Other shades of grey

Hot columnist, Sean O’Shea, reflects on the bestselling erotic novel, Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James. He expresses concern that the representation of violence as erotically appealing may serve to legitimise and reinforce the abuse of women in society.

(This article deals with adult subject matter)

Having repeatedly encountered groups of adults tittering like juveniles on the bus and on the train as they discussed Fifty Shades of Grey, I thought I had to investigate what the fuss was about. Erotic fiction is not my cup of tea, so to undertake such an investigation was, on my part, a potential exercise in masochism. However, the book was not without interest.

Not only has it had record sales, but it also sets a record for the sheer disparity of views, which it has engendered both from the reading public and from myriad professional interest groups. In addition, it throws light on aspects of contemporary culture and presents us, in my view, with a bleak, dehumanised and distorted image of human relationship.

Paraphrasing just some of the wide ranging responses the book has been described as:

• A kinky fairy tale for adults
• A story about unconditional love and the lengths to which some women may go to understand the man they love, and the faith, trust and compromise that may be necessary to sustain such a relationship.
• A case study on sexual and emotional abuse, which normalises the objectification of women and sets the women’s movement back  a hundred years
• An endorsement of women’s right to mix pleasure with pain and to have the complexity of their sexuality acknowledged by their lovers and society at large.
• A story which pathologizes the BDSM community by representing its devotees as suffering from childhood trauma.
• A tale of a virgin who turns a monster into a prince
• The literary equivalent of a haemorrhoid

The bare bones

She is called Anastasia or Ms Steele and is a graduate in her early twenties, but is described in terms more appropriate to a child than a woman. The mercurial, Christian Grey, who is a multimillionaire and the owner of an international company, successfully seduces her.

She is a virgin and not just any virgin, but one who does not seem to have progressed through the normal milestones in her sexual development: for example, she is described as never having indulged in auto-erotic activity.

Chronologically adult, but abnormally innocent, we are invited to believe that she is in a position to give ”informed consent” to a variety of sexual practices, which would conventionally be regarded as on the bizarre end of the spectrum.

Because of her innocence, he is able to train her to be obedient and to desire what he compulsively desires. Like a Pavlovian dog, she is successfully conditioned to associate pleasure with pain and “hard fucking.” He prevails upon her to sign a “contract”, in which she agrees to let him control her social life and everything she eats and wears. She also agrees to let him corporally punish her as he sees fit, in a specially designed playroom. During these sessions, she must not touch him or look him in the eyes.

He feels compelled to act in this way, because he himself was abused as a child. He tries to conquer his demons through undergoing a variety of therapies, but nothing works until he meets Ms Steele.

And even then his desire is never entirely sated – it hides a perpetual lack. He has always to come back for more. In this sense, he is both master and slave in his own narcissistic vicious circle. As the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, points out: “It’s impossible to heal your own emotional brokenness through the body of another person as mortal and broken as you are.” Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, 1981.

Though she accommodates herself to his compulsions, she also wants love, romance and empathy. Are these conflicting desires reconcilable?  In this fictional world they are, and the couple are described as eventually achieving genuine love and intimacy, as well as continuing with their somewhat more tempered S&M activities in the “playroom”.

At this point, we must remind ourselves that the world being described is a fantasy world. And to reinforce this message, E L James pointed out in a recent interview on Channel 4, that what women really want of men is not for them to beat them or tie them up, but to do the washing up.

Those whose hold on the boundaries between the real and the imaginary is less secure, may view Fifty Shades of Grey as a realistic representation of the possibilities to be explored in the real world. They could however come seriously unstuck, as they pursue obscure objects of desire in the company of men, whose concern for their health and welfare is likely be the last thing on their minds.

BDSM

The BDSM community have viewed the novel as stigmatising them by implying that Christian Grey’s sadomasochistic interests were a result of his traumatic childhood. They point out that sadomasochism, which was listed as a sociopathic disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1952, has since been reclassified. Sadomasochism as a lifestyle choice is now distinguished from a psychological disorder in which people’s “fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviours may cause clinically significant distress or impairment…” DSM – IV, 1994.

However the jury is still out on this topic and sexologists and other experts in “normality” continue to disagree amongst themselves about where exactly the boundaries are between legitimate consensual pleasure-seeking and physical and psychological abuse.

Feminist perspectives

Feminism anticipated an end to the dominant/submissive model of relationship. However, feminist and psychotherapist, Virginia Satir, has pointed out that people are commonly floundering in their efforts to replace the old pattern with a new paradigm of relationship. We are only beginning to learn “how a relationship based on genuine feelings of equality can operate practically”. Introduction to PAIRS, (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills), Virginia Satir, 1983.

Some feminists have viewed E L James’ book as liberating women to explore their sexuality to the full and bemoan the apparent lack of “strong males” like Christian Grey amongst the current male population, many of whom are now seen as too docile and domesticated to fully satisfy a woman’s darker desires.

Other commentators see her as promoting negative stereotypes of women, and some have echoed the view, originally associated with the feminist writer, Andrea Dworkin, that all heterosexual intercourse is rape. However Dwokin never actually said this; what she did say in her book Intercourse 1987, and in reference to male supremacy, was that  “…maleness is aggressive and violent and so fucking…essentially demands the disappearance of the woman as an individual….”

The continuing debate amongst feminists on how much of the female body can be exposed to the “male gaze”, before she is regarded as being objectified is an illustration of how feminism still struggles with defining a positive image of heterosexual relations.

From a sociological point of view, objectification and the master-slave dynamic are not issues peculiar to gender relations. For Marx, they were thematic of history itself, which is represented as a conflict between masters and slaves. On this view, the economic sphere is seen as a crucial, though not an exclusive, site for this struggle and it was anticipated that it could only be resolved when the subordinate class – both men and women – recognised that the personal is political, and accepted the challenge of freeing themselves from their own acculturation process, disidentifying with the dominant/submissive paradigm and joining together in a common quest for mutual recognition and full human emancipation.

This perspective was associated with a belief in human progress, which emerged primarily from the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, but which has since been somewhat undermined by the horrors of the twentieth century.

Crisis of masculinity

There is a sense in which men are caught between attempting to maintain traditional macho posturing and the new-man type behaviour, requiring them to be gentle and in touch with their feelings. This tension is thought by some to have reached epidemic proportions, as evidenced by the number of books being published on the alleged crisis of masculinity and the increase in the incidence of suicide, particularly among young men, with which this phenomenon is seen as correlated.

Viagra sales are booming and special therapeutic training courses are being developed to help the allegedly docile male to recover his authority and masterfulness, by running around forests stark naked, beating drums, roaring his rage against women and getting in touch with his warrior self.

As we falteringly advance on our search for non-oppressive modes of personal intimacy, an increasing number of us are ending up living alone. For some, sensual contact is limited to an unavoidable brush in the anonymity of a crowded train and friendship is a virtual reality game conducted on Facebook.

If this trend continues, Eleanor Rigby rather than Anastasia Steele may be a truer image of our times.

While some religions have been prevailed upon to temper their misogynistic leanings, others continue to sanction the comprehensive control and domination of women by men. This includes control of a woman’s movements, her social life and her mode of dress. It also includes the right to corporally punish her for alleged misbehaviours.

If Christian Grey had chosen to view his desire to control and chastise Anastasia as a duty, rather than a pathology, he could have spared himself the expense of therapy and relocated to any number of countries, where his behaviour would be consistent with prevailing norms.

SOS Feb 2013

 

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