1
Mar 06, 2013
*Trigger Warning: This review contains strong themes, to include rape.*
Before
I begin what will likely become a very long rant/public service
announcement, let me first say a few words. I have nothing against E.L.
James. Nothing. She’s said that this series is a fantasy she managed to
put on paper and that she never expected it to gain such momentum. Good
for her for perusing her dream of writing.
If this book also fulfills one of your fantasies, or if you just plain enjoyed it, good for you
*Trigger Warning: This review contains strong themes, to include rape.*
Before
I begin what will likely become a very long rant/public service
announcement, let me first say a few words. I have nothing against E.L.
James. Nothing. She’s said that this series is a fantasy she managed to
put on paper and that she never expected it to gain such momentum. Good
for her for perusing her dream of writing.
If this book also
fulfills one of your fantasies, or if you just plain enjoyed it, good
for you too. This review is in no way meant to belittle or condemn you
for liking these books, and nor is it an attack on the author. These are
solely MY OPINIONS about how dangerous FSoG is to society and
specifically to women.
Needless to say, this book does not fulfill one of my fantasies. It’s pretty much my biggest nightmare.
“But it’s just fiction!â€
No.
You can’t use that argument with me. Not anymore. This book is not
“just fictionâ€. This book has become a frigging phenomenon. As I write
this, over 70 million copies have been sold in the United States alone, hardware stores have run out of “natural fiber†rope and there are even ‘BDSM for Beginners’ classes cropping up in small town America.
So
excuse me, but I can’t just read this and think of it like a fantasy,
not when it’s become a reality for so many people, and not when I was so
enraged by what I found within it.
Okay everyone, take a deep
breath, grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and settle in. We’re
going to be here for a while. First up is probably the most inflammatory
of the statements I’m going to make, so we might as well rip the band
aid off.
THIS BOOK PERPETUATES THE RAPE CULTURE WE WERE ALL RAISED IN.
There,
I’ve said it. I’m not taking it back and I’m not apologizing. If you’re
unfamiliar with this phrase, allow me to elaborate. Wikipedia defines rape culture as:
“A
term used within women's studies and feminism, describing a culture in
which rape and other sexual violence (usually against women) are common
and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone,
normalize, excuse, or encourage sexualized violence.â€
Let’s
look at the first half of that definition. As much as we may want to
ignore the facts, rape and sexual violence are common in America.
According to RAINN,
the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, someone in the
U.S. is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes. On average that’s about
207,754 sexual assaults each year. 54% of sexual assaults are not
reported, 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail and 2/3 of these
assaults are committed by someone known to the victim.
I could
go on for days about how prevalent attitudes, practices, and the media
condone sexual violence, but I won’t because I’m really going to try and
keep my words and links relevant to FSoG. Thankfully, throughout my
research, I found several…hundred.
The University of California has an interesting article
about how social and cultural norms perpetuate rape and rape culture.
In it, they specifically address how women are conditioned from early
ages to be passive and accept and affect certain attitudes and
behaviors. Here are some of the social rules they list and elaborate on:
1. When spoken to, a woman must acknowledge the other person with a gracious smile.
2. Women must answer questions asked of them.
3. Women must not bother other people or make a scene because they are uncomfortable.
4. When in trouble, it is best to defer to the protection and judgment of men.
5. Casual touching or suggestive comments in social settings are meant as a tribute to a woman’s desirability.
6. It is the natural state of affairs for men to carry the financial burden of social situations.
7.
When engaged in a social encounter, it is not proper for a woman to
superior in any game, sport or discussion if she wants to be accepted.
8. Women should always accept and trust the kindness of strangers if they offer help.
There’s a blog post by Harriet Jacobs that also speaks to this and I urge you to read it in its entirety. In short, it says “…women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that:
· it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitchâ€)
· it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitchâ€)
·
it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other
peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to
explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitchâ€)
· it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitchâ€)
·
it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental
feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and
your needs (“bitch got daddy issuesâ€)
· it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitchâ€)
· it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitchâ€)
· it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitchâ€)
Now
how do these two examples relate to FSoG? Simply put, Ana, the main
character in this series, continuously exhibits the behaviors listed in
the rules and seems to have the mentality of those listed in the
bullets. She might as well be the case study on which both were based.
Early
in the book there’s an interaction between her and a young man named
Paul, the son of the couple she works for. This is someone she says has “always been a buddyâ€. Just after they greet each other with a hug, “he
releases me but keeps a possessive arm draped over my shoulder. I
shuffle from foot to foot, embarrassed. It’s good to see Paul, but he’s
always been overly familiarâ€
Does she tell him that she’s
uncomfortable or step out from beneath his arm? No, that’d be going
against everything that rule number three has taught her. Plus, she
wouldn’t want to come across as a “mean bitch†now would she?
Just after this, Paul asks her out. “Whenever he’s home he asks me on a date, and I always say no. It’s a ritual.â€
Is it a ritual? Or is it something more than that? Has Ana, like many
of us, been conditioned to follow the rules to such a degree that she
doesn’t know how to tell him “It’s not okay to keep asking me out� Is
she so terrified of breaking cultural norms and coming across as a
mean-crazy-angry-dyke-shrill-frigid bitch that she’ll put up with his
pursuit of her indefinitely? Or does she just not know to put a stop to
it because she hasn’t been taught to?
When she turns him down, yet again, he goes on to say “Ana, one of these days you’ll say yes.â€
Creeped out yet? You should be. How does Ana respond to this
declaration? By escaping the room they’re in and getting back to a
crowded store floor. What does this tell us? She felt the need to flee.
She felt the need to not be alone with him. Part of her clearly
recognized the danger of the situation and the repeated advances of her
“friendâ€. But instead of speaking up, she fled.
She never voices
her discomfort. She is the submissive, quiet person that society has
taught her to be. And 70 million people have read about her and have had
these dangerously passive behaviors reinforced, yet again, through her
actions, behaviors and words (or lack thereof).
How will this
same mentality play out in a situation involving sexual assault? I can
tell you, because just a few chapters later, she’s sexually assaulted,
by another of her “friendsâ€.
“José, I’m okay. I’ve got this.†I try to push him away rather feebly.
“Ana, please,†he whispers, and now he’s holding me in his arms, pulling me close.
“José, what are you doing?â€
“You
know I like you Ana, please.†He has one hand at the small of my back
holding me against him, the other at my chin tipping back my head. Holy
fuck…he’s going to kiss me.
“No, José, stop – no.†I push him, but
he’s a wall of hard muscle, and I cannot shift him. His hand has slipped
into my hair, and he’s holding my head in place.
“Please, Ana,
carińo,†he whispers against my lips… He gently trails kisses along my
jaw up to the side of my mouth. I feel panicky, drunk, and out of
control. The feeling is suffocating.
“José, no,†I plead. I don’t want this.
Luckily, Ana is spared further abuse because the one and only Christian Grey arrives on the scene and saves her. How? By saying “I think the lady said no.â€
That’s right. Ana can try to push José away and tell him ‘no’ multiple
times but that’s not good enough. One sentence from a man and José
immediately releases her, bringing us back to rule number four: When in
trouble, it is best to defer to the protection and judgment of men. You
got that, ladies? Don’t try to fight back because you’ll just be
ignored, rely instead on a man. Sort of a catch 22 when the one who’s
going to get you into trouble will likely also be a man.
Bear in
mind that this little scene takes place in the parking lot outside of a
crowded bar, just a shout away from salvation. You’re probably wondering
why Ana didn’t scream. Why she didn’t fight harder. Well, I’d like to
bring up Harriet Jacob’s blog post again because just after her “bitch
list†she says this:
“If we teach women that there are only
certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when
they behave in those ways.
And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women
who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too
adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO†at the top of
their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably
close.
Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.â€
Women
who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are
fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are
not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just
thought…â€
Women who are taught that physical confrontations make
them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until
it’s too late, if they do at all…
Nobody obtains the superpower
to behave dramatically differently during a frightening confrontation.
Women will behave the same way they have been taught to behave in all
social, professional, and sexual interactions.â€
Eerie, isn’t
it? I sure thought so. Hopefully by now you’re beginning to understand
the inflammatory statement this all started with.
Not only do
Ana’s actions and behaviors throughout the book reinforce the horrible
societal conditioning that I mentioned earlier but this series also
contains a lot of the other facets of rape culture, like victim
silencing. For instance, once she’s collected herself, this happens:
“Turning,
I glance at José, who looks pretty shamefaced himself and, like me,
intimidated by Grey. I glare at him. I have a few choice words for my
so-called friend, none of which I can repeat in front of Christian Grey,
CEO. Ana, who are you kidding? He’s just seen you hurl all over the
ground and into the local flora. There’s no disguising you lack of
ladylike behavior.â€
That’s right folks. It isn’t ladylike to
yell (shrill bitch). It isn’t ladylike to swear (crazy bitch). It isn’t
ladylike to defend yourself after you’ve just been sexually assaulted
(mean bitch). Leave that to the menfolk. Surely they’ll defend you.
Surely they’ll be the ones to address the fact that you were just
sexually assaulted. Men, you know, the other sex, the ones that have
been raised to talk about emotions. In public.
And while we’re
discussing this scene we can’t forget about rule number eight: Women
should always accept and trust the kindness of strangers if they offer
help. That’s what Christian is to her at this point in the book. A
stranger. She’s seen him only three times, in formal or work-related
settings, and knows nothing about him other than he’s rich, good looking
and that his shopping list resembles those of serial killers (I’ll get
to that last part later in the review). But accept his help and trust
his kindness she does. She lets this complete stranger remove her from
the bar, assuming that as he’s just saved her from a sexual assault,
he's not planning one of his own.
When she wakes up in his suite
the next morning, pantsless by the way, she accuses Christian of
stalking her. He defends himself by saying:
“…if I hadn’t come
to get you, you’d probably waking up in the photographer’s (José’s)
bed, and from what I can remember, you weren’t overly enthused about him
pressing his suit,†he (Christian) says acidly.
Pressing his suit! I
glance up at Christian. He’s glaring at me, eyes blazing, aggrieved. I
try to bit my lip, but I fail to repress my giggle.
“Which Medieval chronicle did you escape from? You sound like a courtly knight.â€
You got that? Stalking’s okay. Because it’s better than being raped.
*facepalm*
I’m
almost at a loss at how to address the rest of this without copious
amounts of swearing. How little she’s concerned with her “friend’sâ€
behavior is appalling. That there’s no thought on her end about
Christian’s allusion to her rape escape is appalling. How she glosses
over it all and makes a fucking joke about it is appalling. It continues
by the way.
“I would have been fine. I was with Kate.â€
“And the photographer?†he (Christian) snaps at me.
“José just got out of line.†I shrug.
A
shrug is a dismissive gesture, just in case you were wondering. She
dismisses sexual assault as ‘getting out of line’. She downplays the
severity of what happened. Why does she do this? Because it’s awkward to
talk about it? Because it’s scary to think that someone she knows and
trusts assaulted her and that when she tried to push him away and said
‘no’ he ignored her? Guess what? It’s always going to suck to talk
about. It’s always scary to realize that statistics say that if you’re
raped, you’ll know your attacker. But we need to talk about these things
because if we don’t, nothing will ever change.
And now the grand
finale, victim shaming and blaming. You see, José feels bad for what he
did. At first, Ana is pissed at him, as she should be, and even after
he calls her numerous times and leaves several messages, she continues
to ignore him, deciding to “let him stewâ€. Then the NEXT DAY, this
happens:
"The memory of José’s attempted kiss haunts me. I’m beginning to feel a bit cruel not calling him back."
She
feels cruel? She feels cruel for not returning the calls of the man
that forced himself upon her? Well, of course she does. She's been
trained to be gracious and polite. He's addressing her. Rule number one
has taught her that she should smile in this situation so it would make
sense that she feels bad for not doing so.
Two days later, they talk:
“Can I see you? I’m sorry about Friday night. I was drunk…and you…well. Ana – please forgive me.â€
“Of course, I forgive you José. Just don’t do it again. You know I don’t feel like that about you.â€
Here’s where I start to get really angry. “..and you…â€
what exactly? Were there? Were breathing? Had tits? How can José’s
behavior in any way be blamed on Ana? This is the “she deserved to be
raped because she was wearing a skirt†mentality that needs to be burned
from our collective minds. No one can ever make you do anything.
Everything you do, every way you behave is a choice that you and you
alone make. So no, there is no “…and you…â€.
Books like
this, with scenes like the ones I’ve spoken about only perpetuate our
silence, our ignorance, our discomfort, and our complicity. They
reinforce unhealthy behaviors and thinking patterns and they perpetuate
rape culture.
Authors, I beg you, don’t cover tough issues and
strong themes if you can’t do them justice. Grant them the depth and the
severity they deserve. Please.
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