Fifty Shades of Bad

Spoiler Alert: In case you couldn't tell, I’m getting ready to unleash a diatribe on “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James. With details. If you haven’t read it yet, chances are good you aren’t going to read it. Thus, the spoiler alert really isn’t necessary. How can you spoil something that's already rotten?

Yeah, I read “Fifty Shades of Grey.” I even read “Fifty Shades Darker”, the sequel, after which I determined there was no way in hell I was going to read the third one. I get the feeling I don’t need to read the third one to know what it’s about, an argument that could be made for the first two. I read them because it seemed the rest of the women in the US of A were reading them. I didn’t want to feel left out. I also wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Okay, I know I didn’t need to read it to make that determination, but I wanted to see if it was worth it. The short answer? No.

I knew a little about these smutty books before I cracked open the first paperback. They are mommy porn books about an older man who dominates a younger woman. The sex was  allegedly hot. The writing was mediocre. The editing was nonexistent. I thought that was enough to work with. Wrong! The first of the trilogy introduces the characters, Christian Grey, the dominating older man, and Anastasia, his naive submissive.

When you think older man and younger woman and throw in the word grey, you would think we are talking a true May-December romance. Not so. They are both in their twenties. Twenties! That’s not old. It’s especially not old considering the target audience.

Okay, so Christian, which is an odd name to pick for the main character of a dirty book, is not only in his mid to late twenties, he is also the multimillionaire owner of his own business. He can fly his own helicopter. He knows a lot about wine. And he was the adopted son of a crack whore. Wait, what? Yes, we, the readers, are supposed to believe that a man in his twenties who started out life as a white trash kid and was adopted in his preschool formative years is now the most eligible bachelor of Seattle. Seattle should feel insulted.

 His love interest, Anastasia, is an innocent college graduate who meets the charming Mr. Grey when she interviews him for the school newspaper as a favor to her roommate. And guess what? They are interested in each other. And guess what else? She’s a virgin. Seriously? She just graduated college. The percentage of 23 year olds who are still virgins in the US is roughly ten percent. I Googled it so you know it’s a fact.

Give me a break. Give us all a break.

But wait, there’s more. He is so screwed up by his crack whore mother, to whom he refers as “the crack whore,” that he can’t have a regular relationship with a woman. Instead, he has contractual relationships with submissives, who have hard and soft limits of what they are willing to do, and safety words, and a trial period, and all the alleged sexual relations take place in the dungeon room in his apartment, and oh yes, did I mention they sign a do not discuss clause or some other bullshit, so Ana can’t even discuss her love and unusual relationship with her roommate, who ends up dating Christian’s brother. Oh Jesus. Just writing about this shitty book is making me dumber.

Okay, I will buy the argument that the plot isn’t really that important. After all, the plot lines of porn movies are even worse. And no one watches those for the plot. Which brings me to my next complaint. If you are going to write porn, make it good porn. Make the reader want to read it. In the first book, E.L. James decided to use some words liberally. Like clamber and apex. Clambering into bed is fine every once in a while, but when you start counting the number of times someone clambers, then maybe that characters needs to scurry or jump or crawl or fall into or do anything other than clamber. Plus, clamber reminds me of clabber, which reminds me of clabber milk, which reminds me to empty out my fridge, not take out my vibrator. Likewise for apex. I don’t want to read the “apex of my thighs” over and over. It’s not sexy, it’s weird, and this isn’t an historical romance, it’s a cheap trade novel.

The plot is bad, the writing is worse. So how is the sex? It's like eating at Ruby Tuesday. It still counts as food, but I wouldn't ask for it.  It's just not that great, and the menu is all the same. And this inexperienced young woman cums like there's no tomorrow. Yeah, right. She doesn't even touch herself, and we are supposed to believe this twenty seven year old man has unlocked the secret to her multiple orgasms the second time he bangs her?And straight to bondage from virginity? Please. Wouldn't anal come before hogtying?

As horrible as the first book was, the second one was even worse. I will confess to getting  occasionally aroused while reading the first book. If you showed me bad porn, I might still get a little turned on despite my rational brain telling me how degrading and stupid and unrealistic it is. Bad sex is still sex, said every man ever.

The second book, however, was so dumb that I swear it made me dry up like a hot Phoenix summer. I sneezed and a tumbleweed blew out of my cooch. Why so bad, you may ask, since you were so embarrassed reading the first one that you couldn’t stomach picking up the next? Because the plot didn’t thicken; it clabbered. Now this young couple are so in love with each other that all their sex is making love. Who wants to read about love in their sleazy porn? That’s disgusting. And then there is the ex-submissive stalker who gets a gun and comes after Anastasia. Oh, and the  marriage proposal? How about that plot twist? Did you see that coming?

The apex, if you will,  was that Anastasia, when thinking about Christian, would refer to him as her “Fifty Shades.” Oh, my Fifty Shades. There goes that Fifty Shades. What the fuckity fuck? In the first book, Christian Grey tells Anastasia he is “fifty shades of fucked up.” How does that become a nickname?

More likely, it’s some bad tip the author learned in a marketing class. If you keep referring to your product, it will become so ingrained in the consumers’ minds they won’t forget it. Was the author concerned we would be so numb while reading it that we needed constant reminders of what the crappy book was called?

The worst part of all? We, the American reader, made this woman a millionaire by buying and reading this schlock. Could we not find a better use of our time? We need more mental stimulation than Words with Friends, people. Visual porn doesn’t have to be intelligent. We can watch pretty much whatever sick shit we want whenever we want for free online. Shouldn’t our written porn be a cut above?

I read today that E. L. James now has a movie deal. I hope Anderson Cooper would consider playing the lead, with the part of Anastasia played by Kelly Clarkson. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Just like the books. Or you could stick to this version: