Guest Post - 50 Shades of Hooray!!

Good morning/afternoon/evening to you.

Sorry for being a truly despicable human being this week. As you will have undoubtedly noticed, there have not been any chapter updates and an eerie silence has fallen over the blog...UNTIL NOW!!

Below is a fantastic guest post which comes from Erika Miller. She runs www.somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com and has also had the idiotic wonderful idea to do a chapter-by-chapter review of 50 Shades. Her blog is utterly hilarious and if you enjoy my blog, you will pretty much fall in love with hers. Plus, she uses the term 'lady-boner' which I love and want to steal.

I have written a post for Erika's blog, so have a look at www.somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com tomorrow as my words will be posted. I have written about how Christian Grey is not marriage material. It might make you snigger.

Anyway...on with Erika's guest post. Please leave her some love in the comments section: 

Hello 50 Shades of Dave readers! I'm Erika from Something Short and Snappy! Dave invited me to write a guest post as he and I both had the same terrible and liver damaging idea of blogging through the abomination of literature that claims to be 50 Shades of Grey one chapter at a time.

I take a different approach to this then Dave does. Rather then just yelling at my monitor, I get drunk and then try to pick the chapter apart in an in-depth, intelligent way. Basically, that means is that I take longer to say it's shit. Today I'm here to share with you why I think E.L. James hates women as observed by the first 13 chapters.

I know, misogyny is trendy right now, but this is a new breed. Most insidiously she has invaded my erotica with her poorly written prose and unintentionally hilarious sex scenes.

Now why do I think E.L. James hates women? Anastasia Rose Steele. I knew I was in for a rough ride the second I read that name. Anastasia, or, Ana, as the text and I will call her because typing “Anastasia” every three lines is exhausting, is a shy, timid girl who:

-doesn't drink

-doesn't smoke

-doesn't do drugs (etc)

-doesn’t own a computer

-doesn’t have an e-mail address

or anything that could be considered fun or interesting. Like have a personality or masturbate. “Wow,” someone coming in reading this post first must be thinking, “I didn't think nun porn would hit the main stream!” and to them, tragically, I say it hasn't. Yet. Keep an eye open for “The Secret Habit” coming to a book store near you!* No, Ana is 21 and up to this point in her life has never had a crush. Ever. She has just been reading classic literature and wearing converse and... Working, I guess? Still, she's been happy to just do her own thing up to this point, and managing just fine.

Naturally E.L. James is unhappy with such a dull but content and independent character. Who wants a woman who can do her own thing and not break down in a fit of pining and loneliness every twelve and a half minutes? Not E.L. James, apparently.

So enters another character with a ridiculous name: Christian Grey.

Powerful, gorgeous, enigmatic, super duper sexy, mysterious, boner-inducing, controlling, and did I mention good looking?

Because Ana, the narrator, certainly does. Her whole life just gets swept aside in the wake of Christian Grey and his magical unicorn boner! However Christian Grey and his gargantuan penis that may or may not be an Eldritch horror** come with a twist! He's into BDSM! Not just the standard “hog tie her with an apple in her mouth and slather her with BBQ sauce before giving her a good deep dicking” BDSM either. No, he's into the dominance. He wants her to submit to him. In everything. After some real sexy shit with contracts and NDAs and health and safety lectures (the sexiest of things to be lectured on; a close second is proper boil lancing procedures) he busts out his rules. Oh yes, there are rules. They're all written out, too! In excruciating specific detail.

Ana Must:

Work out 3 times a week

Shave/wax/pluck all the hair from her body save her eye brows and the hair on top of her head

Must dress in certain ways (shapeless floor length floral dresses)

Go to the salon once a week (to maintain that “helpless little girl” look

Be meek and obedient to her master

Ana can't:

Drink to excess

Smoke

Do drugs

 have fun in a way that isn't considered “family friendly” when he isn't around. She isn't even supposed to eat popsicles in public as it is considered too scandalous and her behavior reflects her dom so she must behave ALL THE TIME

Masturbate

Sleep less then 8 hours a day

Failure to comply with his rules means he gets to punish her right then and there. How does he “punish” her? By beating her.

No, really.

So what does Ana get out of this deal? A boyfriend. She's into it and then everything else in her life gets shoved aside and she becomes totally obsessed with her new “relationship”. Weeping over the thought of not seeing him for two days because she thinks he doesn't want commitment. After like, a week of actual dating. GUYS THIS IS ALL SO ROMANTIC!
....

E.L. James is selling a fantasy. A fantasy of a young, innocent virgin who is supposed to be a reader insert character being brain-washed by an older man who's suckering her into what is, at the core of everything, a controlling abusive relationship. This is what she thinks modern women want and are. This is the type of fantasy you don't sell unless you really hate the person you're selling it to. Which, if she thinks Ana is a character who's easy to relate to, and Grey is desirable, she clearly does. The second someone says they read 50 Shades of Ohgodwhy without quickly following it up with “It made me sad for humanity” I fly into a blind rage and start destroying poor innocent tables now.

Well, maybe Ana is supposed to be malleable and is being taken advantage of. Maybe as I get further into the book we'll see her axe murder Grey and make a getaway? I CAN DREAM! Let's take a look at the other female character. Ana's BFF Kate. I can't be bothered to use her full name. Typing it is exhausting. Kate, we are told, is the opposite of Ana. I mean, come on, CLEARLY they're nothing alike, Kate's blond! The book also keeps telling us how smart and wonderful and capable and protective Kate is. Okay, sounds like the stereotypical BFF, but also sounds like a character who won't lead me to screaming OH GOD WHY IS THIS WRITTEN WHY WHAT HOW NO. NONONONONO! Kate does not deliver.

Ana tells us one thing, but Kate's actions say another. Very early in the book Ana gets falling down drunk and one of her other best friends, Jose, the typical brown dude and obligatory secondary love interest for Ana, basically tries to date rape her. As brown people do in E.L. James' world. It's okay, she's saved by Grey! It's okay to use sexual assault to further your plot so long as no one is actually hurt! Then the characters can move on and not be upset or traumatized at all! Just like in real life!

Kate was at this bar, not watching her innocent never been drunk before friend because she was too busy enjoying being fawned over. Grey goes to take Ana home, but Ana insists on finding Kate first because Kate will be worried. That would be the logical expectation. So despite Grey saying it's fine, his brother (also blond) is on it, Ana insists. Oh, is his brother ever on it. Elliot is ramming his penis into the small of Kate's back as she “busts out all her best moves”. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but Ana implies it's a super sexy thing, so I'm going to assume she's making him a sandwich.

Kate has been told by Elliot that Grey, who neither Kate nor Ana knows very well, is going to take her very drunk friend home. Alone. Kate doesn't think it is fishy that a total stranger is telling her this, and simply accepts it at face value, not even trying to text her friend. She then continues to make sandwiches and try to touch Elliot on the penis. Ana finds Kate, and then faints in the bar. As people do when they drink. Kate lets Grey take the unconscious Ana back to their place, alone. Grey does not take Ana home, but back to his hotel. It's fine, because his brother is still with Kate who is so taken by his Aryan charm that she doesn't think to call/text/alert the authorities of her friend's situation. His brother is a wonderful person, clearly, therefore Ana is in NO DANGER AT ALL! Kate isn't just not “an over protective” friend, she's not a friend. She is a total shit.

Now, onto the independent and capable bits. There is nothing in the book to support this. Anywhere. I've been looking. Instead, in the face of a good dicking she melts into a mewling puddle and declares herself half in love after like, two dates.

....

So not only does E.L. James romanticize an abusive relationship, and passiveness, she thinks that female friendship is all about being there when it's convenient to you so you look good but when the chips are down fucking off. Every relationship that her main character has that she finds enriching or meaningful are toxic and abusive, and Ana LOVES it. There is no hint in text that the awful way others treat her are bad, either. Nope, E.L. James thinks that all is right in the world so long as you have a big strong man to compromise yourself to.

And that, dear readers, is why I think E.L. James “book” is propaganda against women. I mean, she clearly hates my liver, and that's PART of a woman.


*No it isn't.
**If it is that would explain Ana's behavior in this book. Those things mess with a person's head. And it was INSIDE her. It would also explain how she was concerned about it fitting.