Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey (21 page)

We go for a coffee.

We hold hands as we walk through shops. I buy dark purple flowers for him. They remind me of what my sex must look like, all filled with blood with no place to go. I give them to him. Let them sit on his table. A reminder of my desire left unfulfilled on our last day. Dark and beautiful. The pain of my surrender is beautiful in the petals.

It is morning, two or three days after my trip. I reach for the blue stones. My pretty little necklace that someone will admire today. My fingers touch the stones, and my hips open gently into the softest of surrenders that will guide me through my day. I think of Anastasia fleeing, and how I stay. Well, she is a girl who doesn’t really understand her desires yet and shouts no as she flees from herself and her lover. I am a woman, and I whisper, “Yes, please, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” as I learn to stay.

DR. KATHERINE RAMSLAND

I
N
THE LITTLE PRINCE
, Antoine de Saint-Exupery writes about a pilot who is stranded in the desert with a defunct plane. A little man comes along who claims to be the prince of a different planet. As the pilot tinkers with the plane, the prince describes his journey. Time passes. The pilot grows increasingly afraid he might die out there. The prince dismisses his concern. He says that they need only go into the desert and find a well. The pilot thinks the prince is nuts. It’s better to remain with the plane, he thinks. If he just keeps working on it, he will make it fly. But the prince has faith in the unknown. They must go, he insists. Only when the pilot realizes that his best efforts are futile does he reluctantly agree.

They trudge across the desert for some time, but find no well. The pilot’s initial doubts grow into panic:
They should never have
left the plane!
But just when he is certain they have made a fatal miscalculation, the prince discovers the well. It’s all about risk and trust. Playing it safe was a dead end.

Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey both love this story. They appreciate the line, “There is a poetry of sailing as old as the world,” and they probably noticed the book’s central theme, that “anything that’s essential is invisible to the eyes.” Grey knows this from experience, whereas Ana’s appreciation is literary. Thus, Grey is more willing to engage in “edgework,” i.e., explore an arena that could strip him of control and thereby transform him. He recognizes that the alchemy of desire and uncertainty can tap a hidden well of vitality within him.

Ana, on the other hand, does not grasp this. She ventures beyond the plane, but never quite leaves it. This explains one aspect of the appeal of
Fifty Shades of Grey
. It explores the forbidden without risk. It’s dark but safe.

However, the suggestion from Grey of greater gain from greater surrender offers the daring reader a jump-start, even as it affirms female power.

Women of all ages are drawn to the Beauty and the Beast archetype found in the Fifty Shades trilogy, wherein the strength of a man’s love is measured by his willingness to restrain his aggression. It’s the ultimate female fantasy. Grey tells Ana that it’s his “nature” to be controlling, but for her, he would fight the urge.

Grey’s appeal is more than this, however. Grey has wealth, beauty, an impressive appendage, and a “Master of the Universe” aura. He’s an alpha male, so when he defers to Ana, he serves her “inner goddess.” Yet there is more to this picture than just the full attention of a devoted lover. Grey also asks something of Ana that forces her to ponder desires she has never before explored. He hopes she will consider stretching herself, literally, into his world.

As a virgin, Ana offers a clean slate on which to write an erotic agenda. She has no preconceived ideas about what will happen in a Dominant/submissive relationship, so a “Dom” can more easily mold her as a “sub.” She tries a few bondage and discipline experiences, but ultimately she elects to stay safe. She does wonder why she can’t “take a little pain for my man,” but her “hard limits” prevent her from grasping what she’s turning down. She doesn’t trust enough to look for the invisible well.

Ana’s point of view offers female readers a fantasy of empowerment and sensuality, but it’s Grey who reveals a world in which pleasure beyond what we had imagined is possible. The Dom is the doorway through which we must step, and trust is the key that unlocks it. We must be willing to engage in a relationship that could involve things we fear. Thus, we face the “limit-experience.”

A limit-experience, as the postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault expressed it, touches untamed energy that pushes our minds and bodies toward what feels like a breaking point. It’s scary but can also be exhilarating. Its purpose is to erase boundaries between the conscious and subconscious, as a lifelong preparation for self-annihilation.

Well, this doesn’t sound like much fun, and we can understand Ana’s reticence about submitting. However, Grey attests to the power such experiences bring. He knows there’s a life-giving well because he’s drunk from it. “I found myself,” says Grey in
Fifty Shades Freed
, “and found the strength to take charge of my life.”

To achieve a limit-experience, we must push into unknown and seemingly dangerous terrain. We have to break with what’s familiar and get free of self-imposed restrictions. The possibility exists for an ecstatic euphoria unlike anything we’ve ever known, but there’s risk. The limit-experience gets us as close as possible to the extreme erotic intensity of life’s negation without a total wipeout. It’s the obliteration of a psychological orgasm.

The result of edgework is enhanced sensuality and greater self-determination. Foucault thought that S&M practices offered the best avenue for a limit-experience because the surrender to powerlessness forces personal redefinition.

BDSM holds that the physical body has a secret wisdom that can be tapped only when pushed against its physical and emotional limits. Whatever makes one feel utterly, erotically alive is enabled within a safe framework. This might mean being tied up and blindfolded during sex, or being spanked or whipped, or being cemented into a tub (as one Dom told me about a sub). The goal is to transcend the sub’s ego boundaries, to guide her into something larger. When her identity is reduced to the suffering body, it can provide such intense immediate pleasure that she feels effaced.

The Dom’s role is pivotal. Doms must discern how the sub can reach this goal. In fact, superior Doms will have experienced the role of sub (as Grey did) and so can grasp the intricacies of the sub’s fantasy. Because this experience involves exposing secrets, the relationship also acquires deeper intimacy. With the Dom’s validation, the sub can throw off self-conscious restraint and pull out all the stops. She can simply feel—and
stretch
.

The most extreme form of BDSM is sadomasochism, which involves consensual violence … to a point. A person might wish to be burned, whipped, have a loaded pistol placed in his mouth, or be trussed so tight he can’t move. The Dom inflicts pain and humiliation to help the sub reach emotional catharsis. This reportedly feels like a radical transformation into a sense of openness and full existence. However, not all BDSM participants will take it this far.

So how does edgework actually work?

Both participants understand that mutual consent makes it happen, and they must choreograph the scenario together
before they can fully play it out. However, once things are in motion, the memory of consent and design must recede.

The intense roleplaying produces an altered state of consciousness in which the sub feels forced. Under the auspices of having “no choice,” she gains erotic benefits from the illusion of total surrender to the Dom’s will. If she trusts that there is no risk of serious harm, she can agree to be dominated in unpredictable ways. This allows the anxious edginess of anticipation to produce the most intense stimulation. As Grey states in
Fifty Shades Darker
, “It’s all about anticipation.”

The idea of being pushed into something that one both fears and craves sparks a fierce tension that draws body and mind together in heightened arousal. Applying restrictions to the body in the form of bondage or discipline draws out its capacity for physical sensation. It’s an absolute surrender to the full impact of the flesh. As the sub endures and emerges intact, he or she becomes stronger, wiser, and more self-aware.

This synergy of resistance and momentum can be highly exciting. Subs who yield as if they have no real choice are more pliable. With the Dom’s guidance, they can break through and experience more.

I’ve interviewed several Doms and “Lady Ro” agreed to describe her work. “I have used branding, piercing, tattoos, and scarification,” she said, “because these practices bring one to new heights of sensual and chemical awareness. It’s all about direct manipulation of physicality and about how the brain responds to things like sensory deprivation.”

Her preference is to leave subs unbound. “I don’t like to tie them up, because then I have to serve them. I like willing subjects who want to stay there. If someone is submitting to me, then it’s their willingness to stay that’s a turn-on. I don’t use safewords [phrases that would stop a ritual because it’s gone further than the sub can bear]. I demand complete trust. I don’t
want to mess someone up and make them miserable. To me, it’s more about sensuality. If they don’t like it, what’s the point?”

Their fantasies become her launching pad. “I try to get into their fantasy and make it my own. I don’t just cater to their fantasy, I twist it. I try to find something that fascinates me about it.”

Both partners in these arrangements have strengths and weaknesses, and both variously exploit and complement the other. To make the dance work, Lady Ro explains, they need each other. Thus, before anything begins, they must be explicit about the terms: what each desires and what each needs to feel satisfied and safe. If they operate in total trust they can achieve a delicate but edgy equality. The experience can be mystical when shrouded in a playful self-deception that allows each participant to fully engage in its erotic choreography.

Grey goes over the BDSM rules because he wants Ana to understand her limits before trying to push past them. He reassures her every step of the way. When he is poised to take her virginity in
Fifty Shades of Grey
, he tells her, “You expand, too.” He’s saying much more than just a biological fact. He’s telling her that he can move her into a new awareness, if only she trusts.

The narrative moves through a series of “firsts” for them both, and while Grey embraces the unknown (with more reason to fear it), Ana takes baby steps. She calls Grey’s playroom the “Red Room of Pain” and compares it to the Spanish Inquisition. Thus, despite the pleasure Grey gives her, she sees only the negative. This is her safety mechanism, her form of a safeword.

Ana views this arena as Grey’s world, not hers. A plain metaphor captures it: As she steps into the playroom for the first time in
Fifty Shades of Grey
, she notices a chest of drawers. She wonders what the drawers hold. She can’t see what’s inside and wonders, “Do I really want to know?”

Her reaction shows the caution of a generally fearful person (as does her distancing mechanism of sarcasm and defiance).
She is the pilot who stays with the plane. Despite Grey’s constant assurance that he will not hurt her, she sees only the rules, not the door they open. She describes an impulse to run screaming from the room and talks about her constant trepidation. She believes this adventure is the “edge of a precipice” from which she must jump rather than a potential launching pad into greater power and perception. To her, edgework is too scary.

In her limited manner, Ana sees just two things: Grey is “dangerous” and he’s wounded. She keeps telling herself that she’s willing to enter his disturbing world so she can save him and show him what it means to love.

Ana is at the center of a narcissistic fantasy that she controls. She overthinks, which allows her to rationalize her surrender to BDSM as “saving” Mr. Grey. She doesn’t make it to the limit-experience because she always finds a reason to pull back. Even when she’s secretly disappointed that Grey does not want to install a playroom in their new home, she fails to fully own her desires. (She could have asked to have the room installed herself.) She prefers the safety of the self she knows (the plane) to the one she could become (the well).

Understandably, Ana’s reticence confuses Grey. She seems to enjoy everything he does, yet she keeps him at a distance. He reveals things to her, despite his fear of being rejected, but she fails to move into this intimacy with him. Her safe harbor is not love, as she tells herself. It’s her “thinking zone.” She does not want to free-fall very far, not psychologically or emotionally.

Women often hear that they are either “too this” or “not enough that.” In other words, they aren’t “just right.” However, Ana frequently hears from Grey the words that women crave: she’s perfect. She also receives the attention of a man who has carefully studied female sexual response. This removes the burden of having to explain what feels good and allows her, as the recipient, to just surrender. She also gets to feel powerful by
bringing a wealthy, creative, and controlling man to his knees. She is Beauty to his Beast. However, if she were to dissolve this dichotomy in BDSM, she could experience him more fully and still be “just right.”

By the end of the third book in the trilogy, Ana still hasn’t entered this zone, although she’s gone further in. She has the self-empowering fantasy of Beauty and the Beast, but she fails to transcend it. She’s still stuck inside herself, which buffers her from the richest possible intimacy with Grey. To return to the love they share for
The Little Prince
, she
could
have so much more—she could fly
without
the plane.