50 Shades of Change

This month's biggest blockbuster 50 Shades of Grey has received a great deal of attention due to the controversial BDSM relationship between main characters Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. It presents a relationship far different than any other ever seen in Hollywood because of the function of Christian as the Dominant and Ana as the Submissive. What does this mean? Basically, Christian owns Ana and can control all aspects of her life and can punish her as he sees fit. They wield a contract outlining the parameters of their relationship, highlighted below:

15.13 The Submissive accepts the Dominant as her master, with the understanding that she is now the property of the Dominant, to be dealt with as the Dominant pleases during the Term

This sounds a lot like a sex slave.

15.21 The Submissive shall accept whippings, floggings, spankings, caning, paddling or any other discipline the Dominant should decide to administer, without hesitation, enquiry or complaint

This idea has received outrage from many viewers/readers because they say that no woman should submit herself to this and that it is demoralizing.

Ana submits herself to some of Christian's punishments as a trial test-run, to see if Christian's BDSM lifestyle suits her. After trying it, she realizes that she does not like to be bent over and spanked and tells Christian that she wants "more." She wants to go on dates and sleep in the same bed as Christian, because "that's what normal people do." Ana, a relationship and sexual virgin pre-Christian, has no experience to draw from as far as relationship expectations; she is an avid reader of classic romantic novels and thus has a very traditional view of love based on the sexual and dating scripts she has seen in her media diet. Drury and Bukowski expand on the idea of the sexual script in their work: "Scripts are cognitive models that people employ to guide and evaluate social and sexual behavior; they guide behavior both interpersonally and intrapersonally." Ana's expectations are solely based off of what she thinks "should" happen, which Christian calls "vanilla," meaning boring and basic.



One celebrity in opposition to this idea of love presented by author E.L. James is Olympian Lolo Jones, who says, "I don't want people to think this is the version of love, or that this is in any way acceptable...This movie isn't supposed to show how women should be treated. Men should be gentlemen."

The thing is, Ana is happy in the relationship, and Christian does care about her and is a gentleman. His mantra is "We Aim to Please"...Christian hopes that Ana gets pleasure from the relationship as well. He compromises on his ways and goes on dates with Ana. He sleeps in the same bed with her. She tries his lifestyle and goes into his "Red Room of Pain" with him. A relationship is built on agreements and compromises to find a point of agreement...Christian and Ana's just happens to be built on BDSM, something deemed as "weird" by society.

Ana and Christian's model of love is unconventional. But I like it. That doesn't mean that I believe in BDSM; rather, I believe in open mindedness in relationships. I believe in trying someone else's lifestyle--what if you like it? Ana tries something she is terrified of for Christian, something she knows will give her pain. Christian tries going on dates and doing the lovey-dovey "vanilla" stuff for Ana, something he has an emotional barrier against due to his tormenting past. THAT, in my mind is true love, whips and floggers aside.



50 Shades of Grey is altering the sexual scripts in the media and is making people more open to sexual experimentation. Although it is receiving a great deal of criticism due to the Dominant-Submissive aspect of the relationship between Ana and Christian, it is redefining what people see as normal, or rather, "vanilla" in the bedroom.

Works Cited:

James, E. (2012). Fifty shades of Grey. New York: Vintage Books.

Mills Drury, K., & Bukowski, W. (2013). Sexual Development. In Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexuality (pp. 115-138). Academic Press.