<p>Read all three eh but what makes the books work is that it really is all about her enjoyment. Truly. Her mind blowing…</p>
<p>Read all three while flying to and from vacation. Same for hunger games. That other awful trilogy with vampires and werewovlves, I read the first then just skimmed the other two. Snoozefest. But it’s what is out there and didn’t mind. Wasting a few hours.</p>
<p>as for shades of grey, a little mommy porn cam be a good thing</p>
<p>All I can think about is what does it say about our society that makes this book so popular?
[Is</a> Fifty Shades Of Grey Dangerous? - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/crime/2012/06/23/is-fifty-shades-of-grey-dangerous/]Is”>Is 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' Dangerous?)</p>
<p>“Also I would not want my 21 and 18 year olds to read these.”</p>
<p>Wow, helicopter alert!</p>
<p>To quote professor Stephanie Coontz, " the book is a classical case Of fear fueling sexual attraction.
We’re all creatures of a combination of sociology & biology and often adrenaline is confused with love and desire".</p>
<p>I don’t have any problem discussing unhealthy/healthy behavior with my grown daughters.
That’s what people do.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree.</p>
<p>As I said in earlier posts, I read the first book and am waiting to get the second two books from the library. I neither loved nor hated the first book. I wouldn’t hand the book or recommend it to either of my young adult daughters, mainly because I don’t think they’d like it. Both felt Bella in Twilight acted like a twit. Since they heard this started as fan fiction, neither want to touch it.</p>
<p>“All I can think about is what does it say about our society that makes this book so popular? Is Fifty Shades Of Grey Dangerous? - Forbes”</p>
<p>And again we have someone who doesn’t know, practice or understand BDSM saying how awful it is. Look, the practice is no longer listed as a psychological disorder. The Grey books, should anyone criticizing them bother to actually READ them all, make it clear that the submissive person has the reins in all things. Christian isn’t SAVED, he learns that love and BDSM are completely different from contracted role play. He IS deeply flawed, but it has nothing to do with BDSM.</p>
<p>What these books say about society is that just as gay partnerships and marriage are becoming more acceptable, BDSM, which was always there but hidden as a dark practice is now being more accepted. That authors can stop pretending that it’s all hearts and flowers and vanilla sex. And, that whatever talents the author lacks, she CAN write a pretty hot sex scene goes out of the box to do so. </p>
<p>I’ll bet a whole lot of people reading these books are thinking, “OH! So I’m NOT CRAZY! There are NAMES for this idea in my head! There are ways to do this safely!” So they reach for the phone or type out an email and say, “Honey, we need to talk.”</p>
<p>I don’t like sports-so I don’t watch. I don’t care for comics, so I don’t read comic books. Anime baffles me, so I avoid downtown when full-grown adults with jobs dress like Japanese cartoon characters for a convention. I don’t smoke so I don’t go into smoke shops. It’s not necessary to turn up my nose at these things and sniff about how bad they are. I’m wondering why it’s necessary for so many people to make sure everyone knows they dislike/won’t read/find dangerous a popular culture phenomenon. What makes it so different?</p>
<p>I wonder if they’re simply uncomfortable acknowledging that some DO prefer a bit of “necessary roughness”? The whole thing fascinates me.</p>
<p>I found my DW reading Fifty Shades, didn’t think much of it…Until she asked me to go to the Home Depot to buynsome nylon rope!!! Woohoo, sped down there,got 50feet of the smoothest nylon rope they had…Got a wnk and a nod from the clerk…sped back home, out of breath, i run upstairs with the rope…DW, seeing me run into bedroom, says " That was fast, now go hang that clothesline i have been asking for". ;)</p>
<p>I haven’t read the books and don’t know whether I will or not, but I have been following this thread and hoping that somebody more knowledgeable than I might make the kind of comment that sseamom made in post #66 above.</p>
<p>To me, it sounds like she has the right idea.</p>
<p>50 shades of grey isn’t accurate when portraying BDSM relationships, not surprising since the author had no prior experience.
<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>I only know of one person who claims - long before 50 Shades of Grey - to live a BDSM lifestyle 24/7, and she feels that the author fails miserably in that aspect. She truly hopes that readers don’t come away from the books thinking the author portrays BDSM accurately.</p>
<p>Only one person’s take, but one I know claimed to live the BDSM life before 50 Shades brought the topic to the forefront.</p>
<p>E L James refers to her books as a romance with kink. I’m not sure she intended them to be considered as more than that.</p>
<p>Truthfully, I’ve read more explicit scenes, some with kink. The “hot” scenes didn’t bother me, but the romance novel cliches did: Christian - hot, so hot, … rich, so rich; Ana - innocent, so virginal, so “oh my” or “holy crap”; the gifts to Ana - car, computer, clothes … so expensive. But the “Duke of Slut” paired with naive, virginal heroine cliches evidently worked here someway, somehow, for a number of people.</p>
<p>I’m not a book snob; I’ve read a lot worse books (in every way). I’m not sorry I read the first one and have the next two working their way down the library’s wait list to me. I enjoyed Christian and Ana’s emails and want to find out what happens. I guess I find the sum (best seller list, really?) more than its parts (the books) in this case. Read them but glad I didn’t buy them; not offended but rather didn’t like Ana having to call Christian “sir” et al or her slide within a few days from inexperienced virgin to wearing no underwear when she meets his family. (Eyes rolled here rather than thinking “oh my”) I find it interesting, though, when I say “meh” about the books to one of its ardent fans, the person immediately assumes it to be because of the sex rather than the so-so writing. Not.</p>
<p>I’m so tired of bad writing being heralded as the book of the month.
Dan Brown, you’ve had your fifteen minutes.</p>
<p>I understand that it’s just horribly written and as such I think I’ll not bother. There are such good books out there and I just cringe when I read badly written stuff…there are books with good steamy sensual scenes in them that are well written, too, and I agree that for me anyway it’s not about the sex, it’s about the level of dreck. lol. Though if someone digs them, whatever. To me, the way it sounds, Grey is maybe 3 levels below a Harlequin novel on the writing scale, but with more explicit sex.</p>
<p>I think the writing is much better than a Harlequin novel, although I haven’t read one. It’s just not great compared to most other populate fiction. The emails are clever, though.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen the HBO series “Girls”? It has some Ummmmm “Controversial” scenes,but it’s smart, funny,trendy show. Lena Dunham 26 year old writes, directs and stars in this series. Oh, and she likes to take off her clothes- often. I watched entire first season this weekend. Not for everyone , but thinking you, Grey fans may like it (disclosure haven’t read any of Grey series …,yet.</p>
<p>I dont want my girls to read them because they represent an unrealistic view of sex. Also I did not say I forbade them to read them, I said I didnt want them to. They can and do read what they wish. I am far from a helicopter parent. I have heard of people who wander into threads and deal with snarky people.
but this is the first time it has happened to me. We all have a viewpoint.</p>
<p>I started reading the Shades while on vacation in Seattle (where else?) and interestingly enough, it could have been a good book if the author actually knew how to write, knew how to develop characters, was able to moderate the ‘action’ down to the point of making it ‘movie-able’ down the road, and so on. It is bad writing even for fanfic, and makes JK Rawling and her ilk look like literary giants by comparison. Anyone who ever read ‘The Story of O’ or watched the movie (the beauty of growing up in Elbonia 
would see where the whole thing was lifted from…)</p>
<p>The book’s only ‘redeeming’ value is that it may help ‘bring out’ stuff that people may be uncomfortable to discuss in public - but is so awfully written that any positive is quickly lost as background noise. The book is THAT bad, but has provided endless Facebook status update material and the like. In other words, a cult classic that nobody will ever read at the end.</p>
<p>[Sony</a> offers $5 million for ‘Fifty Shades’ - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety](<a href=“http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118051862?refCatId=13]Sony”>http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118051862?refCatId=13)</p>
<p>Well, it should be glaringly obvious by now that I have more than passing familiarity with this topic. So while HuffPo says that Grey isn’t accurate in regards to BDSM, one thing that article got right is that there are, well, 50 shades (and more) of the practice. </p>
<p>Though MANY who indulge do not explore pain at all, some DO. So Grey isn’t inaccurate there. While MANY are not victims of some kind of abuse, some ARE. In fact, they take back their power from past abuse BECAUSE of BDSM, so it’s not inaccurate there either. Many ARE very happy because of finally finding the right person who works well with their brand of BDSM, so they get love and kink too. That’s exactly what happens with the Grey characters-so it’s not inaccurate there either.</p>
<p>And it’s ALL about consent. The trilogy has this as a central theme, in fact, that Ana must consent to anything Christian does-and he’s baffled because she draws a much harder line than he’s used to. So again, Grey is accurate, despite HuffPo impliying no consent is given. </p>
<p>The trilogy isn’t perfect-I do wish that we’d have a dom/sub who come to BDSM because they were “born that way”, not from some tortured journey. But people of all shades meet in all kinds of ways, and often meet in the middle around any number of topics. That’s what the characters do-that’s what real people do. </p>
<p>Interesting note about “The Story of O”. It was supposedly written as a plea by the author to get her man back-a fantasy, if you will. Like “Fifty Shades”, no? Only the main characters fall in love, get married and have kids and a happy life, while O starts with a gang rape and the woman ends up with nothing. And yet THAT considered the better example. Go figure.</p>
<p>Couple of comments. Seahorsesrock, I consider the Hunger Games young adult books. My kids read these in middle school, so I wouldn’t hold them to the same standard as adult fiction.
sseamom, I’m not sure what to say. It’s scary to people, certainly to me. We teach our daughters not to let anyone degrade or hurt them. There was a piece on Salon recently that one woman wrote about her journey into this world. It put my stomach in a knot. I’m not judging you, but me - I don’t like pain.</p>
<p>I had read Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series - is it similar ? The style of sex, I mean ? Ugh, somehow this is not coming out right…</p>
<p>eta: I just googled (should have done it before) - apparently it is about the same topic - BDSM.</p>
<p>I would say Sleeping Beauty is fairly well written, so if anyone is interested in better writing…</p>