Author Katie Roiphe and her novel 50 Shades Of Grey has swept the nation and the book itself is on Kindle, which only adds to the feeding frenzy for the movie rights. More digital ink has been spilled on love novels for women and their sexual desires than any other genre
The latest cover story of Newsweek, by Katie Roiphe, uses the new 50 Shades of Grey to launch an attack on contemporary feminism, which has been been getting a serious backlash from the rest of the feminist community, partially for it’s lack of sources, and partially for a person who they see as being completely out of touch with reality.
The reaction around the Internet in general has more or less been one of slight bemusement.
Most people don’t really seem to know if Roiphe is just trying to troll the world, or if she truly believes what she is saying. Certainly not the reaction she was looking for, I would imagine.
Roiphe’s claim in the piece — without any other “evidence” than the goings-on of fictional 50 Shades character Anastasia Steele — that women enjoy submissive sex because we don’t have to seek it out or choose it.
Interest in the book has been reignited anew with Roiphe’s article this week examining basically what is an age-old question in BDSM and one that is pretty well-accepted and understood- why women are engaged by submission fantasies. (It should be noted that men are also fairly likely to enjoy submissive fantasies.)
Roiphe’s not-particularly-hard-hitting piece examines what has been closely examined in erotica study over the past half-century. Kinky or not, it just seems that 50 Shades Of Grey is a regular practice for some adults in the world, but not accepted by those who want to protect women’s rights.
Cliches In BDSM Fiction
There’s a reason you haven’t seen anything here at Bondage Blog about fifty shades of anything that’s been on the cover of Newsweek lately. But I couldn’t be arsed to articulate that reason. Fortunately, pretty decent BDSM author Laura Antiniou nails it on her facebook page with 50 Shades Of Sellout:
“Then you’re really going to be Mine!” he thundered. “Because I Alone can teach you the gift of submission, give rise to your slave heart, grant to you the loving dominance of My Masterful Aggression, all tempered, of course, with rationality and with all due care and attention given to risk-aware negotiation! I will teach you to serve Me with your submissive soul, your passive power, your girly gushiness, train you to come at the snap of My Fingers and find true freedom in your complete subjugation to My Will. Yes…you will even learn…Bad Grammar.”
“Triple crap!” Tiffany declaimed. “All that? But…how is that possible? It all sounds crazy! And yet…when I look into your charcoal eyes under that irrepressible lock of ebony hair, as I run my searching, trembling fingers across the steel buttons on your sable silk shirt, all I can think of is…Jesus Christ, I am so horny I can die.
