In
celebration of the millionth sale of the Kindle version of E.L.
James' debut novel Fifty Shades of Grey, along with the news that the
paperback sold 200,000 copies last week, sales breaking all sorts of
records and a film deal already signed it is perhaps interesting to
have a look at what this book actually brings to the concepts of
sexual freedom and liberation that the hype suggests is at the core
of the concept. The trilogy revolves around the main character of the
title Mr. Grey and his exploits as a “Dom” on the BDSM scene,
engaging in a delightful range of kinky dalliances along the lines of
mild bondage, light punishment, a little collaring, some humiliation
play and a bit of master/slave roleplay. All very fine and dandy, and
it seems to have hit a bit of a rich vein of popularity, but there
are key issues here. Lets look at how the books came about. The
author began by writing them as fan fiction based around the Twilight
novels. Now, for those not in the know fan fiction, or fanfic as it
is known, is a specialised genre of online writing where members of
the public take characters and ideas from popular TV series, movies,
books and so on and create new stories as an homage to the original.
Some of these are very good indeed, and it is something that has been
around for a good while. In the UK the popular sci-fi series Dr. Who
was cancelled in the 1980's and many fans became involved in writing
new stories, and even went as far as producing new films and episodes
using the original cast. Similarly there have been an enormous number
of books produced based around the Star Wars movies of George Lucas,
and both of these were before the advent of the internet.
The
first thing is that the internet has made this genre of writing much
more accessible and consequently much more mainstream. Bricks and
mortar publishing businesses monitor the fanfic sites looking for the
next big thing, and as in the case of Fifty Shades, create an amazing
amount of publicity around anything that looks commercial. In
addition it is worth noting that fanfic communities are
extraordinarily geeky in nature and very tight knit. They have a
concept that is known as “canon” which refers to a requirement
that fiction produced is true to the original story. What does this
mean for the Fifty Shades series? Well, look back at the Twilight
books, tremendously popular vampire romance fiction with a very
strong tendency towards sexual abstinence propaganda. Now, doesn't
this make you wonder why fanfic based of this genre would be pushing
kink and fetish? Now have a look at the Mr. Grey character a little
more closely. It transpires as we learn more about him that his “Dom”
fetish is intrinsically linked to character flaws and psychological
problems. Now this isn't overt in the story but it is there, and
there are now a million e-readers with this idea being read over and
over again.
It is
perhaps interesting to note that the Australian publishing company
who first picked up this series is funded in part by a strongly
Christian backer with an interest in the abstinence movement, and one
wonders if that may have had something to do with the success.
Certainly there are far kinkier fanfics out there, and, dare I say
it, far better writing in terms of plot, character development and
style. I guess that the success tells you a lot about how relevant
this series is, and what the appetite for titillation is, and I guess
it also tells you that although sex undoubtedly sells, it has to be
the right sort of sex. There has been a concerted effort by a variety
of groups to overtly push the censorship agenda, and now it seems
that it is happening covertly as well. Keep an eye out for the next
article in this series which will discuss why there might be a
crusade against supposed sexual immorality.
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