soulvictim's comment:
I'm sorry you are disturbed by my alias. It was a name I chose when I was younger and I stuck with it as it holds a lot more to it than it sounds. Ignore names, focus on the reviews. What I really want to ask is: Why do people have to look at things like this in such a negative light? I understand there are a lot of disturbing suggestions to female servitude - I admit, I felt disgusted with a lot of "the rules." However, I believe most people who have opinions such as yours are afraid that those who are unable to form their values without books such as these are going to let them dictate their lives. This is an unfortunate occurrence and why Twilight received such backlash. If people don't let books dictate their lives, they won’t.
my respone to soulvictim:
Thank you for your comment. I submit that most women do not wish to be tied up or beaten when having sex with their partner. The fact that bondage and S&M are a minority preoccupation speaks for itself. I feel that popular fiction like Fifty Shades glosses over the realities of bondage and S&M and sexual violence that actual women experience. I would ask you to consider why you think women might be offended by representations of women who are “submissive and obedient” to men. I would also like you to consider why the “brooding bad boy” image holds such an interest for you. I suggest that Christian is more than a “bad boy”. He is a sadist who inflicts pain on his partner for his own pleasure (no matter how conflicted and complicated he is portrayed to be). In the real world innocents do not “tame” bad boys; they usually end up being abused by them. Stories that do not comment on this reality in some manner—as this material certainly does not to any intelligent degree—perpetuate myths like that of the downtrodden overcoming superior forces (think of the Pandorans beating up on the humans at the end of the movie, Avatar . A realistic ending would have the native folk crushed into blue ooze under the tracks of the bulldozers). You’re right, of course, as you say in your book review this is just a story, like Avatar, but it’s one that helps perpetuate myths of female subservience and male superiority.
Question: Why should Anna go through several hundred pages of bondage and S&M torture in order to finally tame Christian? Isn’t he man enough to do that for himself?
