Finally, Some Sanity Prevails: “Fifty Shades of Grey” is no longer #1
September 3rd, 2012 - 12:43 pm
I have never understood the popularity of the book Fifty Shades of Grey so I was glad to see that the new Navy seal book No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden that comes out tomorrow is now #1 on Amazon, topping the former book.
Apparently, nothing is more sexy for some women than a “man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control.” Why, I don’t know, if you do, drop in a comment.
Dr Helen, as someone who is at least somewhat familiar with the concepts of Game, is it really that much of a surprise that tens of millions of women crave dominant alpha assholes?
Yes, good point! I haven’t read them but apparently every one of my friends has, and they’re nothing more than romance novels with sex toys. I prefer non-fiction…
all this alpha male stuff is just trash….I don’t think they exist. If a husband is astride his wife’s neck seeking oral gratification, the vigor question is mute. If he, minutes before, buried his face between his wife’s legs….well then,…it’s proof positive that he is not an alpha male.
We know it’s you, Junior Soprano!
Life would not be worth living w/o the chance to “bury ones head between the legs” of a sexy woman as she moans her approval!!
My theory is based on evolution. Most early human groups were small (about 50 to 100 people), and isolated from each other (except for yearly jamborees, of course: the leaders could plan, the rest could gossip and put together marriages…). Anyway, the Stranger (think Clint), the Man of Mystery, placed a real role here. He drifted from village to homestead, and left his DNA behind him, which was good, because this prevented too much inbreeding. Such a man looked very desirable to women. It wasn’t his nastiness, it was his strangeness that would be a turn on. At certain times during a party, or during the night, ‘strangeness’ can seem to be ‘exotic’ and ‘cosmopolitan’. And he would leave in the morning, thank gracious, and Life would go on…
It depends on who you talk to, and which set of numbers and criteria they use, but it’s a given in the book industry that women buy fiction and men buy non-fiction. Fiction sales have historically been female-driven. I read once that in the 1960s 90% of fiction books were purchased by women. Some of that may have been for husbands, but it’s too strong a bias to ignore it completely. So obviously this is women buying these, and they were outpacing the men. Interestingly, the book that replaces it is non-fiction, and more likely to appeal to men than 50 Shades.
I saw an older woman in the check out at Walmart purchasing the book and it made me feel sick to my stomach. The thought of the book itself gives me a yuck, gross, creepy feeling. The thought of old ladies reading it even more so. Is this the state of the modern grandma? Forgive me while I wrap my kids in a cocoon and shelter them from the world.
I’m a public librarian. For weeks I’ve been at a loss as to what to say to the scores of women of all ages who, when told it’ll be weeks on the waiting list before they get a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey, ask me to recommend “something like it.” All I know about that’s close is The Story of O (too artsy and French) and the stuff published by Ellora’s Cave (which the libraries of our consortium don’t buy). I sometimes give the excuse of being a sci-fi/fantasy reader myself, and thus not up on erotica.
I should have some idea as to the reasons for its appeal, but haven’t a clue. This is a story at the end of which the handsome and powerful, but controlling, secretive and sadistic man marries the heroine, guaranteeing her a life of ease, security and everlasting love. Really? In the kinds of stories I enjoy, he’s the guy who gets killed in single combat by the heroine or hero at the end. But what do I know?
Never having read the book, it sounds like all those female readers want a man who is “controlling, secretive and sadistic” (i.e., socially dominant) to her enemies and adversaries, but socially submissive to her. Getting him to that point toward her takes some work and some women seem to enjoy reading about the struggle.
Just a conjecture.
How about that he is sexual dominance wrapped in an appealing , perfect male package and that he ends up wrapped around her finger at the end?
That seems to the most common female sexual fantasy. The spankings, rough sex, and a few other toys seem to appeal to many women’s “inner goddesses” as well.
Yes it is a primeval female fantasy buried deep in her genetic imperative. Be dominated by the beast who every woman wants, and then eventually dominate the beast so that he only wants her.
Wouldn’t Jane Eyre be a good recommendation?
An excellent suggestion. One could do a lot worse.
Bugs’ Unified Theory of Everything: “Chicks are weird.”
IMO their sexual desires are actually rather primitive and banal, it’s just that society is designed to lie to men and women about female sexual imperative. So when the truth comes out about what women realy want, we regard it as weird. Because it’s counter to our social conditioning.
I haven’t read the book, but here’s what I understand:
The male character is unbelievably handsome (women fall all over him), he’s abusive and angry and was abused as a child, he’s full of crazy rules, and he makes $100,000 per hour. He has chosen a young virgin, and he quickly falls deeply in love with her. Playing in the background is this unstated notion that the former virgin will “cure” the man.
It plays perfectly into most women’s fantasies. First, women who read it want to believe that a rich, successful, confident guy like this could possibly fall in love with them, and they enjoy that fantasy vicariously. But more than that, it’s about turning the man’s control of the girl around, so that she becomes the one in control. It’s about taming (and fixing) a broken alpha male. The sex just adds some element of forbidden behavior to create an edge and a little bit of doubt about the guy in order to intensify the feelings that women get from the novel.
I don’t know either. But look at the the movies showing on Lifetime Movies for Women. “To Love Honor and …Betray…Deceive …Screw Other Women”. I made up the ‘screw other women’, but that doesn’t mean it’s not accurate.
They occasionally throw in a woman who’s a rotter as a token.
Theory:
Women, on a basic level, actually do crave *some* deference and yes, even some domination by men. This is why women prefer confident men who can make decisions, and why many women physically enjoy the role of the “bottom,” for lack of a better term, in a sexual way.
Now, it used to be that this was all fairly obvious, and it was seen as normal and okay for a woman to enjoy being “taken” in the bedroom and “following” the lead of her male partner in public. That was standard, up until the last few decades.
Suddenly, culture tells women that it is bad and wrong to defer in any way to men. But culture does not deactivate gender impulses, it just bottles them up. The result is confused women, with no “escape valve” for their desires.
The result — an over-correction. An over-compensation. Women in 2012 are drawn to an EXAGGERATION of dominance as shown in “50 Shades.”
On the flip side, men are also drawn to an “exaggeration” in the form of thug culture and rap-based “Alpha.”
Neither “50 Shades” for women or thug culture for men is a healthy or useful outlet, but because all NORMAL outlets for gender roles have been sealed off, the impulses reach overload.
Is it possible that the popularity of the “Fifty Shades” series stems from the way in which it gives women a “respectable” avenue for reading pornographic literature and indulging in erotica? Especially given the facts that 1) women like sex too, and 2) They are stimulated primarily by the emotional/psychological aspects of sex, rather than the visual?
I agree with those who’ve said that it’s about many women’s desire to tame and “fix” a broken alpha male.
As I see it, you can think of men as belonging to four basic categories: Weak/Good men (the “Nice Guy”), Weak/Bad men (the “Creep”), Strong/Bad men (the “Bad Boy”), and Strong/Good men (the “Real Man”).
Obviously, the best mate would be the Strong/Good “Real Man”, but they’re rare. If they’re unable to find such a man, women have two options: find a Weak/Good “Nice Guy” and try to build him up and strengthen him, or find a Strong/Bad “Bad Boy” and try to teach him compassion. Which path a woman chooses depends on which she values more: goodness or strength. A book like “50 Shades of Grey” would obviously appeal primarily to the latter.
The book is strong medicine, it is over the top. Why is it popular? Because women are starved for actual men in their lives who act with self-command and authority. The are surrounded by — no other term captures it — pussies; metrosexual, purse-carrying, effete, lisping, gay mannered, whipped, needy, beaten down, submissive. Feminized men predominate, after two generations of indoctrination and brow-beating. They all do what feminism has taught them to do and to be. And since feminism is the most colossal shit test of all, a test women secretly hoped they would pass by laughing it out of the room. But, alas, men have collectively failed it. And despite any words to the contrary women despise them for it. It has become a downward spiral. Feminist-indoctrinated women ever increase their demands, hoping deep in their loins that someone, somewhere will MAN UP and treat their crazy demands with the icy disdain they deserve. As men repeatedly capitulate, women feel increasing desperation. There are no men left in the world, no one is in charge, they have the keys to the castle and they don’t know what to do with it. The man in the novel is a bracing dose of something that the women of today are so starved for that they want a quadruple helping, to the point of outright helpless submission. Porn is the ultimate example of disclosed rather than revealed preferences. 50 Shades is porn that has met its perfect historical moment. It is not pretty, but it is unambiguously accurate. It shows with cruel accuracy the moral, practical and esthetic shambles that feminism has left in its wake.