has some fantasies that are probably similar to what fuels people's interest in 50, I'm getting really sick of "we have a cultural crisis on our hands; some people like fantasizing about dubious consent!"

It ain't new, and it ain't goin' away.

[stainless]

I'm probably a horrible human being either for thinking or for admitting this, but that actually didn't bother me at all. I mean, I 10000000% with infinite extra zeroes think that would be bad idea jeans in real life.

But in a story? Then I give a bit more leeway.

I thought the point of it was supposed to be that she was getting cold feet, and that that gave the author an excuse for a darkly sexy "Mm, are you *sure* about that, my dear?" sex scene. I could be wrong about it or misremembering it, but it didn't seem like a rape. It seemed like a "I'm attempting a last-minute save before I lose you forever. Oh, thank goodness -- it worked."

I can see calling it dub-con (and anything that's even dub-con? Is NO NO BAD in real life, period end!) but personally, I didn't think it was a rape.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not out-and-out blatant, but the dude has definite boundary issues I'd honestly label all of the sex in the book firmly as dubcon and in some cases non-con. He basically coerces Ana into joining in BDSM (that is not really BDSM because the way it's portrayed in the book is not how it works in the RL BDSM community) through a combination of misinformation and guilt of the if-you-cared-about-me-you'd-do-it type. He gives lip service to her being able to say no, but the truth is he never actually follows through on that and a lot of his actions contradict anything he says about her being free to leave or make her own choices.

At one point, she travels to Florida (or at least I think it's FL... it's been awhile) to visit her mother and get some space from Christian and get her head together. It's also so she can decide if she wants to continue a relationship with him. And then he SHOWS UP THERE WHILE SHE AND HER MOM ARE AT A CAFE. RANDOMLY, WITHOUT WARNING. It is all kinds of creepy, for real. And he does this kind of shit ALL THE TIME. He also talks her into getting birth control because he wants to have sex sans condoms (nevermind whether she wants to be on BC or not... he never even ASKS). Oh, and on a hilarious and wtf note, after he shows up all stalker-like while she's visiting her mom, they go up to his hotel room and have sex and he "lovingly" removes her tampon for her. I've got no problem with period sex, but my god, I did not get that image out of my head for DAYS. Also, I laughed a lot at that description.

Oh, and as a bonus, all of his asshole behavior is written off as being because ~his mother was a "whore" (his words) and a drug addict and he was poor for the first few years of his life~. Because everyone with any adversity in their background is obviously an asshole, am I right?

I have so many issues with the book. And having read both it and Twilight, I can safely say that it was 5000x worse, both in writing and content. Twilight has a lot of more than questionable content and is pretty terrible all around, but 50 Shades legitimately filled me with rage.

[liveoddly]

(It's Georgia, not Florida. Sorry, just reached that part of the book, thought I'd clarify)

(Also the big dramatic reveal actually being phrased as "My mother was a crack whore," sounded so Jeremy Kyle I cracked up when I read it)

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, thank you! It's been a long time and I have been very actively NOT thinking about the book since I read it, so I had a feeling I might have gotten my states crossed. Lol.

OH GOD, THAT REVEAL. I seriously had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard I was crying. Although I found that most of Grey's ~dramatic reveals~ in the book were like that. I'm just glad that I had another friend reading through it at the same time as me (we were both reading for review purposes) so we could commiserate and rage about it on twitter together.

[liveoddly]

Part of it is that the writing's so terrible that there's meant to be all this tension ratcheted up or whatever and instead I'm left going "Yuh-huh, okay, he had a tragic childhood, whatever, DEAL WITH THE UNBELIEVABLE UST BETWEEN ANASTASIA AND KATE ALREADY." And part of it is that all the reveals are so flat, blunt, and undramatic that any punch they have is lost. (And part of it is that they're all presented as "and this is why he's a douchebag", which makes me angry rather than amazed)

The other thing about the period sex, as well, is that he's all shocked that she's on her period because she's on the pill. Which I found amusing mostly because when she goes on the pill she's all amazed by how OMG HE KNOWS SO MUCH ABOUT HOW THE PILL WORKS. (I say this as someone who actively took the pill to stop my period rather than for contraception and was still told I'd have to have at least four periods a year)

[(Anonymous)]

Man, now I want Anastasia/Kate action. Considering how much Ana goes on and on and ON about how pretty Kate is (but woe~ she is so plain by comparison), I could see it. And I'm willing to bet the sex would there would be 150% less creepy and maybe at least marginally hot.