Laurie Penny

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In defence of Fifty Shades of Grey

Critics' main problem with these books seems simply to be that they are porn for women.

By Laurie Penny Published 08 July 2012 11:09

Fifty Shades of Grey's cover

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175 comments

Wed, 2012-07-11 19:50 — Spudmiddleton (not verified)

"She was asked/approached and in HER OWN opinion it was a job. Other people perhaps did it for free (you do not know if all of them did it for free), and she just had other opinion on that. "

Except...erm...they don't pay people. Anyway....how is it that you're so sure she was asked/approached? Are you party to some information that I'm not?
But anyway...you state she "just had other opinion on" something which everybody prior to herself had willingly performed gratis....and you think this is fine....just because she decided it was? So no doubt you're cool with the bankers? I mean, clearly they're a bunch of mercenary thieving bastards...but I'm sure if we ask them we'll find they "just had other opinion on that"...so that's OK...yeah?

"What do you mean I justify her? "

Oh purrrrrrrrrrleassssse! Don't be silly.

"And, btw, what Barclay's has to do with LP and public debate in mentioned topic that - let's say - is only known to your neural pathways."

I thought it germane...since we were in the general realm of over-privileged nobodies demanding extortionate sums for performing incompetently.

And....known "TO" my neural pathways? How the f**k does that work? You're saying these pathways are somehow 'aware' of the 'message' they're carrying?

in-difference of fifty shades of's picture

Wed, 2012-07-11 21:49 — in-difference of fifty shades of (not verified)

1. Well, you mentioned she was invited, therefore she was approched by someone who invited her. I have no idea if they pay or not, never seen their books. What I heard from that 'gentle'man was that she was interested to be paid for her speech.
2. You do not know how many people and who performed gratis, you've never seen their books. Perhaps everybody performed gratis, including LP, perhaps not.
3. Yes, I think it was fine she asked for money for her speech. It doesn't mean she got the money though, as it takes two to tango. And I think it was strictly privileged communication between her and them.
4. I see no logical link between LP and banks here.
5. 'I thought it germane...since we were in the general realm of over-privileged nobodies demanding extortionate sums for performing incompetently.'
Perhaps you are in the realm of *whatever*, but I happen not to be, somehow blind envy and unkindness and all that dirt coming from throwing s*** at people, just because others do it, is not my realm.
6. 'And....known "TO" my neural pathways? How the f**k does that work? You're saying these pathways are somehow 'aware' of the 'message' they're carrying?'
Do you have a designated person who makes decissions for you, or you make them yourself?

Wed, 2012-07-11 22:51 — SpudMiddleton (not verified)

Oh Jesus....is that it?

And..."Do you have a designated person who makes decissions for you, or you make them yourself?"

If I had a designated person making decisions for me I wouldn't have a 'self'...so 'yourself' is meaningless; it renders your question meaningless....any conventional usage of 'self' would determine that the 'designated person' would be the 'self'...so why did you direct your question to 'me'?

Also...you've possibly suggested that my answer required the presence of a ghost in my machine...if so, you're suggestion is crass incidentally....especially since your original idea that neural networks 'know' things rather highlights the point that it's you who are anthropomorphising parts of the brain and, indeed lending small components of the brain consciousness.

Or then again...your 'designated person' dig might have been a 'knowing' PC crack about me being a bit cabbaged? If so...grow a)up b) a 'pair' c) a conscience that's your own and not the fetid output of a useful-idiot, middle-class, self-conscious liberal-hypocrite sensibility.

Sun, 2012-07-15 12:08 — stark_source

"If I had a designated person making decisions for me I wouldn't have a 'self'...so 'yourself' is meaningless; it renders your question meaningless....any conventional usage of 'self' would determine that the 'designated person' would be the 'self'...so why did you direct your question to 'me'?"

You clearly need to stop reading logic and philosophy books, my friend. Your linear, single-strand thinking has become sort of blinkered. There is a thing called common sense and shared communication - also known as 'obvious meaning'. Look up "right-side brain functions" on google. See what you come up with. And chill on the caffeine!

Sat, 2012-07-14 00:27 — Agent (not verified)

OMG

50 shades of pointless arguments. We judge a person by their enemies don't we? Now, there are many things that could be said about Starkey, and the least flattering ones would come closest to the mark. He didn't win the argument, there was just a sort-of 'meeting of minds'. Laurie, you really need to raise you game.

Thu, 2012-07-12 20:06 — andyg (not verified)

Spud calm down, I'm enjoying my Kit-Kat shuffle without payment. Ohhhhhh

Thu, 2012-07-12 01:54 — rrrrright (not verified)

Mon, 2012-07-09 19:54 — Greengirl (not verified)

So many highbrow commentators, who know so much about said subject.
I have to say I'm not a porn expert, nor do I want my name associated, but I am an Anistasia of sorts, constantly drawn back to the intriging Mr. Grey (only 1/2 way thru the 2nd). But I'm lovin' it. Popularity makes it 'OK' to like the quiet public stimulation of '50'. I hear it's flying off the shelf at Costco due to older folks! My librarian neighbor says as of last week there were 1200 holds for the book, so 500 of each book to circulate isn't enough, in Madison WI. She isn't reading it.
I'm happy when someone finds a writing niche and wins the lottery, it's fun to participate in the excitment, 'ride the wave'.
What would you suggest for a more literary juicey read ?

Mon, 2012-07-09 18:02 — Spudmiddleton (not verified)

Triplicate ....the way forward

Mon, 2012-07-09 18:01 — SteveS (not verified)

All I see is excuse-making-- with absolutely no discussion of how porn affects our perceptions of the opposite sex.

Maybe instead of excusing porn as some form of sexual liberation, we as a society should see it for what it really is- an extension of the same Hollywood propaganda machine that seeks to desensitize and dehumanize us, steering us away from our real people and real life, and into the world of profit-by-fantasy.

If that's your idea of "sexual liberation," you can count me out.

Mon, 2012-07-09 18:11 — EHM (not verified)

'[...] an extension of the same Hollywood propaganda machine that seeks to [...]'

What is people don't do in real that do in porn? I wonder.

Mon, 2012-07-09 18:00 — Spudmiddleton (not verified)

I'd usually think about how to make my criticism of this article vaguely entertaining....but let's face it, why would I bother...the author is the same sad individual who recently had her arse well and truly kicked by David Starkey FFS.

How are you gonna maintain your fearless urban guerillista persona when you so patently crumbled when confronted with a flabby red-faced henchman of the patriarchal establishment? Mind you, he did jab his finger in your direction....so the fact that you went to pieces, stumbled over your thoughts, pannicked and started mumbling hysterical inanities is probably understandable. What was that you were saying about innocent college graduates?
By my reckoning your credibility is now suffering from negative equity. I'd sell up and move back in with Mummy and Daddy...they can keep you safe from all those scary wild-eyed OAPs who get you so flustered.

Mon, 2012-07-09 17:59 — Spudmiddleton (not verified)

Sun, 2012-07-15 12:02 — stark_source

Your hatred for LP is obvious: in your estimation, you clearly find LP pathetic and weak and judge her for being unable to maintain her composure when being angrily confronted on a public stage by something as insignificant as a flabby OAP.

Mon, 2012-07-09 17:38 — come ooooooooon (not verified)

let's be honest,
even CMYK has 48 shades of grey more,
that confirms Christian is a half_wit.

:-P

Mon, 2012-07-09 16:08 — Pardeep (not verified)

Why is everyone (I'm talking about those in the media) going mad about a soft porn book? It seems to me that every commentator who has written on the subject is trying to make some great claims for what is essentially a bit of nonsense the type of which has always been around.

Mon, 2012-07-09 16:36 — Des Demona (not verified)

True dat.
But I suppose it seems like the first time I remember a female wank-fest getting such mainstream publicity? Then again maybe I don't pay enough attention.

Mon, 2012-07-09 15:56 — Silican (not verified)

Support for the necrophilic besti@lity community is the surest way of preserving the dying art of taxidermy. Please discuss.

Mon, 2012-07-09 16:42 — Des Demona (not verified)

I think you're flogging a dead horse on that one

Mon, 2012-07-09 17:51 — come ooooooooon (not verified)

nah, he's mounting block of wood in a tissue

Sun, 2012-07-08 23:55 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

but this isn't popular culture and/or radical politics with a feminist twist, is it? This stuff is the same rubbish, unnecessary, pretentious, desperate drivel one should expect from somebody with nothing new to tell us.

Thu, 2012-07-12 20:13 — andyg (not verified)

Correct, a little earner on the side but don't tell Spud. Ohhhhhhhhhh la la

Sun, 2012-07-08 23:22 — Agent (not verified)

Don't care about the book but great article; I had wondered why I think you're worth reading, but not now.

'indifferent cats in amateur porn tumblr' is an awesome observation too.

LMAO :-)

Sun, 2012-07-08 22:42 — dante1942 (not verified)

As a member of the fanfiction reading/writing community you just defended, I would like to make it clear that my issue with 50 Shades is that, even amongst fanfic writers and readers, it would be considered shite. We read and write porn for women all the time - kinky, female-oriented, super-explicit, sadomasochistic; that's clearly not our problem. Our problem is that there is lots of brilliant kinky pornographic writing for women out there, but 50 Shades doesn't make the list.

Sun, 2012-07-08 19:24 — thealienanthropologist (not verified)

"by far the most in-depth and detailed sex-scenes are "vanilla" - so then why even label it porn. It's drivel...like one of those trash novels you'd pick up in a supermarket check out line. It's not porn. It's not even erotica. It's trash.

Thu, 2012-07-12 20:16 — andyg (not verified)

Hey......Alien, STFU while I finish this 5 knuckle shuffle.

Sun, 2012-07-08 19:24 — thealienanthropologist (not verified)

Sun, 2012-07-08 19:23 — thealienanthropologist (not verified)

Sun, 2012-07-08 16:45 — jankaas (not verified)

"Everyone knows that the only women who are allowed to actually have sexuality are slender, high-breasted twenty-one year old virgins"

doesn't sound like the interwebs i am familiar with. you just making stuff up for effect again Laurie?

Sun, 2012-07-08 16:44 — bigot (not verified)

if you were good looking enough.you'd be on page three. But you aint. Maybe there is a case for the burqua.

Sun, 2012-07-08 14:25 — McMac

LP's writting is starting to get a bit like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

Sun, 2012-07-08 14:26 — McMac

Sun, 2012-07-08 14:24 — antisylphid (not verified)

sorry Laurie :-)))))
imho the book is Dumb, I couldn't go beyond some of 30-40 pages or so. Extremly boring, and since I don't have it on kindle, can't even get to eye watering blow job scenes. Unless somebody drops me page number. I truly cannot imagine me wan_king to this, but oh well, if some do, I'm happy for them. Plus classic exploitation of the theme, extremly rich guy and a graduate, come on... I guess I prefer the cheap vision of f888ing CA from my fave bookstore; ok blow_ing him when he serves/charges other clients. Cheap? Cheap. Sex is simple and therefore cheap and good as amusement, engaging this fabulously rich Christian in this make sex something unreachable to any average woman, which is an absurd.
So I'd fallen asleep over 50 shades, and when woke up, never picked the tash up again :-)

Sun, 2012-07-08 14:18 — suburbanmonk

What a pointless articule, Ms Penny I feel you have gone from producing great and challenging articules to magazine pulp. Thats not to say I don't agree with what you say however what a waste of your time and mine, with a world going to shit this is all you can come up with. I hoped that you were the young pretender to the Pilger dynasty however lately you are better suited to tattler and womans own.

You are in a unique and privilged postion with the ear of thousands, maybe millions of readers, please value and appreciate that and use it appropriately the world is on the edge. do'nt waste column inches on tat there are more pressing and immediate problems for women (as well as men) than what they (we) w**k over.

Sun, 2012-07-08 14:00 — Paola Kathuria (not verified)

I think that the reason that so many people are buying it is because media coverage put the book in the public gaze, making it mainstream.

Many will be buying to find out what the fuss is about. For many others it might be their first sex fiction who find FSOG easy to buy because it's talked about as a must-have handbag accessory.

Since the late 1980s, hundreds of thousands of people have been posting sex stories on the net (I was one of them). There was a lot of very good, creative, imaginative and effective writing. Just because it's porn (or, erotica to w@nk to), or just because it started off on the net, doesn't excuse it for being bad.

However, the book won't be enjoyed - on any level - by anyone serious about what the book is about, BDSM. That's because FSOG has been written by an ignorant outsider, with all the purile assumptions that perpetuate untruths. I thank the http://bizzybiz.blogspot.co.uk/ for that particular enlightenment.

Sun, 2012-07-08 13:55 — Gerry Tierney (not verified)

Are you pathologically damaged or something, Penny?

Let's ignore your sweeping, ravening double-standards for just a moment and just point out that people hate it because it's poorly written trash.

We don't care that it's women who're reading it, we are annoyed that it's given any artistic merit whatsoever when it's even more badly written than your juvenile, knee-jerk, hysteria-laden garbage.

Grow up, Laurie, your schtick is long since past its prime.

Sun, 2012-07-08 13:44 — eric burrows (not verified)

It is the title that caught peoples eye and basically it's just semi hard core Mills and Boon. All the criticisms and jokes stem from the fact that it is very popular and men are not quite happy that a lot of women like porn.

Mon, 2012-07-09 18:20 — SteveS (not verified)

No, I think it's the double standard that porn is bad for men to watch, but OK for women because "no one lets women cum." It's juvenile. No one but the most conservative, patriarchal freak takes the idea that women shouldn't have sexual pleasure seriously. It's a straw man, to put it kindly.

This kind of porn doesn't objectify men's bodies, like men's porn does to women. But it does turn men into status objects, and it creates a ridiculous standard for sexual and emotional behavior that the vast majority of men can't, and probably shouldn't live up to.

It's been shown that men's porn strongly affects the way men think about women. I guarantee you that porn has the same negative effect on women. It isn't special just because it's in book form. And women aren't so different from men that they're immune to desensitization.

Sun, 2012-07-08 13:51 — AllyF (not verified)

maybe it's just me, but I've seen loads of articles from women slagging off other women for reading 50 Shades. Don't think I've seen anything like that from a man?

Sun, 2012-07-08 13:35 — AllyF (not verified)

I don't disagree with most of this Laurie, but I think there's a simpler explanation.

The so-called chattering classes spend their lives bemoaning the fact that the masses don't read books, then from time to time a novel comes out which people buy in their millions, and suddenly the same people get really snooty and snobbish, and bemoan the fact that the proles are reading 50 Shades instead of The Story of O; Harry Potter instead of Wolf Hall; Dan Brown instead of Sebastian Faulks. It's a psychological mechanism to reaffirm the social and intellectual status of the elite.

It happens to come in bl0wjob flavour this year, but it will be something else next year.

Sun, 2012-07-08 14:32 — Janeann

But this is a more complex explanation? Laurie is suggesting anyone might like 'Porn'- even a journalist. Now you introduce a literary class system and point out that it's extremely ugly for chattering classes to believe themselves more entitled to decide the whereabouts of intrinsic reading merit than are the far more numerous proles. You suggest a merit order of reading taste but with your last sentence you confusingly put yourself squarely in with the elitists - its a "bl**job" flavoured prole just this year?
I agree -what defines worthiness in any written material, or in any life? If literature informs life- whose life deserves to get informed ?

Sun, 2012-07-08 13:31 — Herbert (not verified)

The whole point of porn is that people like to feel a bit shifty about it, a bit guilty.

Sun, 2012-07-08 15:29 — antisylphid (not verified)

only in case when sex itself is a guilty pleasure to someone. If it's a healthy natural pleasure, guilt and shame disappear. Magic. Sexual need is fundamental. I am not talking about deviations here like rape or incest with underaged or other forms of forced sex, though, to *some* 'natural'. Your 'natural' ends where suffering of the other starts. Law is integral part of civilized life.

Sun, 2012-07-08 17:47 — Herbert (not verified)

You're talking about sex; I'm talking about porn.