I am so sick of people thinking that just because I am involved in an alternative lifestyle, that I came from an abusive home. That Daddy must have diddled me or that I had a nun that was a little too enthusiastic with a ruler. With everyone and their mother ( and I do mean that) telling me I HAVE to read these books, “they’re soooo kinky!” I broke down and did. Kind of wish I didn’t. Not that it’s not a cute little story line (once you get past the gratuitous and frankly, totally unbelievable sex lines) but that once again, that our culture is stemmed from being abused horribly as a child. I have two loving and intelligent parents. Were they perfect? Hell no, but as an adult I know that they wanted nothing but the best for me and that’s what they provided. 50 Shades Of Grey has good technical detail, but terrible implementation. The description of tools is fine, but if I hear the words “gasped” or “Oh my!” in common conversation again I may slap ANYONE out of pure annoyance. So what if your heroine is claiming she isn’t a “true sub”, or a virgin or what ever else. Why don’t you make her a barrista at StarBucks or how about an astronaut. or even better still, let’s make her a champion of abused children. That would be more believable.
Besides the trite and overly visual imagery in the sex scenes in this series, I want to vomit that she presents this twisted view of BDSM. The sex scenes are ho-hum, everyone I know that told me how wet they got when they read it obviously doesn’t have the sex life I do. No, mine is not all chains and candle wax, in fact it’s none of that- it’s very vanilla and normal. Even on a slow night in my t-shirt and grannie panties, my bedroom is hotter then “he nibbles my thighs and twirled his tongue just so”… Really? THIS is what everyone is getting all “het up” about?
Why isn’t everyone getting all “het up” about the fact that this kid who was severely abused and obviously not treated (and his foster-mom’s a doctor-yes it’s pretend I get that but I have a point- bear with me) now turns out to be a Dominant who needs to subjugate women who look like his crack head birth mom. I cannot even start with how wrong that imagery is. Anyone in the scene who even presents to a real Dominatrix with any HINT of emotional or mental distress would be turned away. No, we are not licensed therapists but even a new Dominatrix (if trained properly) would know if someone was not capable of handling it. Plus that he’s turned on to it by an older woman with obvious emotional issues? Again with the child abuse+emotional instability= BDSM tendencies? Uh, no.
Most people I know are smart, healthy and otherwise “normal” human beings. They don’t watch child porn, they weren’t abused as kids, they don’t smear peanut butter on themselves and howl at the moon while channeling Adolf Hitler. They have college educations, beautiful children and faithful spouses. They don’t organize their poo by date and color or have psychotic tendencies to hurt others because mommy was a crack whore. I think that if Ms. E.L. had spent a few hours observing how therapeutic these interactions can be, or, how damaging her words could be to the community at large, she may not have been so trite.
Just my thoughts. Not blaming her for all the negative views on our community, it’s bringing it mainstream as much as that gags me to say, and therefore a tad more acceptable, but if you’re going to write about it, do it realistically and don’t make us any more dark then we are.
Mistress Reese Dragostea
Philadelphia Dominatrix and Dangerous Vixen
