Posts tagged Sex

Last week, a significant part of the reading world, celebrated the much-loved, Banned Books Week. I did too (This year I read, The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini) and involved my entire book club, #KHIBookSwap in support of the movement.

When we speak about banned books, one name seems to particularly surface often than others and not because of the explicit content but its general perception. If I had a penny for everyone I knew who hated the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy by E.L. James, well let’s just say, I would have been a self-published author by now.

Since the year (2012) I fell in love with these books, I have faced nothing but criticism and judgment. People, who know me quite well, apparently did not expect me to be this vile to like these books. Seemingly, it is ‘inhumane’ of me to even speak of this trilogy let alone recommend it to others. I have battled in my very own book club to make my fellow members understand the books but alas! All was in vain. Thus I have taken the responsibility to either convince all you critics out there or shush you up for good!

If you are expecting, a decent, dignified and healthy debate, please turn away. I am going to get very graphic here. (You have been warned).

Let’s take this piece by piece, I will answer all the questions and remarks thrown at me over the years concerning the books:

Question/Remark/Comment: This is not Literature. It’s porn! I could not even finish the first book.

My Reply: Oh Really! Well if this is porn, then were all the Sidney Sheldon, Judith McNaught and Julie Garwood Religious Scriptures?! If Sheldon gags a woman with a tie, that’s romance and if James ties a woman with the same bloody tie, its porn? If you had the guts to finish the first book, you would know where the book is leading to. If you spent all your University years, reading Sheldon at night (and messaging your boyfriend simultaneously) then you are no one to call a book indecent without having it read completely!

Question/Remark/Comment: This book is offensive and abusive to women!

My Reply: If you weren’t scared of people judging you, you would have the gourmands to finish the damn book and see how the story depicts the patience of a woman and when it goes against her respect; she stands up and walks out on the man she claims to be in love. The book is not written to degrade women, it is crafted to show how strong women actually are. If you weren’t too caught in the following the damn crowd, you would have read the books yourself and discovered just how strong Ana’s character is!

Question/Remark/Comment: How can you allow yourself to be controlled by a man like this?

My Reply: Ha Ha says the girl who now observes Hijab just cause her boyfriend says so! Know about the concept of “Inner Goddess”. Google it. It’s not porn. It’s human psychology. When you willing submit to your beloved and in turn release your inner power and strength; E L James just portrayed your “Unke Liye” or “Unhoon Ne Kaha Hai” into more of a graphic representation and now you call it controlling? If you think, adorning yourself with his favourite color is love then why the hell can she not express her love but submitting to his desires? You love it when your possessive guy, asks you about your day and all the people you met? When you text message your guy each time you use the loo, would you not consider that controlling? Oh! Wait, according to you, that’s out of love, well she telling him that she is leaving the state to meet her mother is also out of love!!!

Question/Remark/Comment: All they do is have sex. How can someone be so sick?

My Reply: Well it is far better than your boyfriend jerking off to text messages. Grow up! Christian Grey is rich; he has the means to buy a room so they do it in a hotel! And you whine about it because your boyfriend hardly has mobile-credit money. When you have to share one burger and one drink at McDonald’s just so you will have a place to sit, talk and hold hands, isn’t that a little desperate? So please deal with it. When someone who has a job and makes moola will date you, they too will take you on luxurious trysts. There is a line between needs and the means to acquire those needs. You have yet to experience the other side. That’s all! Besides, I think, dressing up for the movies is sick. I mean, what the hell girls, stilettos, red lips and opened tresses for Atrium Mall? Jeezzzzz!!! Attracting stares at the movie complex is the real sickening act.

Question/Remark/Comment: Christian Grey does not love her. He just wants to fuck her!

My Reply: Isn’t that better than your boyfriend of 4 years calling it off because he cannot marry against his mother’s consent? Christian never pretended to be something he is not. (Well you would know that if you had the balls to read the damn book) Ana knew of his intentions from day one. In fact he loved her so much that he completely changed for her. He married her! Girls, are you reading this? Christian Grey fought for Ana Steele, pursued her, convinced her of his love and married her!!! Do you really find FSOG offensive are you just jealous because you never got your ‘Happy Ending’?

Question/Remark/Comment: The book is filled with BDSM [bondage and discipline (B&D), dominance and submission (D&S), and sadism & masochism (S&M)]. It is repulsive and demeaning.

My Reply: I have witnessed a selection of misinterpretations about Ana and Christian’s supposedly abusive relationship as well as the expected criticism of the trilogy’s inherently salacious nature. But I have never come across the same girl, sharing her fantasies or boyfriend’s naughty text messages. Here is a new bulletin for all those girls: Every guy is into BDSM, the only thing that separates them from Christian Grey is the means to actually afford a place and the toys! Every man has deep, dark and dirty fantasies, he is just too much a pansy to actually admit them out loud.

Question/Remark/Comment: A book of such nature should not even get published!

My Reply: So you are saying, “Breathing Underwater” by Alex Flinn to “A Child Called ‘It’” by Dave Pelzer to “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, all of these should have never been published either? But no – to you people all of these titles are literary masterpieces!

I can literally go on and on, I have been bombarded by such critique for years and all I request the knockers is to allow yourself a chance to read the bloody books before you make an opinion. After having read the books, if you still do not like them that is when I will respect your verdict but please do not judge the book just because you heard someone telling you, he beats her with a crop in it.

I too myself have one problem with the entire series, if I ever meet James in person; I will surely tell her that all the books and just not “Grey” should have been told by Christian’s perfective because yes I support feminism but this was in reality the transformation of an autocratic billionaire who soon was on his knees to be with the woman he loved.

I always say this and will continue to utter: This is a modern-day love story. A love story of a man and a woman fighting for an unrealistic relationship, a story with cars, mobile phones and laptops, a story of a man falling in love against his basic instincts and a story of a woman who had to choose between her love and her self-respect.

What is so horrible about that?
Believe it or not, we experience the same every single day! (May be just with less money and without a red room) When he does not take time out for your special day because he has a Boys-Night-Out, believe me girls that is more degrading then him sharing his sexual desires with you inside his-self-paid-hotel-room! Whether you wish to join him in his fantasies or not is entirely your decision but at least learn to have an opinion and not follow the crowd blindly.