Despite it’s controversial content, 50 Shades of Grey is good for women because it allows them to explore their otherwise hidden sexual desires. Fifty Shades of Grey can be good for women. Before you say anything, just hear me out. Yes. Fifty Shades of Grey is badly written, and even that is putting it nicely. But what were people expecting? It’s self-indulgent fan fiction, written by a bored, middle-aged suburban mom. The author, E.L. James, described the book as her “midlife crisis writ large.” Following this, is it then really a surprise that the book has also been criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the BDSM community? Not really. James is not a practitioner of the BDSM lifestyle and the fact that she chose to write about it reflects more of her inner fantasy life than any serious exploration of dom-sub relationships in the real world. And then there have been those who protest the entire idea of BDSM altogether, arguing that like pornography, BDSM is born from a culture that promotes violence against women. But there are also an equal number who object to the idea that being a submissive, like Anastasia is, equates to oppression or violence. Women, they argue, should be allowed to explore their sexuality in any way that they please. And then there are those who argue that conversations about writing or sex aside, the main problem with the book is that like Twilight it promotes the glorification of abusive relationships. The Journal of Women’s Health published a study where the books were read by social scientists and then compared with the CDC’s standards for partner violence, which found that every interaction between Ana and Christian was emotionally abusive in nature and that the use of alcohol and shady, dare I say grey, treatment of consent indicated physical abuse. A separate study showed a correlation between women who had read the books and women who exhibited signs of unhealthy behavior or were in abusive relationships. But the women in the study were all younger than 24 and there was no way of telling whether women who exhibited these behaviors or relationship patterns were drawn to the series or began exhibiting them after being exposed to the series. And more disturbingly, there have also been a string of news stories blaming rapes and sexual assaults on Fifty Shades of Grey. First, let me get this out of the way. I absolutely refuse to buy into the idea that Fifty Shades of Grey, or any other book, movie or TV show is responsible for rape or assault. Saying that it is, is like when the NRA claims that violent video games cause gun violence. Or that rap music is responsible for the proliferation of drugs use. Or when people claim the way a woman is dressed causes rape. It shifts the focus from the, frankly, crappy human beings who commit these crimes. Placing the blame on anything or anyone other than the rapist is unacceptable. That aside, I think that many of the conversations we’ve been having about BDSM thus far have been flawed in many ways, the most critical of which is that they ignore the fundamentally nuanced play between fantasy and reality that is the driving force behind the book. For me, far from revealing issues our society has around consent, or abuse or BDSM, Fifty Shades of Grey is at its core a dark trip into women’s sexual fantasies. Fifty Shades of Grey is worth talking about because it has forced women to confront hard truths about ourselves and driven many of us to reckon with the demons in the mirror. Fan fiction is among the most honest kind of writing that anyone can do. Yeah it’s from where we get such cringe worthy lines as, “Two orgasms…coming apart at the seams, like the spin cycle on a washing machine, wow.” (Yep. Orgasms and doing the laundry. Totally comparable Ana, good one.) But fan fiction can also be a look into suppressed desires and fantasies that we wouldn’t even talk about with our closest friends. And that can make the act of writing fan fiction a very cathartic experience. Fan fiction can often contain very sexual graphic themes such as incest, its more specific offshoot twincest, violence, rape, abuse, cheating, domination and so on. And many fan fiction writers and readers are women. Even when we look at categories likes slash fiction or femslash, which contain relationships between gay males of gay females, we find that often, the writers are straight, often white, females. Why is this? Fan fiction is a force for fantasy. It allows the writer and the reader to immerse themselves in scenarios that are considered taboo, and the illicit or even dangerous nature of the subject matter can be very sexually thrilling. Along these lines, study after study have reveal that one of the most popular erotic fantasies for women have been those centering around sexual subjugation, surrender or submission. These fantasies often involve a sense of danger coming from the male and accompanied powerlessness from the female. These fantasies simulate the illusion of danger but are completely controlled by the female creator. In such idealized, pretend fan fiction scenarios, a woman can experience her rawest, most unconstrained sexuality as fully as she desires. But the key is, that these fantasies, particularly the violent ones, are just that, fantasy. No women would find actually being at the mercy of someone outrageously violating her will or threatening her with harm as desirable or an expression of sexuality. In real life, these acts are rape, they are abuse and they are violence. Fifty Shades of Grey is a voyeuristic glimpse into the sexual fantasy lives of many women like James. And like those Buzzfeed lists, its popularity stems from its reliability. Women, particularly middle aged ones, are relating to the book in the sense that it illustrates a common fantasy that they’ve had: the fantasy of once again being young, sexually inexperienced girls and learning the ropes from an older, more dominant male about their bodies and their desires. The theme of “initiation” is common in many erotic novels. Throughout the book, Ana grapples with issues like consent, control, desire and submission. Things that many of the middle aged women with whom the series is popular with will also have struggled with. In this way, Fifty Shades combines fantasy with a sense of recollection. Women who like Fifty Shades know the difference between fantasy and reality because they’ve experienced it already: destructive relationships that confuse love and ownership, jealous relationships and emotionally draining relationships. Welcome to the teens and 20s of many girls. They know that Christian Grey is far more appealing as a sexual fantasy than a reality. Fifty Shades of Grey is among a growing mainstream trend of looking at female sexuality through the eyes of, gasp, females. We live in a world dominated by depictions of women that are controlled by men. In pornography in particular, we also find themes of submission, dominance and violence similar to those in Fifty Shades. Similar but not the same. Where pornography depicts violence against women through the male gaze and works by taking control away from women, Fifty Shades of Grey doesn’t do this. It’s a women gaze looking at other women and is therefore very much a part of an internal conversation amongst women. Rather than being a story about something that is done to a woman, the lens of the female gaze allows it to be a story about what a woman is doing. And within the space that Fifty Shades has created we can have honest conversations about our sexualities. Why are fantasies about submission so popular? Why is the idea of Christian Grey like figures so popular? Is it because we’re suffering from a kind of Societal Stockholm Syndrome, in that we’ve internalized the images of ourselves presented to us in media like porn? Are these fantasies healthy for us? Do we feel satisfied in our relationships? In our sexual lives? What impression will these fantasies leave on younger women when they search for relationships? The things Fifty Shades of Grey portrays need to be portrayed. We can’t hide from abusive relationships and pretend that they don’t exist. We can’t hope that maybe if we close our eyes they will go away. We can’t pretend that women don’t have the taboo fantasies, involving men like Grey, fantasies that we wouldn’t want to happening to us in real life. It allows for us to show younger girls especially that even if in fantasy, the idea of consent might be blurry or non existent, in reality, it is required, at all times. And if anything, Fifty Shades is also a good road map of what not to do in real life. If I had a daughter, I’d force her to watch it. If a guy acts like that, you run the other direction honey. Fantasy and reality are not the same. You have control in one, but not always in the other. In the end, maybe the best thing about the book is its title, because it rings true. The conversations about sex, fantasy, women, relationships and desire that it has ignited amongst women have been by no means black or white. They’ve been, in a sense, many shades of grey. This article was written by Rae Dehal. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Flickr