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shamanicshaymin) wrote2013-09-30 08:47 pm
shamanicshaymin) wrote2013-09-30 08:47 pm
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Eel? Get out of my college search engines.
I was looking up articles from a college database (Points of View Reference Center), and my Composition II professor allowed me to use fanfiction for the topic of my paper. Go figure, lots of newspaper articles on E.L. James and 50 Shades popped up. I mainly skipped over them, but then I came across an innocuous article called "What is fanfiction.net?" from The (United Kingdom) Times. Yet another 50 Shades article. I skimmed over it for a while, then came across this:
Some call Fifty Shades a love story, others prefer the words erotica or romance. A lot of people have written it off as trash. Men, particularly, seem to find it offensive. A US television host recently pronounced the sadomasochistic themes in the book "a rape fantasy".
"That is ridiculous," James says, bridling again. Everything that happens in Fifty Shades is "safe, sane and consensual". Indeed, there are condoms littered all over the book. "No one gets raped. In fact I find that quite offensive." Surely, though, it is pornographic? "I don't understand what you mean by pornography," she says testily. "People having sex is not pornography, to me. You'll need to define your terms. People fall in love, they have sex. That's perfectly normal and natural. To call it pornography is weird. I think pornography for me is women drugged and ... something horrible. What's that Stieg Larsson thing? That rape scene. That's obscene. I saw the Swedish version of the film. It shocked the hell out of me."
Unlike Larsson's fiction, James argues, hers is not misogynistic. Indeed, there are women out there who argue that her books are empowering, that Fifty Shades is encouraging women to be more open about their sexual desires.
"Women aren't supposed to like this sort of thing. To have a man tie her up and dominate her." But because it's on the page, "it's very, very safe".
Fuck you, E.L. James. You have no right to deem what is misogyny and what isn't when you've written a scene where the male lead breaks into his love interest's apartment to "fuck her into submission" because she wrote an email that implied she wanted to break off the relationship. Oh yeah, I like that you left out that Lisbeth Salander got her revenge and tattooed "I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST" on her rapist's abdomen.
Since I found the article at a college-specific database, I unfortunately can't link to it. But I can tell you the source: Times, The (United Kingdom), Apr 12, 2012, p5, 1p
Some call Fifty Shades a love story, others prefer the words erotica or romance. A lot of people have written it off as trash. Men, particularly, seem to find it offensive. A US television host recently pronounced the sadomasochistic themes in the book "a rape fantasy".
"That is ridiculous," James says, bridling again. Everything that happens in Fifty Shades is "safe, sane and consensual". Indeed, there are condoms littered all over the book. "No one gets raped. In fact I find that quite offensive." Surely, though, it is pornographic? "I don't understand what you mean by pornography," she says testily. "People having sex is not pornography, to me. You'll need to define your terms. People fall in love, they have sex. That's perfectly normal and natural. To call it pornography is weird. I think pornography for me is women drugged and ... something horrible. What's that Stieg Larsson thing? That rape scene. That's obscene. I saw the Swedish version of the film. It shocked the hell out of me."
Unlike Larsson's fiction, James argues, hers is not misogynistic. Indeed, there are women out there who argue that her books are empowering, that Fifty Shades is encouraging women to be more open about their sexual desires.
"Women aren't supposed to like this sort of thing. To have a man tie her up and dominate her." But because it's on the page, "it's very, very safe".
Fuck you, E.L. James. You have no right to deem what is misogyny and what isn't when you've written a scene where the male lead breaks into his love interest's apartment to "fuck her into submission" because she wrote an email that implied she wanted to break off the relationship. Oh yeah, I like that you left out that Lisbeth Salander got her revenge and tattooed "I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST" on her rapist's abdomen.
Since I found the article at a college-specific database, I unfortunately can't link to it. But I can tell you the source: Times, The (United Kingdom), Apr 12, 2012, p5, 1p
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CHRISTIAN BROKE THE FUCK INTO ANA'S APARTMENT AND FUCKED HER WITHOUT PERMISSION. THAT IS CALLED RAPE, MRS. JAMES. WRITE ALL THE ABUSIVE BONDAGE PORN YOU WANT BUT AT LEAST CALL IT WHAT IT IS.
"Women aren't supposed to like this sort of thing. To have a man tie her up and dominate her." But because it's on the page, "it's very, very safe".
No, women are supposed to like being tied up and dominated BECAUSE THEY WANT IT TO HAPPEN. NOT BECAUSE AN ASSHOLE FORCES IT ON THEM.
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No, women are supposed to like being tied up and dominated BECAUSE THEY WANT IT TO HAPPEN. NOT BECAUSE AN ASSHOLE FORCES IT ON THEM.
I don't know how the hell that gets mixed up. Goddammit Eel.
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Sometimes I wondered if I went overboard with my 50 Shades hate. But if James actually has this attitude? No. Just no.
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If 50 Shades was labeled erotica I wouldn't give a care, but it's romance. WTF?