Read 3 pages of 50 Shades…it was AWFUL.

In Sainsbury’s they were flogging (heh) the trilogy for £3.99. I thoiught, why not buy the first book so I can review it/slag it off on my blog? I did a post on why 50 shades is antifeminist, anti-kink and anti-sex here: https://diaryofavirginwhore.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/why-50-shades-of-grey-is-anti-kink-anti-sex-and-anti-feminist/

Yes, it seems ludicrous to call a BDSM porn novel with a female protagonist all of the above, but I have my reasons.

So, I stroll over and read three pages, wondering whether I should throw away £4 on such a stupid, worthless thing when I could spend the £4 on ice cream or a hair clip or something. I couldn’t carry on reading after 3 pages. Here’s why:

Ana wakes up in the hotel room after Christian has ‘rescued’ her there after she got drunk. Her first thoughts are ‘oh no, the drinking, oh no, the vomiting, oh no the phone call’ – LITERALLY. Read the book (don’t waste your change on it, just read it at a bookstore/friend’s house/Sainsbury’s) it literally says that. Like getting drunk is a HUGE DEAL when you’re a 21 year old student. Who are you, E. L. James, a pornographic author writing to help me get my rocks/ovaries/prostate off, or my mum? No, wait, even my conservative mum wouldn’t think it was a big deal.

Then, Ana thinks – ‘did we..? It’s too terrible to think of!’ – that’s probably not a quote, but it’s close. So, 21 year old virgin graduate Ana, sex is too terrible to even think of? Sex with a hot billionaire is a terrible fate? What kind of freakin’ snob are you, do you want a billionaire Olympic Sex Champion? A trillionaire? E.L. James, don’t you realise that a sexually repressed female main character in a porn book is pretty weird? It’s not like most women can identify with Ana; although most of us are repressed, most of us realise it to some degree and we’re not that repressed.

Seriously, I’m betting that this book doesn’t get banned in Iran. That’s not a good distinction for a BDSM porn novel.

Christian then tells her that they didn’t have sex – sorry, he didn’t have sex, because it’s obvious Ana is asexual anyway and the only reason she’d want it or not would be to please Christian or just lie still out of apathetic passivity. Anyway, he didn’t have sex because she was unconscious and he “isn’t into necrophilia” and has a sexual preference for the woman being awake. That’s fine. I’m OK with that; it’s lighthearted, it’s a fairly amusing response from Christian.  However, the characters seem to interact after that as if it wasn’t a joke, as if it wouldn’t have been rape if Christian had attacked her while she slept. Later, Ana wonders why Christian didn’t have sex with her as she slept and worries she’s not pretty enough, meaning that she’d be OK with that.

Christian then says that if she were his, he would spank her for endangering herself. He is totally serious. Ana doesn’t mind him saying this much despite the fact that it’s insulting, offensive and threatening – especially since he barely knows her and she isn’t into spanking so won’t be amused by the comment or find it acceptable. Even I, a woman with a domme preference, wouldn’t. say (seriously) to a man I barely knew, “If you were my boyfriend you wouldn’t be able to sit cos I’d spank you for having a few drinks with the lads.” Likewise, if a man I barely knew said this to me, I wouldn’t be particularly impressed.  And what was so risky again? She had a few drinks with her pals and got drunk? Has nobody ever done this before?

That was three pages. I put the book back, realising that there was no way I could buy it just to blog about it; I’d be doing about four posts for every page.