Fifty Shades of Sexy

First pubilshed on 7/23/2012 Time for another 50 Shades of Gray update, as my flying monkeys continues to dump reams of the stuff on me, but at least SOME of it has bondage-y goodness to it, and some of it's funny, and some of it's strange.

There's starting to be a clear bifurcation in the response to 50 Shades of Gray: reviewers and columnists don't like it (often bragging that they didn't bother to read it). Readers who respond to it in the columns' comment sections tend to love it. It very much reminds me of the difference between official reviewers of "Deathstalker" on IMDB and the fans who write comments: regular folks liked it, the official bloviators dislike it.

A popular tack for many of the nay-sayers is to say the book is bad for bondage. Here's an example with a nice image of a woman with her hands tied behind her scantily clad backside.

Policymic has a very nicely illustrated article showing 5 reasons why women love 50 shades of Gray, very sexy for a political website. Perhaps they are learning from me. It's about time!

A general culture blog called OC Weekly has a nicely illustrated article about the increase in sales of kinky products inspired by 50 Shades of Gray, featuring a hot blonde in restraints and lingerie.

Down in Australia, they're just now getting around to being surprised by the success of 50 Shades of Gray in some cases. The Cleo News writes about their astonishment and includes a nice image of a lingerie clad woman with her hands bound behind her back, albeit very loosely.

A radio station in Ohio encouraged husbands to get together and hold a public book burning of 50 Shades of Gray, in what can only be described as a ceremony of communal dicklessness. Jeebus, guys, can't get it up? Sad. No image with this one, it's stupid all the way through.

You may think this is a lot, but it's a tiny fraction of what's out there. Most of the articles I see are mindlessly bloviating opinion pieces by bloggers/writers who clearly have not read the book, illustrated with the usual cover art from the book's dust jacket. I never run those, why inflict them on my readers, they're boring enough for me. Plus the celebrity blogs are constantly speculating on who will be cast to play the leads in the 50 Shades of Gray movie, also very boring stuff.

There is one article in particular, however, which I did not include here, because it is too fricking good. It's from Alternet, and it shows some very shrewd insight into some of the cultural aspects of bondage and dominance and links that to 50 Shades of Gray. I'll be treating that one to an in-depth analysis, it deserves it.