Marie Claire: Mainstream Media Continues To Just Not Get Fifty Shades of Grey

First published on 9/20/2012

The Autralian edition of Marie Claire Magazine's website is asking, "Has Kinky Gone Mainstream?" referring of course to the way 50 Shades of Gray has steamrollered its way into public consciousness via selling 50 million copies.

They ask in that lame, timid way that mainstream magazine articles typically do, "Has kink become mainstream?" Then they refer to a few experts, quote a few random people they know, and go on to draw some safe-sounding conclusions about not following the crowd and doing kinky stuff just because that's what's fashionable, and instead exploring what YOU want to do (or not do) is the key to have a fulfilling sex life. The painfully obvious disguised as wisdom.

And when they are not engaging in a festival of "Duh!" they are getting it wrong:

But is this anything new? “Nobody is reinventing anything. It’s all been done but differently,” says Dr Morrissey. “Think the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days Of Sodom written in 1785, Pauline Réage’s Story Of O in 1954, right through to Nancy’s Friday’s My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies in 1973. What’s revolutionary is the fact that it’s so public.

No, that's not what's so revolutionary about 50 Shades. It's the fact that it's MOMMY porn, not Daddy porn. It's a demographic that has never been associated with porn of any kind, and now they're going for kinky sex. THAT'S revolutionary! If GUYS had taken up some porny book big-time, if them mainstream even noticed, they would dislike it, thinking "Horny guys getting kinky, can't be a good thing."

But since it's mommies it IS revolutionary, which is why Marie Claire's staff have no idea how to respond to it, and really don't "get" it. Really revolutionary stuff has a way of being hard to figure out.

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.