So this morning, I was followed by a spam Twitter account with the biog: "Girls want to get f**ked too. Let's be honest." Another day, another spam-porn follower.
Amazingly enough, I didn't click the link. I was on the bus for one thing, and don't really fancy downloading a whole load of nasty malware onto my phone. If I want to get turned on, there are plenty of better ways to do so than by following unsolicited links.
But the biog did intrigue me. While, clearly, it was likely written by a man with a male audience in mind (girls not women, who have sex done to them rather than acting as equal participants are dead give-aways), it was at least slightly less obvious than the standard "I'm 19, stacked, lonely and horny” you usually get. Some effort had been made at striking a slightly different note.
Part of the reason I was so struck by this was that I have already been so jarred by the reaction to publishing phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey.
The literary merit of the book is questionable. Pitched halfway between Black Lace style erotica and a Mills and Boon romance, with the writing style of a Sweet Valley High, I think the Booker Prize is probably safe.
But the bewildered critics that simply can't understand why so many women are reading this are overlooking one crucial fact: women wank.
There I've said it. We do. It may feel like the very last taboo, but it's an absolutely universal truth.
Single women, married women, old women, young women, wives, mothers, sisters and girlfriends are all at it. And just like men, sometimes, when our imagination fails us, we turn to porn for inspiration.
This seems to have been massively overlooked in the "but it's rubbish" conversations.
See, just as Debbie Does Dallas did its job exceptionally well without troubling Scorsese, so Fifty Shades can comfortably co-exist in the same medium as Pride and Prejudice. It does the job it’s there for.
We still treat female sexuality so differently from that of our male counterparts – we continue to seek higher meaning than this basic utilitarianism.
We separate female sexuality from the whole of sexuality, as if it were a delicate and fragile thing: either to be revered or protected. But this is to deny women the equality we deserve in this as in all areas of life.
Men, we're just as horny and as likely to relieve ourselves as you are.
When a publishing phenomena such as Fifty Shades is recognised not for the shock of its content, but the savvy way it appeals to its audience's needs (just as we did with male masturbatory material like Nuts and Zoo) then we might be able to advance from our current sniggering 12-year-old of a society.
When we stop calling it “mummy porn” and start just accepting it as one of the many, many flavours of porn, then we will stop seeing female sexuality as so different and exotic.
Other reactions have all centred around discussion of the type of sex depicted in Fifty Shades of Grey, which is primarily consensual BDSM.
Apart from the odd cry of "You're doing it wrong" there remains a debate within the feminist community about sexual role play where the male is dominant. It’s a divisive topic.
For myself, any sexual act that is consensual is about equal power between the protagonists, even if they take different roles in the sexual act.
The power in sex doesn’t come from the physical acts themselves but from the consent or lack thereof.
Domination practiced with a safety word give both partners equal ability to withdraw consent at anytime. Sadism, masochism, it’s all basically nerve endings and finding what floats your boat.
If some feminists deny the desires of women who practice BDSM or the fantasies of those who just like to think and read about it, then they too are infantilising these women.
No woman indulging or just thinking about a consensual adult relationship should ever be told her sexual desire is wrong.
If women are to be equal, they must be equally free and empowered to be who they truly want to be in the bedroom and in the boardroom.
When a woman’s sexuality is a freely expressed as a man’s there will be one million shades of grey. And no one will be writing newspaper articles (or blogs like this one) about any of them. Unless they are an extrovert – in which case all power to the pen!
Comments
helen / July 17 2012 3:25pm
The problem I have with this book is not so much the book itself (which I do hate for its incredibly old fashioned and unequal love story, pathetic heroin and misogynistic hero) its the press coverage which gets me. The nudge nudge wink wink from male work colleagues asking if I've read it yet. The insinuation being that all women really love to be mastered by a dominant male if only they'd admit it.
What is so wrong with this is that this is another reincarnation of the same old message that is drilled into all women and men from childhood, the weak heroine who is dominated by a strong alpha male. If you haven't noticed it is the same plot in nearly every book and film that we have ever read.
Of course lots of women now find this erotic, its because they have conformed to society NOT the other way around. Human beings are varied, we should be allowed to interact without the massive pressures from society to conform to one model.
The reply which usually shuts up my co-workers is that I prefer my men submissive. (I've also been asked on a couple of dates too)
Stuart / July 18 2012 10:14am
Helen
Are you sure that you've read the book?
Anastasia is in charge from the minute the contractual negotiation starts.
That's the point!
Stuart