This is the elaboration on all points with a "*" from this post.
Again before I start: SPOILERS alert.
2. The relationship between Christian and Ana is abusive and that's never portrayed as a bad thing:
- There is no trust between them. Christian just says "trust me" and Ana doesn't have a choice.
- Christian always inflicts what he wants upon Ana without her consent.
- He scares her. (End of book 1 quote: “I knew he was playing, but I still took a step back.”)
- He isolates her from her family and friends
- He makes her want to run away (she wants to ‘run away’ to Georgia)
- He stalks her. Traces her phone, finds two addresses of hers and later, sends her a ton of emails to ‘check-up’ on her.
- He makes her feel overwhelmed
- She wants to love him to wellness
- He sees her as his property/sex object (without her consent)
- He acts excessively possessive and jealous
- He wants to control where she goes, what she does and who she sees
- He has a bad, unpredictable temper. She winces every time he stops smiling.
- She avoids certain topics so she won’t anger him.
- She feels like she is trapped and helpless.
- She feels like he has immense power and that there would be no point in running away. (He actually threatens her that "running to Alaska won't help.")
- He hits her and she’s afraid. It's supposed to be part of kinky play, but she never truly says ‘yes' and she doesn't like it.
- When Kate thinks there's something wrong, Ana gets very defensive.
3. Conflicting BDSM with abuse:
Listen, don't get me wrong, I'm always up for some consensual spanking. But they key word here is consensual!
The two most important acronyms in the BDSM community are SSC (Safe, Sane and Consensual) and RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink). Everyone has their own preference, but just for the fun of it, let's see how well 50S holds up to both of these, shall we?
- Safe? Hardly! Christian never provides Ana with a safe environment (see #2), as she is constantly afraid of him. He never provides her with unbiased information sources outside of "google it," (he doesn't even say that! he directs her towards Wikipedia!) nor does he keep proper BDSM etiquette (doesn't wait for proper consent, doesn't provide proper after care, tries to push her hard limits etc.)
- Sane? Most of the time she is drunk or he uses oragsm denial to manipulate her (without her consent. Consensual orgasm denial is great!) He is garbage. Next!
- Consensual? Doubtful. He manipulates her emotionally (‘I won’t be with you, if you don’t do this. I’ll try harder, if you do this.’); and uses orgasm denials to make her do what he wants (without her consent). He also pushes her hard limits. Hint: there's a reason they are called "hard" limits.
- Risk Aware? Nope! Ana is never provided with enough information about what she is "consenting" to.
- Kink? Well, she reads one article on Wikipedia and gets so freaked out, she closes the computer. So even "kink" is questionable tbh.
5. What is Christian paying Dr. Flynn for? I could've done a better job!
- Dr. Flynn is trying cure Christian’s sexual preferences. Why? There's nothing wrong with being kinky, as long as you and your partners are adults and you abide by SSC and/or RACK.
- Dr. Flynn has never once told Christian that his birth-mother loved him, but they were both victims of a bad situation; that his mom couldn't protect him, because she was a scared mentally ill teenager (yes, addiction is a mental illness) and that he shouldn't blame her.
Here, I just healed Christian’s desire to look for skinny brunettes to beat in thirty seconds.
6. The writing is terrible.
- Here’s a fun exercise: right now, try to recall three reasons why Christian finds Ana so 'beguiling'! Pretty damn hard, isn’t it? That's because we know fucking nothing about her. Really, think of description of Ana that doesn't include a color, or the words "skinny", "literature" and "Christian." I dare you!
- EL James uses every single bad cliché in the genre. Naïve virgin falls for the young, enigmatic, "alpha male," who has a ‘dark’ secret... Why can’t it be: A street-smart woman with healthy sexual history falls for the older, confident man who isn’t ashamed to admit that he's into kink? [Fun fact: that's exactly what my book "Baby Let Me Tie You Up" (working title) is about.]
- The very two characters in Ana’s head: her subconscious and her inner goddess. Both redundant and ridiculous.
- A lot of research on meaningless details, and not on important plot elements. I don't care which highway Ana takes to get to x place, but what I do care about a proper representation of kinksters. Contrary to poular belief, we are actually an oppressed minority. (I know EL claims she did research BDSM, but honestly it doesn't show. Christian is an an abuser, not a Dom, and he's ashamed of his kinks. Also, if he were a real person, he wouldn't even be into BDSM, and if he was, he'd be a sub. That's not just my opinion, for the record.)
13. These two characters don’t love each other, and quite frankly - I'm not sure they even like each other:*
- Every scene between the two of them (that isn’t a sex scene), they seem uncomfortable just being together
- For the most part of first book all they seem to do is make small talk or discuss their sex life, but they rarely if ever talk about anything that matters.
- They have sex instead of dealing with their problems. And this is portrayed as healthy.
18. All the damn misogyny:*
- Women can’t be real friends, they are always jealous of one another or patronize each other
- Women's goal must always be to "get" the "best" man, and they must always compete for him.
- When two or more men talk to each other it’s “networking” or “socializing,” but when two or more women do is “gossiping”
- When a man works it's always “concentrating” and “serious,” but when a woman does it's always “busying oneself” or “bustling.” Source
27. The books ignore the internal conflict, or pretend that Christian being kinky is the issue. He is also not really kinky. but that's a whole other topic:*
Christian has a ton of mommy issues, yet according to the books the problem is not the fact that he has some sort of Oedipus Complex, or that he consistently stalks and ignores the boundaries of skinny brunettes; but the fact that he likes tieing them up and beating them. Except he doesn't even like that. At least not when they enthusiastically consent to it. He prefers his women scared and upset.
44. The premise is bullshit.* Kate must be the world’s worst newspaper editor-in-charge.
Ok, here’s a little quiz for you!
You are the editor-in-charge of a newspaper/magazine and you've organized a very important interview, but you just got sick and can’t go! What do you do?
a) Send another journalist, who is familiar with your work around the interview, as well as the interviewee themselves.
b) Send literally anyone, who has a basic understanding of how journalism works and how to google things on their phone.
c) Send your roommate, who knows nothing about either journalism, the interviewee or even how the internet works, and who apparently has some kind of a plot-relted condition that will cause her to fumble in the interviewee's office and spend ten minutes setting up a damn tape recorder!
If you answered a) or b) – congratulations, you are not a complete idiot! If you answered c)… well, hello, EL James.
46. Ana's emotional age is eleven.
- She has never in her 21-year-old life had any sexual feelings or thoughts of any kind.
Of course, asexuality exists, but:
- She approaches sex like 11-year-olds do – with curiosity, but a sense of shame and embarrassment. (Her reactions to normal, healthy sexual feelings are described as being ‘child-like’; she can’t use normal words for genitalia; she constantly blushes over her own sexual thoughts; she is very naive etc.)
- She continues to slut-shame Kate, but all Kate really does is enjoy a healthy adult attitude towards sex, even if she is a little promiscuous (there's nothing wrong with that, as long as she is being careful!)
NOTE: (TW: CSA, Transphobic Slurs, Homophobia)
I read an article that claimed that 50 Shades was "pedophilia hidden in plain sight" and that Ana’s age of 21 is a "fake age," which was rather disturbing. However, I disagree. I don't believe anyone, who isn't an offending pedophile, or apparently Milo What's-His-Name would romanticise child-sexual abuse, nor do I believe ELJ is skilled enough writer to pull that off. When it doubt, the answer is probably stupidity, not maliciousness.
