Saturday, March 16, 2013

What Has Gone So Wrong with Modern Women that Fifty Shades of Grey is a Hit?

   While I admit I've only read excerpts and reviews of the series,  it is more than enough to get a pretty clear picture of  both the shallow and twisted nature of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. After all, there aren't a lot of sophisticated concepts in the books that require deep thinking, yet ironically some women read them to "appear sophisticated", or because their friends are reading it and they're curious.  Instead of  viewing it as sophistication, however, the mental health community considers it pathological, listing sadism and masochism in their current diagnostic bible, the DSM IV revised. It has also been noted that people who like being abused are statistically more likely to switch into abusing themselves. 
 
    More importantly, have women who think these books are okay or even entertaining thought of the fact that it sends men the message that we really want to be sexually abused in real life? It gives men the idea that we probably do want to be treated with force or even outright taken by force.
Women need to resist the subversive messages that society is sending women about what is "sophisticated."
 
     In a time when women are being raped in unprecedented numbers all over the world--not just in India and Africa but all over the US, including the military-- feminists should realize that this utter garbage written by a woman for other women only reinforces the image of ourselves as wanting to be raped, and thus makes us more likely to be raped.

     I can just imagine a trial occurring in the not too distant future in the USA where a lawyer defends an accused rapist by saying about the victim, "Well, but isn't it true that she told you she read Fifty Shades and she liked bondage and rough sex? Weren't you just having consensual BDSM?" I can see this happening quite clearly. 


    In fact, in 1986, there was the famous "Preppie Murder Trial"  in which the defendant, Robert Chambers, was able to claim that the strangling death and rape of the victim was only accidental rough sex gone wrong, rough sex that she had asked for,and the defendant walked only with a manslaughter charge.

      Real feminists should be appalled, early feminists rolling in their graves, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan. It is sad how unhealthy and fooled modern women are becoming. With the idiot who wrote this stuff, it's like the blind leading the blind.

10 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you for the invite, Steve, but please leave a comment about what you think of the article itself, I'd be interested to hear it.

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  2. Powerful stuff, Catharine. A woman wrote the book, didn't she? That makes it all the more disturbing. It really is, as you say, the blind leading the blind...only the one in front is holding a grenade, and the pin's out.

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  3. I couldn't have said it better myself, Tammy! Thanks for reading.
    Catharine

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  4. Hi,

    I first found out about the book, Fifty Shades of Grey, from a woman who asked me if I planned on reading it. Up until that time, I had not heard of it.

    I haven't read it yet and since I have read two of three reviews, I can say it is definitely not on my reading list and will not hit my reading list, because it represents a sickness among men and women regarding sexual intimacy that I myself deplore. Intimacy is not some type of bodily bondage where you are abusing your body and receiving joy out of giving someone else pain or feeling pain yourself.

    Ciao,
    Patricia

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    Replies
    1. Hi Pat,

      You are so right about intimacy! You said it very well: sexual intimacy was meant to be an experience of loving kindness on both sides, that's how God intended it. No, I don't think you'd enjoy the Fifty Shades of Grey anymore than I would, and it is a very sick book to present to the public. Thanks for stopping by ;)
      Best,
      Catharine

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  5. I cannot say it better than you, Catharine, and you T.J. and Patricia. But I will add, that the story subject sells books, so what's the point -- greed? --Money, sex and power.

    Catharine, you have presented and crafted this beautifully, and I thank you for bringing out the twisted, weak thinking of some, especially some in the younger generation and for taking a stand for woman and her inner power.

    Love, Carol

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  6. Hi Carol,

    I agree, the author of this trash, whose real name is Erika Leonard (nee Mitchell) was most likely writing for the money. She does a disservice to women everywhere. Unbelievably, she is not of the younger generation at all, she is 50 years old, 6 years older than me. What a disgrace!!

    Thank you for your kind words on my writing!I tried to say this as succinctly as possible.
    Best,
    Catharine

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  7. Hello Catharine, the other day on the beach, I met up with a young woman who is a friend of my son. She had the book under her arm, the 3rd one in the series. She said she has enjoyed them and they provide light relief from all the research that she does on e.g. Rape, AIDS, alcoholism. She is a very smart and lovely clin psychologist. We discussed about S & M and also about the message that women enjoy submission. This is actually a well known psychological 'state' which takes different ways of being expressed. But this is not the place to discuss this right now ...I have not read the book, nor do I feel so inclined. I also heard that it is badly written. I heard the author on radio some while back.. Not impressed.
    But the point I am making is that women still have this fantasy of being saved by a knight on a white charger. We are all, men and women, slaves to something... Consumerism, keeping up with the Jones', whatever it is ... slaves to our ideals, slaves to our children, slaves to need for control etc etc etc ...
    I agree that this is a disservice to women .. So what's new? A great pity ....

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  8. Hi Susan,

    Thank you for your comment. My friend who read them for "light reading" was also a clinical psychologist, and also very smart, but I do not see how any well balanced person could enjoy these books, sorry. I don't think that Christian Grey is much of a white knight, but the white knight could be transferred into an oppressor/savior now, a Byronic hero. Thank you for writing and taking the time to read my piece!
    Best,
    Catharine

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