Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey (25 page)

STACEY AGDERN

A
S A BOOKSELLER, I see the rise and fall in popularity of many books; today’s hottest bestseller is often the book that gathers dust on the shelves two months later. I’ve learned all too well that the impact of a title on the reading public can never really be judged in advance. But what strikes me most is when a book forces a change in people’s reading habits. These are the kinds of books that alter people’s perceptions of what they can and will read.
Fifty Shades of Grey
is one of these books.

Really? What? Yep. Absolutely. I have seen multiple examples of customers who swear all they’ll read are books by authors like Franzen, Wolfe, Safran Foer, Lahiri, and Kingsolver become completely obsessed with authors who have names like Day, Hart, and Burton. All it takes is
Fifty Shades of Grey
.

But why? Why this book? First, because
Fifty Shades of Grey
is so popular, most people will shove their genre-based prejudices aside in order to stay current. As anybody knows, the ability to join a conversation on a topic of current interest is crucial
to fit into society. Water coolers, trains, coffee shops—in each of these places people are talking about “that book.” As a result, everybody is reading it.

But there’s something more than being at the center of a trend that makes
Fifty Shades of Grey
the kind of book that changes people’s reading habits. What is the intangible factor that makes this book sparkle—that makes it stay with a reader and forces them to reevaluate the way they look at reading? The sex, of course.

It’s not just that there is sex in the book; if that were the case, there would be an entirely different conversation going on in contemporary society. No, the fact is that, in
Fifty Shades of Grey
, E. L. James has created an atmosphere where sex is seen as a good thing, a source of enjoyment. In short? It’s sexually positive. As a result, it reintroduces into contemporary society the idea that it is okay to read a book where characters obtain enjoyment, and—gasp!—pleasure from mutually beneficial sex.

What makes a book sexually positive?

Two different elements: The first is the reaction of the book’s characters to the sex that takes place during the course of the story. The second is the way the sex itself is written.

First, and foremost, Ana Steele is not painted as a slut or a whore by any of the characters that the reader is supposed to respect after she has begun to have sex with Christian Grey. In fact, instead of being ostracized, she is encouraged both by family and friends to continue her relationship with Grey. Her mother and her best friend in particular are both his champions. They may chime in with advice to be careful if it seems he is going too far, but it is quite clear to the reader that they are on Grey’s side.

Nor does Ana’s professional life suffer as a result of her engagement with Grey. She is shown studying for finals, working a part-time job, graduating from college, searching for postcollege employment, and working in her new full-time job. None of these things has anything to do with Grey, despite how much he wishes to involve himself.

Second, there is the writing in the sex scenes themselves. The writers who are usually nominated for and win
The Literary Review’s
Bad Sex in Fiction Prize are the kind of writers who make sex seem boring, routine. Winners of this award include illustrious names like Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe; nominees also include Jonathan Franzen, not to mention John Updike, who received the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In short, most critically acclaimed literary writers seem to believe that it is all right to write about sex as if it is the sort of thing that only those who have lost their mind would engage in.

E. L. James, on the other hand, writes her sex scenes with an eye toward demonstrating that the characters get enjoyment out of the act. Even when there is pain involved, Grey is shown to be adamant that “Miss Steele” finds pleasure. And as the sex happens from Ana Steele’s first-person perspective, the reader is absolutely certain that Ana has in fact done so.

These two elements, when combined, demonstrate James’ interest in creating a story where sex is seen as positive and pleasurable. It is also these two elements that draw readers from
Fifty Shades of Grey
to authors like Sylvia Day, Megan Hart, and Jaci Burton.

From
Fifty Shades
, readers often turn towards Sylvia Day’s
Bared to You
. Although the heroine of
Bared to You
, Eva, is employed by the corporation owned by the hero, Gideon Cross, there are no negative consequences to her professional life once she enters into a relationship with him. Her boss, who becomes her friend, jokes with her and counsels her, but by no means does he encourage her to stay away from Gideon. There are also no personal consequences; none of the people in Eva’s personal life that the reader is supposed to identify with and respect believe that a relationship with Gideon is a bad thing. And Sylvia Day’s depiction of the sex between Eva and Gideon is electric; she is able to demonstrate to the reader, through Eva’s first-person point of view, how much pleasure both characters derive from the scorching sex they have.

But
Bared to You
adds an extra element to the basic sexually positive atmosphere that
Fifty Shades of Grey
brings to the table. Eva is much more experienced than Ana Steele in both life and sex. As a result, the sexual relationship she enters into with the enigmatic Gideon Cross is more of a give-and-take on multiple levels. Eva is not afraid to challenge Cross and his dominance, and in return Cross is smart enough not to push her.

Switch
by Megan Hart is another book that readers reach for after they finish
Fifty Shades of Grey
. It’s a completely different kind of story, but still sexually positive. This is the story of Paige, a young woman who is searching for … something in her life. There are no professional consequences for this young woman as she goes on her journey of personal and sexual exploration. There are also no personal consequences directly related to Paige’s sexual exploration. She is neither ostracized nor judged for her interest in sex. And Megan Hart’s writing is beautiful, painting Paige’s sexual fantasies with gorgeous language that demonstrates this woman is really finding the pleasure she needs.

The element that
Switch
adds to the basic sex-positive story is the emergence of a Dominant female character. The “something” Paige searches for, and finds, is the ability to channel her need for control into all aspects of her life. It is an internal struggle she goes through until she learns how much being in control pleases her. And, of course, pleases the person she has sex with—namely her ex-husband, with whom she has had a tumultuous relationship.

Finally, we have Jaci Burton’s
Taking a Shot
. It is the story of a young woman and her relationship with the last person on earth she would expect to have a relationship with. Jenna, the book’s heroine, gets no flak from her family and friends about her relationship with Ty, the book’s hero. She is neither ostracized nor insulted at work, nor by anybody the reader is supposed to respect. The way Jaci Burton crafts the story is simply amazing: emotional when it needs to be and hot enough to melt
ice when it should be. It is very obvious that both characters are enjoying the sex they have together.

There are two elements that
Taking a Shot
adds to this sexually positive dynamic. First, the hero and the heroine are both dominant, they are equals, and they find themselves meeting in the middle more often than not, to their mutual benefit. In fact, unlike the other three books mentioned, this story is told from
both
Jenna and Ty’s perspectives, taking full advantage of the third-person point of view.

But the second element this novel adds is more important than the first. Despite the scorching sex,
Taking a Shot
is about more than just lust or dominance. It is about the
relationship
between two people and the intangible aspects that make the best relationships work. It is more than just sexually positive: it is relationship positive.

Books that treat sex in a positive manner are not revolutionary. Unfortunately, due to contemporary prejudice against pleasure reading, most people have a tendency to dismiss these kinds of books as irrelevant. However, thanks to being introduced to the sex-positive atmosphere of
Fifty Shades of Grey
, readers have been discovering a wide and varied genre full of amazing characters, wonderful stories, and hot sex written by authors who are capable of burning up a page. It is too early to tell whether this is the kind of paradigm shift that will last long after people have forgotten
Fifty Shades of Grey
, but it is a shift worth watching nonetheless.

MEGAN FRAMPTON

I
WANT TO FUCK HIM
.

Baldly put. Far too blunt for the average person, much less a young college student such as
Fifty Shades of Grey’s
Anastasia Steele.

Ana is a week away from her final exams when we first meet her—and when she first meets gorgeous billionaire Christian Grey. She is overwhelmed by everything she encounters at his office, from the battalion of blondes who greet her, to the view, to how Christian strokes his index finger against his lower lip.

It’s clear, from the way Christian responds to her, that something is happening, and Ana has no clue what it is. Neither do we, but both of us are dying to find out.

As their relationship begins, Ana needs to find a way to express what she is feeling when she is near Christian—needs a personification of the newly sprung emotions and desires he summons in her.

And thus her inner goddess is born.

It’s not as though Ana doesn’t have inner thoughts before beginning a relationship with Christian, but her thoughts are not personified by any kind of deity—they’re more along the lines of “Wow” and “Holy crap.” Much more immature and insecure. But as soon as Christian engages Ana in sexual discourse she needs a better spokesperson, hence the development of her goddess.

The inner goddess is not a new concept born of
Fifty Shades of Grey
—there are an endless number of shops and websites with the name selling goods designed to make you feel more satisfactorily womanly. “Inner goddess,” in that context, evokes images of patchouli, beaded curtains, and women-only bonding sessions.

But those goddesses are not Ana’s goddess.

Ana’s goddess harkens back to a far earlier concept, albeit one that is derided as much as the patchouli people—Sigmund Freud’s concept of id, as part of his larger explanation of the unconscious, comprised of the id and the superego. The id is the part of us that is all about pleasure, sexual and otherwise. The id is the bad boy of our psyche—pushing us to satisfy basic urges, needs, and desires.

Which, in Freud’s terms, is a Bad Thing.

In
Fifty Shades
, however, it’s a very, very good thing. Ana’s goddess “sways in a gentle victorious samba,” even though Ana herself is, as we know from the first scene with Christian, awkwardly clumsy. Ana’s inner goddess doesn’t wear tie-dye or Birkenstocks; this bitch is decked out in sequins and stilettos, doing her Olympic pole vaults and cheerleader leaps with equal aplomb.

Plus, Ana’s goddess isn’t only about the pleasure principle; she wants Ana to take charge. To be dominant, even if Christian is the Dom.

So she sulks, and pouts, and attempts to be brave as Ana faces the redoubtable Christian.

Ana’s inner goddess is everything that Ana wishes she could be, even though she’s never realized she had the wish in the
first place. She is the inner voice that heroes and heroines of romantic fiction listen to when they are in doubt about their own desires—when they doubt those desires’ validity and rightness.

That Ana’s inner goddess espouses positive, helpful action is what makes her a romantic fiction id—as contradictory as that might sound. In literary fiction, the inner voice often encourages self-destructive behavior: “Have another drink,” one might say, or “Go ahead and sleep with your husband’s brother.” Not self-affirming at all, but again voicing secret desires. In romantic fiction, however, the id helps vault the protagonist into positive action—usually falling in love—where the hero and heroine are too foreshortened by their own insecurities, issues, or whatever to allow themselves to take the action on their own. They need support to accomplish their ultimate happiness.

There are numerous examples of heroines, in particular, who can only reach their Happily Ever After if they finally listen to the voices inside their heads, and not in a
Three Faces of Eve
or
Sybil
kind of way. In
Jane Eyre
, Jane escapes from Thornfield Hall and ends up with the Rivers family, two sisters and a brother who are perfect in every way. Too perfect. Jane knows she cannot accept second best by marrying St. John Rivers, no matter how foxy he is; she doesn’t love him, her soul yearns for Edward Rochester. And so, when she hears his voice inside her head calling for her, she doesn’t question it. She takes off, returning to Thornfield Hall where she finds she can at last be his equal partner (that he is now blinded and crippled says something about author Charlotte Brontë’s own sense of self-worth, but that’s a subject for another essay).

These voices are a way for the writer to reveal the heroine’s innermost desires, but they aren’t the only way writers have for doing this. In many early romantic novels, the letter or the diary of the heroine is used to allow the woman’s feelings and thoughts to emerge unscathed from the unconscious. Many literary critics and scholars have noted the diary device in writers of early nineteenth-century literature, from Elizabeth Gaskell to Wilkie
Collins to Charlotte Brontë’s own sister Anne. In Anne’s
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
, for example, the book unfolds through a series of letters written from Gilbert Markham’s viewpoint, and then segues into a diary written by Helen Graham. Helen’s diary entries not only describe the events, but also Helen’s feelings about them, in a poignant, passionate way. Helen’s “diary” is her only outlet to express how she feels about the deterioration of her marriage, since she won’t allow herself to voice her opinion about what is happening because she feels as though she owes her husband that much respect. But even in the context of her own diary, Helen won’t put words to her own deepest desire. She edges close to what she wishes would happen, but doesn’t state it in so many words.

Of course the best example of diary entry as manifestation of inner voice is in Helen Fielding’s
Bridget Jones’s Diary
. If Bridget had not expressed so much of herself within those pages,
Fifty Shades
—and other books where women get to be sexual, and insecure, and clumsy, and somehow entice an incredibly attractive man into their romantic midst—would never have happened.

Bridget’s diary entries are more a superego/id hybrid, because Bridget herself has so many opposing wishes and desires within herself. She does want things, but she is equally adamant about what she does not want, which Ana’s inner goddess isn’t. For example, Bridget says, “I will not fall for any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomaniacs, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders, perverts.” If Ana’s inner goddess had suggested that to Ana, that would have ruled Christian Grey out entirely, since his personality fits at least four of those categories. Bridget recognizes her own temptation, though, following that proclamation up with, “And especially will not fantasize about a particular person who embodies all these things.” Neither Ana nor her inner goddess are that conscious—literally—of how Ana’s manifestation of id is acting on her desires.

Let’s return for a moment to Freud, and how he saw the role of the unconscious in guiding a person’s actions. Not to be so presumptuous as to dismiss him as entirely wrong, but Sigmund, you gotta lighten up a little—satisfying “basic urges, needs, and desires” is not a bad thing. Especially when it comes to women, who—to cast a huge, stereotypical blanket over an entire gender—tend to do for others rather than for themselves. “Basic urges, needs, and desires,” when satisfied in a positive way, means great sex (or great chocolate, but again, another essay).

It wasn’t until authors of romantic fiction recognized that women’s “basic urges, needs, and desires” weren’t being met that readers got to meet inner voices like Ana’s inner goddess. Ana’s inner goddess knows what Ana really wants, and tells her in no uncertain terms.

And what does Ana want? Well, she wants to fuck Christian Grey. Many, many times. And harnessing, so to speak, her inner goddess in the service of those wants means that Ana doesn’t have to feel ashamed—or much ashamed, at least—of her desires.

Is it cowardly for Ana to appoint an inner goddess as the mistress of her desires and not speak for herself? Perhaps, but it also makes the book far more compelling. Ana can’t, but her inner goddess gets to dance the salsa, do pirouettes, merengue, sit in the lotus position, jump up and down (both with and without pom-poms), glow, pant, roar, plead, and fall prostrate after Christian has satisfied her.

Who wouldn’t be better with a little more inner goddess waving pom-poms in her brain? Not the inner goddess who would whisper that it’s okay to have the dessert, you deserve it—that’s more like your Aunt Betty, who’s stuck in the house with the cats and the Diet Coke—but the inner goddess who would encourage you to explore what it is you really want. Want to get in a helicopter with a control freak billionaire? Sure! How about inserting silver balls up in your lady business because it sounds
like it’d be fun to do? Hell, yeah! Or biting your lip, even though you know it makes that same control freak billionaire crazy? Heck, you want him crazy. Crazy for you, and therefore for your inner goddess, who is your real you.

Where Freud was perhaps too reductive in his conception of the human psyche is in applying moral judgment on what the id, the ego, and the superego do for the conscious human mind. There are nuances here—fifty shades of nuance, to get cute about it—and castigating Ana’s inner goddess as merely being a conduit for satisfying Ana’s needs and desires is simplistic and lazy. Not that one would call Freud either simplistic or lazy; anybody who could be that many shades of fucked up himself is not simple. But his theories don’t take into account the inability of people—such as a certain Ana Steele—to articulate, on their own, what they really want.

Ana’s inner goddess might be annoying at times—she certainly makes her voice heard on far more occasions than some readers might like—but it’s her inner goddess who can articulate what Ana wants to do.

And when Ana gets to do what she wants, the results are very pleasurable. For Ana. For Christian. And for the reader.