Fifty Shades of News Bits

First published on 12/21/2012

Fifty Shades of Gray has inspired a workout. Do tell. Bandwagon-jumping continues apace. They've also got a new video out of George Takei reading Fifty Shades of Grey aloud which is SUPPOSED to be hilarious, and to have gone viral, but I watched it, and ... meh. So no link!

Also, a cogent and interesting analysis of the prospects for a Fifty Shades of Grey movie that predicts the movie will be bizarre. If it's bizarre, I think that will be a success, because that means somebody will have TRIED to make it work. I think it will just suck. But do read the analysis, and if you like, my response in the comments section.

Fifty Shades of Pearl Scratching

First published on 10/1/2012

Bandwagon jumping on the 50 Shades phenomenon has hit a new low. A post on the Babble blog (a parenting blog) by Carolyn Castiglia describes an item for sale on Ebay through October 8: a used copy of Fifty Shades of Gray. And we mean THOROUGHLY used: its being auctioned off by a trio of Brooklyn wives described as "MILFs." They all enjoyed it VERY much, the ad copy assures us, but the blog post makes sure, saying:

Get it? Three hot white girls scratched the pearl to this book!

There are SO MANY things wrong with this. The cringe-inducing metaphor of "scratching the pearl" ("petting the pearl" or even "poking the pearl" work so much better), the notation that it's "white chicks" (why would it matter if they were hottie black chicks?) but most of all, the fact that if you bid on that book, you are pretty much on par with a Japanese businessman stopping along the way home to buy a pair of used girl's undies from a vending machine.

I still got my old copies of Playboy and Bondage Life stacked away somewhere, and my Gor novels are right on the shelf ... I wonder ... (/me checks his paypal account for income from his ad for the secret to making slavegirls stop drooling, notices there has been none) ... naaaaaaaaaaah.

All that said, here's the ebay listing. Never let it be said that I stood between the equivalent of a lonely, perverted Japanese businessman and fulfillment.

50 Shades of Grey: The Next Mainstream Bondage Romance?

First published 3/1/2012
It's been a long time since there was a breakout bondage romance in mainstream media, and it looks like the drought is over: Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James, a London television executive who got published by a small Australian publisher and who is not getting wall to wall buzz for her book.

It's the story of a hot young woman seduced by a bondage-loving billionaire and all the deliciously naughty things he does to her. It's doing tremendously well in terms of sales and it has the buzz machine going on overtime. How successful is it? Well I linked to the Kindle version of 50 Shades because the paperbacks, which were printed in a small run initially, were going for $105.00 each on Amazon when I created the link. The Kindle version is only $6.95, so ... I figured most would prefer it. It's being called everything from Pornography for Mommies to Twilight for adults.

Now, there's an interesting story there. Fifty Shades of Grey apparently started out as Twilight fan fiction. And the Twilight fanbase adopted it as a tribute to the wonderful Twilight books (you know, Stephenie Myers' series about a vacuous high school girl who is inexplicably attractive to vampires). Then, the narrative goes, she somehow sneakily rewrote it as her own creative work, USING the Twilight fandom community to promote her book.

By all accounts, it's hard to see how 50 Shades is Twilight fanfic, so I'm not sure I buy this narrative, though it's apparently true that James wrote fanfic in the Twilight community as Icedragon Snowqueen. I really don't know enough to have an opinion, having read neither book. (Oh, I'm gonna read 50 Shades!) But it's some great gossip!

It's interesting, almost always, when a bondage story breaks over into the mainstream, it's a romance. Spicy romances, to be sure, with plenty of sex, but the feel of the genre is unmistakable: Story of O, 9 1/2 Weeks and 50 Shades all are about women who have relationships with a single man who brings out the submissive in them, while they bring out the dom in him. Secretary would be the film equivalent, I suppose.

I'm always interested in bondage that makes it into the mainstream, maybe 50 Shades will be the novel that becomes the gateway fiction that leads readers to find all the great erotic bondage fiction out there. Fiction like: Karg!