Fifty Shades of Grey, beyond the sex
When I first read Fifty Shades, the thing that most struck me about the book was not the sex, I'm not easily shocked, but the fact that its author is a woman who is very evidently oppressed by her role of carer: as a wife, a mother, and (I presume) also in her profession.
Despite the achievements of feminism, it is still true that both in the private sphere of the family and in the public sphere of their profession, women are expected to take the role of carers. They are more often teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers, personal assistants, and any other profession that involves taking care of others. They are also the one's responsible for the great part of their children care, the house chores, the care of the elderly, and even their 'eternally young' (to be read as privileged immature, why grow up when you don't have to?) husbands. This is many times a secret that many of us carry with a certain shame (as we perceive ourselves as traitors to our feminist beliefs), which explains a lot of the fantasy males depicted by the media, not only in rom-com movies and TV series, but even in the recent election campaign in the UK that saw the leaders of the main political parties make appearances in their personal kitchens (I know, I know, I couldn't believe it myself, not that they had done it, that didn't surprised me, but that anyone could be fooled by it).
Going back to EL James, as I was saying, what struck me in her books was how clearly she yearned to have someone care for her for a change. In this sense, Christian Grey as a woman's fantasy is not the abuser or the dominant male, that everyone talks about, but the carer, which is slightly more subtle but still very evident in the book (did I mention I'm not easily shocked?). He is the man who, when arriving to some nice place, his first thought is of his beloved "I must bring her here. She'll love it.", who registers every word she says to later use the knowledge gained to realize her sexual fantasies (as in the episode of the riding crop), provide for her needs (buying her computer, car, clothes, etc), and make sure he caters for all her tastes (as for example her preference for a certain type of tea or her favourite food). If you pay attention, even in the playroom scenes, he serves her and her pleasure much more than himself. All the talk of control and domination ends up (in this fantasy world) being nothing but a mean to guarantee or maximize her well-being. In this sense all the babble about anti-feminism is pure non-sense. Actually, the second thing that struck me about this story is how selfish the woman is portrayed to be. Did you notice she does not give, return or concede half as much as he does? And again this I see more than anything else as proof that EL James and her readers are longing to be on the receiving, as opposed to the giving, end of relationships.
When one thinks about it, this fantasy man is very similar to most real women. How many of us are buying clothes, etc to our loved ones? How many, for example, choose their favourite products when grocery shopping? How many pay attention to small things they might say in order to enlighten our choices (not only shopping, but, for example, cooking)? All that on a daily basis. Do you want to understand the secret of the success of this novel? The sex, yes for sure, but not only. Paradoxically, this gives a whole new sense to the denomination of mummy-porn. Yes, indeed, porn for mothers, who are emotionally exhausted after taking care of everyone in their families and are fantasizing of being taken care of for a change.
From this point of view, the desire for submission has here the same explanation that is given when referring to the reason many clients of dominatrices are said to be CEOs and politicians. It is said they are men who are emotionally exhausted by making big decisions and holding too much responsibility on their shoulders and thus, when relaxing, want to let go and let someone else make all the decisions.
There is much more to be said about it, many other reasons to explain the phenomenon, but if I'd have to choose a single one, this is it.
Christian Grey behaves, when you pay attention, as a common woman, most evidently in the absurd (if you consider he is CEO not a housewife) time he spends thinking or taking care of his loved one. In this sense this novel is quite feminist, because if everyone agrees that a real life CEO could not afford to spend his time this way, then everyone must conclude that, in the way our society is organized, most women do not have the time to be CEOs. Simply because they're too burdened by other tasks to be able to dedicate not only time, but mental space, to their careers.
This is not only the responsibility of society as a whole, which puts very different demands and expectations in men and women, and does not provided better solutions to the many problems that burden only half of the population, not only the responsibility of selfish husbands, who don't make enough effort to fulfil their responsibilities as husbands and fathers, but also the responsibility of women who spoil their husband and miseducate the children at their care. We should not forget that it is women, as mothers and teachers, that dominate the education of future members of our society and the proof they are not doing a good job is that blatant sexism is as prevailing in our society as it is in our elementary school playgrounds. For this reason I am not particularly optimistic about our future.
I know this is very polemic, but in my experience many of the victories of feminism have not even necessarily been led by women, but by men who wanted a better future for the women they loved. I say my experience, because this was particularly true in my home, where my father was much more of a feminist than my mother, because he didn't want his daughters to suffer the same destiny as his mother and sister. He wanted the future to be better for the women he loved than the past had been. This is not to minimize the great effort women feminists did in favour of women's rights, but to say that we have too often made the mistake of letting feminism antagonize men. A stupid mistake because as long as they hold the power (and they do hold the power in important spheres of our lives, have no illusion about it), we gain nothing by antagonizing them and everything by drawing them to our side.
It is also extremely complacent to simply blame men of the current status quo. Even if men hold more power, women hold a lot of responsibility for it. My favourite example of this is the feminist war against the page 3 of the Sun. Really ladies, do you think page 3 is the real problem? Have you looked at women's magazines? Do you really think that the fact that men like boobs is more degrading to women than the fact that women are only interested in fashion, gossip, beauty and new age well-being non-sense? No matter how bad, really, really bad, the Sun is as a newspaper, it is still better than the usual trash read by women. Let me tell you, if women were less interested in trashy beauty products, and more interested in trashy politics, page 3 of the Sun would biweekly provide us with raunchy pictures of good looking young men. I'd still not read it.
What does this have to do with fifty shades? Nothing. I'm digressing, but let me conclude by saying that fifty shades is feminist mainly because it proves that women want the same thing as men: a wife, someone who provides for all their needs, most importantly the sexual ones. We all have the same priorities, it seems.
Despite the achievements of feminism, it is still true that both in the private sphere of the family and in the public sphere of their profession, women are expected to take the role of carers. They are more often teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers, personal assistants, and any other profession that involves taking care of others. They are also the one's responsible for the great part of their children care, the house chores, the care of the elderly, and even their 'eternally young' (to be read as privileged immature, why grow up when you don't have to?) husbands. This is many times a secret that many of us carry with a certain shame (as we perceive ourselves as traitors to our feminist beliefs), which explains a lot of the fantasy males depicted by the media, not only in rom-com movies and TV series, but even in the recent election campaign in the UK that saw the leaders of the main political parties make appearances in their personal kitchens (I know, I know, I couldn't believe it myself, not that they had done it, that didn't surprised me, but that anyone could be fooled by it).
Going back to EL James, as I was saying, what struck me in her books was how clearly she yearned to have someone care for her for a change. In this sense, Christian Grey as a woman's fantasy is not the abuser or the dominant male, that everyone talks about, but the carer, which is slightly more subtle but still very evident in the book (did I mention I'm not easily shocked?). He is the man who, when arriving to some nice place, his first thought is of his beloved "I must bring her here. She'll love it.", who registers every word she says to later use the knowledge gained to realize her sexual fantasies (as in the episode of the riding crop), provide for her needs (buying her computer, car, clothes, etc), and make sure he caters for all her tastes (as for example her preference for a certain type of tea or her favourite food). If you pay attention, even in the playroom scenes, he serves her and her pleasure much more than himself. All the talk of control and domination ends up (in this fantasy world) being nothing but a mean to guarantee or maximize her well-being. In this sense all the babble about anti-feminism is pure non-sense. Actually, the second thing that struck me about this story is how selfish the woman is portrayed to be. Did you notice she does not give, return or concede half as much as he does? And again this I see more than anything else as proof that EL James and her readers are longing to be on the receiving, as opposed to the giving, end of relationships.
When one thinks about it, this fantasy man is very similar to most real women. How many of us are buying clothes, etc to our loved ones? How many, for example, choose their favourite products when grocery shopping? How many pay attention to small things they might say in order to enlighten our choices (not only shopping, but, for example, cooking)? All that on a daily basis. Do you want to understand the secret of the success of this novel? The sex, yes for sure, but not only. Paradoxically, this gives a whole new sense to the denomination of mummy-porn. Yes, indeed, porn for mothers, who are emotionally exhausted after taking care of everyone in their families and are fantasizing of being taken care of for a change.
From this point of view, the desire for submission has here the same explanation that is given when referring to the reason many clients of dominatrices are said to be CEOs and politicians. It is said they are men who are emotionally exhausted by making big decisions and holding too much responsibility on their shoulders and thus, when relaxing, want to let go and let someone else make all the decisions.
There is much more to be said about it, many other reasons to explain the phenomenon, but if I'd have to choose a single one, this is it.
Christian Grey behaves, when you pay attention, as a common woman, most evidently in the absurd (if you consider he is CEO not a housewife) time he spends thinking or taking care of his loved one. In this sense this novel is quite feminist, because if everyone agrees that a real life CEO could not afford to spend his time this way, then everyone must conclude that, in the way our society is organized, most women do not have the time to be CEOs. Simply because they're too burdened by other tasks to be able to dedicate not only time, but mental space, to their careers.
This is not only the responsibility of society as a whole,
I know this is very polemic, but in my experience many of the victories of feminism have not even necessarily been led by women, but by men who wanted a better future for the women they loved. I say my experience, because this was particularly true in my home, where my father was much more of a feminist than my mother, because he didn't want his daughters to suffer the same destiny as his mother and sister. He wanted the future to be better for the women he loved than the past had been. This is not to minimize the great effort women feminists did in favour of women's rights, but to say that we have too often made the mistake of letting feminism antagonize men. A stupid mistake because as long as they hold the power (and they do hold the power in important spheres of our lives, have no illusion about it), we gain nothing by antagonizing them and everything by drawing them to our side.
It is also extremely complacent to simply blame men of the current status quo. Even if men hold more power, women hold a lot of responsibility for it. My favourite example of this is the feminist war against the page 3 of the Sun. Really ladies, do you think page 3 is the real problem? Have you looked at women's magazines? Do you really think that the fact that men like boobs is more degrading to women than the fact that women are only interested in fashion, gossip, beauty and new age well-being non-sense? No matter how bad, really, really bad, the Sun is as a newspaper, it is still better than the usual trash read by women. Let me tell you, if women were less interested in trashy beauty products, and more interested in trashy politics, page 3 of the Sun would biweekly provide us with raunchy pictures of good looking young men. I'd still not read it.
What does this have to do with fifty shades? Nothing. I'm digressing, but let me conclude by saying that fifty shades is feminist mainly because it proves that women want the same thing as men: a wife, someone who provides for all their needs, most importantly the sexual ones. We all have the same priorities, it seems.
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