Why I won't be reading 50 Shades of Grey

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Why I won’t be reading 50 shades of Grey or encouraging anyone else to.

Jude Levermore

I have made the decision not to read the erotic novel by British author E.L. James that everyone is talking about, dubbed “mummy porn”. I haven’t read the book, and I know how the adage goes, but here I am, judging it by its cover (and its reviews. And the impression it’s left on my friends).

Apparently the book (one of a trilogy) explicitly describes sexual bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM).  I hear that the story follows an unfolding affair between a recent college graduate, the virgin Anastasia Steele, and handsome young billionaire entrepreneur, Christian Grey, whose childhood abuse left him a deeply damaged individual, and who enlists her to share his secret sexual proclivities. Steele is required by Grey to sign a contract allowing him complete control over her. Because of her fascination and budding love for him, she consents to a kinky sexual relationship that includes being slapped, spanked, handcuffed, and whipped with a leather riding crop in his “Red Room of Pain.”

The author is said to have written the books as a sexier version of the Twilight series, which also stars a virgin who gives it all up to save a man.  

People have told me that this book is liberating for women. I don’t much like labels but I guess you could call me a Christian feminist and it deeply concerns me that in our still male-dominated culture, women are socialized to enjoy being dominated sexually and see themselves as needing to subjugate their own identities to be accepted by men.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t talked to about sex. I want to have a different relationship with my daughters I want to be open and honest, to learn from them as they grow into women as well as teach them. So why don’t I want them to read this book? I’m passionate about how we interpret what we read. I’m a strong advocate for reader response criticism, for allowing readers to let the personal seep into their interpretations of what they read. What harm will it do for us to read the book and talk about it, this is what I did with the Philip Pullman books and Harry Potter when they were little? Why do I feel differently about this?

I think there are 2 main, interrelated reasons;

The first I think has to do with the difficult nature of feminism and the Church. For a couple of millennia abstinence and celibacy were upheld as the ideal models for Christian sexual practice.  Marriage was offered for those who must be depraved enough to be sexually active.  This is still mainstream Christian thought, if not mainstream Christian practice. The relationship between women and men and their relationship to God as I understand it in Christian circles can be roughly divided into 2 camps, “Complementarians”, a term for those who support a hierarchy between men and women, women and men are fundamentally different but somehow complimentary to each other (this difference somehow seems to be is in favour of men) and “Egalitarians”, those who see men and woman as truly equal, and oppose gender hierarchy.  While the Complementarian-Egalitarian division is the basic line of opposition, there are also – as Michael Bird whose writings on Paul I have found really helpful describes – various degrees of Complementarians, ranging from “Hard Complementarians” to “Soft Complementarians”.  Maybe where you sit in this debate effects how you feel about this book, written by a woman, that objectifies women seeing them as virginal saviours, debased by sexual violence that they somehow deserve due to the fall.  I sit firmly in the egalitarian camp.

As women (and men) grow, as we enter into (and fall out of) relationships, and we need candid conversations about the unmatched importance of knowing your own sexual boundaries and desires if we are going to be able to act well as agents in our intimate relationships.

I don’t think reading an (apparently badly written) erotic novel will help me have those conversations. I want to be presented with a portrait of sexuality—healthy sexuality—that goes beyond what the stories we’ve been told and I want us to be presenting those portraits to our young people.

The second reason has also to do with power the power to say no and feel OK about it. To trust my own feelings about a subject rather than be swayed but pervasive cultural norms.  I want our young people to be strong enough to make their own choices in the face of “everyone’s read it so you should or you’ll have nothing to say”

I’ve heard numerous sermons describing the church’s stance on issues of sex and relationships as a means of protecting the church body from heartbreak, from disease, from abuse—any number of very real, very sex-specific consequences. However I believe that a new model by which we will protect our congregations from sexual violence and better enable them to develop healthy sexual relationships also requires that we not perpetrate our own form of sexual violence by ostracizing those people whose quest to experience intimacy that is meaningful to them doesn’t fit into our “straight married” or “celibate” boxes.

There is a question which remains. Why do women reading this book seem to enjoy fantasies of being dominated? The feminist argument would say that it is because women as a group cannot escape from men, we have found ways of dealing with their sometimes violent and destructive behaviour. What we do is to eroticise, and internalise the desire for this behaviour, rationalising this as having power. This book caters for this need. By “choosing” to enjoy male-dominant sex, women are able to develop a sense of power, however limited. I want to develop a sense of empowerment in a different way. I want us to develop an egalitarian approach to sex.

So I am able to say, no thanks, I don’t want to read this book, even if all my friends are and the reasons are that there are some things I don’t want to gratify. I don’t want to put money into the pocket, and flattery into the ego of an author who seems to be cynically exploiting women readers. I don’t want to be part of perpetuating a patriarchal, domineering, socially acceptable abuse of power. And also I don’t want to read to it just because everyone else is and that’s ok. In fact it is more than OK it is a way of exercising a control that is power. A choice I can make as a Christian feminist.

And I believe and want to work towards a Church that can be a community where women and men are supported in a search for an intimacy that is not one-size-fits-all, but is also not a male dominated, porn fuelled event. This will take courage we’ll not get there by tip-toe we will need to be honest, to have difficult conversations and make challenging choices. I am going to start by not reading this book but trying to have more open and honest communication with my daughters and my friends about the issues it seems to bring up.