So, first off, the very tongue-in-cheek acknowledgements
(“For Niall, the master of my universe”) irk me. Under normal circumstances, it
wouldn’t. It’s just a phrase, overused and hyperbolic, I know. Buuut, she’s
writing a book about kink. Specifically, about power dynamics and Dom/sub
relationships. That means the word “Master,” joke or not, carries more weight.
It means something that she doesn’t mean. And, for a writer, that is the
highest crime. Not a great way to kick start your novel.
Now to the actual story. Let’s set aside that the names all
sound like they come out of a bad ‘80s soap opera (Kate Kavanagh, Anastasia
Steele, Christian Grey, etc.) and the hokey expressions like "monkey's
uncle," which turns the novel into an instant and automatic cheese
factory, I hate that James starts the novel with Ana’s inadequacies. It starts
the story and its main character off in the weakest sense possible. From her
fighting with her frizzy hair to her doormat personality, it makes it hard to
like Ana from the get-go. I get wanting to start characters off in a position to grow, but she sounds pathetic and whiny and, well, weak.
I get that Ana is doing something nice for her sick friend,
by agreeing to substitute in for the interview with Grey, but James doesn’t
make it sound like she’s doing a nice thing. Ana doesn’t do it out of the
goodness of her heart, she does it because she’s too passive of a person to
tell her friend that she’s got her own shit to do—like study for her own
finals—and then resents her friend for the fact that she can’t say no.
Add into that, I really hate the stereotype that tops are
rich, powerful, well-put-together gods among men while bottoms are poor,
helpless, struggling waifs in need of rescuing. When in actuality, tops and
bottoms are just people. Normal, everyday, commonplace people with very little
about them that would ping “kinky.” More times out of none, like gay people,
you need pretty good kink-dar to pick them out of a crowd. Probably better
radar than gay-dar, because our outlying sexual preferences are pretty reserved
for the bedroom. A gay person’s eye can drift to the nice ass of a same-sex
person. It’s really hard for a kinky person’s eye to drift to the everyday,
normal kink activity happening in their neighborhood because there’s really no
such thing as an everyday, normal kink activity in your neighborhood.
If there
is, I want to move to your area.
So while, yes, there are business execs who are tops and shy
college co-eds who are bottoms, I hate that those are really the only pictures
we get in popular fiction. And, certainly of the kink tropes running around,
those are the most flattering and least offensive. In truth, there’s just about
every profession, from unemployed to lawyer, from trucker to doctor, from
office grunt to tech support, in kinkland. Studies—and my own anecdotal
experiences—show that there is no correlation between professional status/
success and kink. Tops are as likely to be low-paid grunts as bottoms. Bottoms
are as likely to be high-powered execs as tops.
In fact, if profession said as
much about sexuality as people assume it does for kinksters, exactly what would
be said for those in veterinary or mortuary science jobs? What about those in
child or geriatric care? Clearly, what we do rarely ties into what turns us on;
why should that be different in kinkland?
Beyond the inaccuracy of it, this trope of professionally
powerful Dom/ economically disenfranchised sub makes for terrible fiction. It
discredits both characters as terribly unrealistic and just plain terrible
people. Ana, as the poor, shy, unworldly, uncouth, clumsy sub, comes off as not
really good at anything and not really good for much. I don’t see anything
attractive about her. She’s not witty. Not smart. Not capable or confident.
Even in James’s own descriptions, she isn’t terribly pretty or skilled or even
coordinated. Her first introduction to Grey is having Ana trip face-first onto
the floor of his office in frumpy, “unsmart” clothes and no confidence. She
then proceedes to stumble and stammer her way through an interview that has all
but been laid out for her with easy to follow bullet points.
Exactly who would find this attractive?
Apparently, Mr. Grey does. Deity—in this world, James—only
knows why. Which makes Grey an idiot. Or at least a man of bad tastes. Even in
the hyperbolic, overdramatized world of kink where power dynamics of super
alpha strength and bowing deference are strong, social ineptitude and basic
incompetence aren’t assets highly sought. In fact, an idiotic klutz can make
for a very messy, unsatisfactory, unsafe scene; I can’t imagine a Dom who would
play with, much less pursue, someone like that.
The only person who I could even fathom might like someone
like Ana is a predator. Grey finds Ana’s weakness, her less-than status
attractive. He is well-established, wealthy, self-possessed, self-aware,
intelligent, savvy, and successful. That he would find Ana, who is awkward,
poor, unemployed, directionless, clumsy, impertinent, ineloquent, and
unconfident, attractive smacks a little too close to something akin to statutory
rape to me.
Under normal, healthy, realistic conditions, these two people
shouldn’t be considered equals. They should have nothing in common and should
be ill-fitted for a relationship. For the paltry years separating them in age,
they are at completely different points in their lives. He is clearly an
autonomous, independent adult. And she is still teetering with unsteady
wishy-washiness of youth.
In real world conditions, it’s a recipe for abuse in
which the less powerful person in the relationship is completely dependent on
the person in power, from money to opinion. Often in these relationships,
nothing belongs to the less-than partner that the more-than didn’t give. The
less-than’s survival and well-being depends on their partner’s approval and whim.
The fact that this would appeal to Grey, not just in an easily
donned-then-discarded sexual game of, as Dan Savage calls, pretend cops and robbers with your pants
off but in a real life, day-to-day, day-in-day-out capacity, is sick.
Okay, really nit-picky, but the author makes a huge point of
pointing it out. What’s with the all-blond staff at Grey House? Is Grey a
neo-nazi starting his own little Aryan nation? It really irritates me because
it’s perpetuating this idea of blonds as ideal beauty. As the epitome of
feminine allure and sophistication. What the hell? It’s really clichéd and out
of date. And pointless to boot. The only thing it does is highlight how
unattractive, unsophisticated, and un-blond Ana is. Really didn’t need help
with that. Thanks, James, but I got it. Ana’s a loser. She’s the chick who sat
by herself at lunch in school. She’s the girl all the other girls picked on. I
get it. Did we need to make Grey an Aryan soldier for that?
Okay, now for some stuff I actually liked—I know, betcha
didn’t see THAT one coming. I actually like some of the stuff Grey says and
some of the subtleties of Grey. For one, I like his taste in art. I like the
phrase “raising the ordinary to extraordinary.” I feel like that’s a metaphor
for kink. Seeing something mundane or even horrific like spanking or flogging
and seeing something else, something unexpected, something beautiful. It’s a
very subtle, clever way of saying that Grey is a man who sees the world
differently. And I like that Ana picks up on that.
I like that Grey is—or claims to be—a good judge of
character. It's a defense mechanism that those who are kinky should have. With
all the roles that are often played, with the overdramatic lifestyle, it helps
to have a good bullshit detector. Particularly to be a good Dom, one should
know how to read people—body language, personality, strengths, weaknesses—and
be able to put them to good use.
I also like that, alongside his arrogant, controlling,
dominant personality, Grey has a nurturing side, in that he cares about and
takes care of his employees and in his philanthropic interests. As he says, he
likes to own things. But he takes care of the things he owns. I think that
that’s a sign of a good Dom.
So often Doms—and to a lesser extent Dommes—are
portrayed as people who like to treat people like toys that they’ll play with
until they break, then they’ll discard them for the next victim. Which isn’t
the goal or the role of a Dom. Not a good one. Like most things sexual, it’s
about fulfilling a need, your own as well as your partner’s. However the
activity may look on the outside—spanking, flogging, humiliation—the act itself
is always and already about pleasure.
It’s a hard concept for a lot of vanilla
people to wrap their heads around. It’s hard for a lot of kinky people too. The
idea that you can hurt a person by not hurting them. That you can care for a
person by causing them pain. If it’s pain and hurt that pleases them, as a
partner, isn’t it your duty and your pleasure to give them that?
Tops and Doms
are, when done right, almost always in a service role. It may turn them on to
wield the whip and force someone to lick their shoes, but the vast majority of
pleasure—from the Dom(me)s I’ve talked to—comes from the pleasure they give.
Subs and bottoms are vastly more selfish creatures than Doms and tops (said as
a bottom). So I like that Grey has that capacity to nurture; it makes him feel
very real to me.
Another thing I liked was Grey was portrayed—or at least
described—as very polite. Even a little
cold and aloof. It’s one of those stereotypes that exist because it’s true. As
a people, kinksters tend to be overly polite and clique-ey. Because we’re a
fairly closeted sexual minority with a lot to lose should we be outed, we tend
to be cautious around new people; it takes a while for kinky folks to warm up
to newbies, to build enough trust to let that person in. Plus, I think part of
us knows that the world as a whole views us as dirty, deviant delinquents, so
we tend to reflexively play against that type. A very, “See, see, we’re not ALL
like that” kind of mentality. So I like that Grey is portrayed that way. Again,
another level of realism, even if James isn’t quite as aware of the whys as I’d
like.
Particularly, when it comes to how intimate Grey gets with
Ana so quickly. With all the personal questions—though that could be
retaliation for all the personal questions she asks him—the job offer, and the
weird, creepy exit at the elevators.
Grey is, like, 26 to 29 years old and owns
his own business, which would mean that he's a pretty savvy in his field,
right? He says that he’s a good judge of character and owes a lot of his
success to that.
So what the hell does he see in Ana?
Why is he offering her a
job? She’s given him no reason to think that she’s “good people.” In fact, she’s
revealed herself to be woefully inadequate in almost every way. Untactful,
uncoordinated, unworldly, not terribly intelligent, not terribly motivated,
unqualified, uninformed, unresearched, unprepared; how does any of this make
her a good candidate for an internship at his company? A position, I’m sure,
that has other more deserving applicants vying for that spot. What is his
motivation?
Beyond sex, of course. Which makes him even more unethical and
predatory. Seeking to start off any relationship, much less a Dom/sub
relationship, while he is her professional superior and employer is
unquestionably and monstrously unethical. Not to mention, makes him a shit
businessman for essentially employing an under-duress sex worker on his staff. It’s utterly
illogical. Wouldn’t it have been far easier and more logical and infinitely
more ethical to just ask Ana out on a date?
However, my biggest complaint, has to be that, for all
James’s effort to build Grey up as a Dom, Ana is no sub. She’s passive and weak
and helpless and stupid and definitely needs someone to fix the hot mess that she
is. But she’s not a sub. For all her less-than status and intrigue with Grey’s
power and affluence, she’s repelled and put off by his need to take control.
She sees his dominance as being a “control freak,” hardly the most flattering
of descriptions. And James repeatedly writes this in italics, emphasizing the
sneering tone of this phrase. Clearly, Ana doesn’t like this about him.
And when he tries to use words or body language to dominate
her, it makes her more uncomfortable than anything. When he challenges her
about the recorder and about stumbling earlier, it upsets her. When he uses his
body to essentially coral her while putting on her jacket and at the elevators,
it seems to creep her out. Understandably. It’s creepy. But this is James’s way
of Grey asserting his dominance. And Ana is not having any of it. It does not
turn her on.
And to be fair, it's creepy because James writes it as
creepy. Not that I want to, but if you compare this cute-meet next to Kat &
Peter's cute-meet in my novel, they look outwardly fairly similar. Peter uses
many of the same techniques as Grey. The difference is Kat likes it. She
responds favorably to it. She gets off on it. While Ana, on the otherhand, is creeped out.
It's that joke
I've heard a lot of guys whine: What's the difference between a creeper and a
guy with game? How hot/wealthy is he. Grey's looks and his power and his wealth all turn Ana on,
sure. But his mode of dominance doesn’t. She finds it arrogant, mean, and
creepy.
This isn't even a good example of someone going through the motions of kink so they can be with the kinkster—which happens. But, usually then, the person just isn't terribly turned on by kink, but does it for the sake of their partner. Ana flat out hates it. No one is hot and rich and powerful enough to put up with that for long. It'd be like someone who hated sex staying with someone and agreeing to have sex because they find that person so hot and rich and powerful. Very few people do that. And when they do, they're usually miserable and unhealthy.
If we’re saying Grey is a Dom (which he almost is), Ana clearly isn’t
a good candidate for his sub.
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