My friend Jim would disagree with you.
I don't think you can normalize abuse by a fictional novel. I mean, we all pretty much know (at least you, I and the others on this thread) that the book contains abusive relationships, and those with the ability to recognize abuse will be those who call it out when it happens, as you are right to do. I think there's a bigger problem with the inability to actually recognize when something's abusive, and in that scenario, abuse will be normal (to the person unable to percieve it) whether the book exists or not. That's the unfortunate thing about abuse being unrecognizable, it means it's already been normalized in the abused's mind.
It didn't feed the problem for me. It highlighted the problem. I recognized the abusive scenario in the book almost instantly, and the fact that so many women bought it said something to me about many women's ideals of relationships. Now, regardless of my earlier points about how the book has opposed a social no-no -- by its enormous sales and therefore larger recognition between female readers of common sexual desires, which is normalizing those desires and making them less taboo -- I still think the book highlights many women's adherance to the fantasy that a man comes, does all, is all, is your entire focus, your bread, your clothes, your purpose, and has everything -- good looks, superficial charm, unmatchable skills in bed, and also that the book, as we've discussed over and over, condones a completely dependent relationship, but I still do not believe that this book is to blame for abusive relationships.
Something becomes a problem-factor when it creates or is a substantive part of one, yet saying ''fifty shades normalizes abuse in society'' is looking at only one side of what Fifty Shades is and has done. Yes, it may well normalize it, but as for applicable function, I, again, assert that few if any will read this book and break into a woman's office for rape. Even the women reading the book recognize the undesirable nature of that act, as do the men. But that act is all part of the entire theme of the book which is submissiveness of women and dominance of men. It plays into the obsessive sexual fantasy because it encapsulates obsession itself.
The book plays on the stereotype: strong dominant man finds submissive woman who is overbowled by his confidence, self superiority, grandeur, mystery and eventually carnality. It's bad-boy teeny love (like Twilight) with lots of BDSM.
It depends on your intent, how you want to influence people, and how they want to receive it. Literary works are inanimate objects, it's the reader that gives them any life. The BDSM part is what intrigued many women, the abuse part is what revolts many of us. But the abuse is an essential character arc to maintain and intensify the erotic effect of the book.
This isn't supposed to be a book about a nice, handsome young man who takes his girl on ice cream dates. It's about a ruthless businessman with deep insecurities who preys on a vulnerable young women without a mind of her own for intense, sometimes unbearably so, sexual liasons.
Have you ever seen a Clockwork Orange? That move glorifies violence, but in glorifying that violence, the audience are ever-more squeamish and emotionally repulsed in viewing it. The director doesn't make the effort to morally justify the violence, nor to show the incidents with any light shed on the emotional and psychological impact on the victim. He makes no effort to oppose the psychopathic nature of those carrying out in the violence, and in doing so he leaves those emotional or moral decisions entirely up to the viewer.
I personally, for that reason, find sympathy for the victims and hostility toward the agressors comes more easy and more intense than were the director to lead my hand.
So, just because a movie or a book glorifies something, or fails to illustrate moral deliberations in line with the societal norm, doesn't mean there's no purpose in doing that.
As I referred to before, in the Ballet Russes, a play written many years ago when prudence was common, there is a scene where a harem master leaves his concubines and they invite tall, dark, handsome, animalistic men into the harem and have an orgy on set, as a personification of ultimately sexually liberated women who had hitherto been under the command of their present master, who was off on a trip. The director made no effort in that scene to morally conclude that this was wrong of the concubines to do. He simply let the scene happen, without moral inflection. It was what it was. And the audience responded with curiosity and at some points disgust, but the play received fantastic reviews because by going against the common trend of establishing some level of moral 'right and wrong' in his play, he left those deliberations up to the audience. It made the audience think about both the fierce insatiability of female sexual desire (which was hitherto considered ''ladylike'' and not animalistic as mens' appetities were). In this regard, Fifty Shades does something similar for modern women, in that it further dispels the notion that women can't have animalistic sex drives.
However, the abuse of the women in the play was not at the hands of the men they'd invited, but actually at the hands of the harem master, and it was this abuse which was the part of the play the audience disproved of. So, like Fifty Shades, there is a commonality in that the book, when viewed, can help (and has helped) people realize that women have taboo desires too, but it also has made us think about how on a social level, women are often expected to submit psychologically (to fathers, brothers, or husbands) yet are not able to express their desire for kink and submission in the bedroom because of its taboo nature.
Women's sexuality, in my eyes, is little different to men's. Both sexes' desires for sex are equally as intense, and the difference comes in that women most often like to be submissive in bed, while men like to be dominant. In society, however, I think both sexes desire equality in that regard. I think, in all honesty, that the way EL James paints the woman as submissive to the man in society as well as in bed shows up this kind of traditionalist idea that men are to be superior or Lord over women, and takes it to the absolute extreme.
That's good for nobody.
I don't think it's meant to be romantic. It's a book about obsession, dominance, sex, primal urges, submission, danger, mystery, thrill. I don't think it's supposed to be romantic. It's supposed to be thrilling.
Sexualizing it and romanticizing it are a little different. I would image that this book is more intended to be a very dark psychological thriller about abuse, stockholm syndrome, dominance, male aggression, opposition to social stereotypes and controversy. I don't think romantic is really the right word, though I'm sure there are some superficially romantic moments.
I don't think you can normalize abuse by a fictional novel. I mean, we all pretty much know (at least you, I and the others on this thread) that the book contains abusive relationships, and those with the ability to recognize abuse will be those who call it out when it happens, as you are right to do. I think there's a bigger problem with the inability to actually recognize when something's abusive, and in that scenario, abuse will be normal (to the person unable to percieve it) whether the book exists or not. That's the unfortunate thing about abuse being unrecognizable, it means it's already been normalized in the abused's mind.
It didn't feed the problem for me. It highlighted the problem. I recognized the abusive scenario in the book almost instantly, and the fact that so many women bought it said something to me about many women's ideals of relationships. Now, regardless of my earlier points about how the book has opposed a social no-no -- by its enormous sales and therefore larger recognition between female readers of common sexual desires, which is normalizing those desires and making them less taboo -- I still think the book highlights many women's adherance to the fantasy that a man comes, does all, is all, is your entire focus, your bread, your clothes, your purpose, and has everything -- good looks, superficial charm, unmatchable skills in bed, and also that the book, as we've discussed over and over, condones a completely dependent relationship, but I still do not believe that this book is to blame for abusive relationships.
Something becomes a problem-factor when it creates or is a substantive part of one, yet saying ''fifty shades normalizes abuse in society'' is looking at only one side of what Fifty Shades is and has done. Yes, it may well normalize it, but as for applicable function, I, again, assert that few if any will read this book and break into a woman's office for rape. Even the women reading the book recognize the undesirable nature of that act, as do the men. But that act is all part of the entire theme of the book which is submissiveness of women and dominance of men. It plays into the obsessive sexual fantasy because it encapsulates obsession itself.
The book plays on the stereotype: strong dominant man finds submissive woman who is overbowled by his confidence, self superiority, grandeur, mystery and eventually carnality. It's bad-boy teeny love (like Twilight) with lots of BDSM.
It depends on your intent, how you want to influence people, and how they want to receive it. Literary works are inanimate objects, it's the reader that gives them any life. The BDSM part is what intrigued many women, the abuse part is what revolts many of us. But the abuse is an essential character arc to maintain and intensify the erotic effect of the book.
This isn't supposed to be a book about a nice, handsome young man who takes his girl on ice cream dates. It's about a ruthless businessman with deep insecurities who preys on a vulnerable young women without a mind of her own for intense, sometimes unbearably so, sexual liasons.
Have you ever seen a Clockwork Orange? That move glorifies violence, but in glorifying that violence, the audience are ever-more squeamish and emotionally repulsed in viewing it. The director doesn't make the effort to morally justify the violence, nor to show the incidents with any light shed on the emotional and psychological impact on the victim. He makes no effort to oppose the psychopathic nature of those carrying out in the violence, and in doing so he leaves those emotional or moral decisions entirely up to the viewer.
I personally, for that reason, find sympathy for the victims and hostility toward the agressors comes more easy and more intense than were the director to lead my hand.
So, just because a movie or a book glorifies something, or fails to illustrate moral deliberations in line with the societal norm, doesn't mean there's no purpose in doing that.
As I referred to before, in the Ballet Russes, a play written many years ago when prudence was common, there is a scene where a harem master leaves his concubines and they invite tall, dark, handsome, animalistic men into the harem and have an orgy on set, as a personification of ultimately sexually liberated women who had hitherto been under the command of their present master, who was off on a trip. The director made no effort in that scene to morally conclude that this was wrong of the concubines to do. He simply let the scene happen, without moral inflection. It was what it was. And the audience responded with curiosity and at some points disgust, but the play received fantastic reviews because by going against the common trend of establishing some level of moral 'right and wrong' in his play, he left those deliberations up to the audience. It made the audience think about both the fierce insatiability of female sexual desire (which was hitherto considered ''ladylike'' and not animalistic as mens' appetities were). In this regard, Fifty Shades does something similar for modern women, in that it further dispels the notion that women can't have animalistic sex drives.
However, the abuse of the women in the play was not at the hands of the men they'd invited, but actually at the hands of the harem master, and it was this abuse which was the part of the play the audience disproved of. So, like Fifty Shades, there is a commonality in that the book, when viewed, can help (and has helped) people realize that women have taboo desires too, but it also has made us think about how on a social level, women are often expected to submit psychologically (to fathers, brothers, or husbands) yet are not able to express their desire for kink and submission in the bedroom because of its taboo nature.
Women's sexuality, in my eyes, is little different to men's. Both sexes' desires for sex are equally as intense, and the difference comes in that women most often like to be submissive in bed, while men like to be dominant. In society, however, I think both sexes desire equality in that regard. I think, in all honesty, that the way EL James paints the woman as submissive to the man in society as well as in bed shows up this kind of traditionalist idea that men are to be superior or Lord over women, and takes it to the absolute extreme.
That's good for nobody.
I don't think it's meant to be romantic. It's a book about obsession, dominance, sex, primal urges, submission, danger, mystery, thrill. I don't think it's supposed to be romantic. It's supposed to be thrilling.
Sexualizing it and romanticizing it are a little different. I would image that this book is more intended to be a very dark psychological thriller about abuse, stockholm syndrome, dominance, male aggression, opposition to social stereotypes and controversy. I don't think romantic is really the right word, though I'm sure there are some superficially romantic moments.
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