Fifty Shades of Grey and Gender Double Standards

                                                 Watercolor, Spring 2012, C. Bakunas

   There are a series of books currently holding the top spot on the NY Times bestsellers list. It is a trilogy going by the collective title Shades of Grey. The three books, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, & Fifty Shades Freed, are the story of a young college graduate and her relationship with a billionaire who has a penchant for BDSM.

It is the single fastest selling paperback collection of all time.

It is soft-core porn geared towards women, and it's more proof, at least for me, that the double-standard is still solidly in place.

Costco does not sell Playboy. Costco will never sell Playboy. But Costco has boxes and boxes of all three books.

In the course of the two trips I've made in the past month I have seen women reading the books, in the airports, on the planes, in the little overpriced bars in the terminals. Hell, the book was being sold at the newsstands of four of the five airports I was recently in.

At La Guardia, two women were discussing the books while I tried to read an Adobe Photoshop Elements instruction guide. To say it was distracting would be saying the sky is blue. Two women publicly describing to each other what chapters of a soft-core porn novel turned them on the most is pretty damn distracting, especially when you are a flaming heterosexual male.

I have watched debates on morning talk shows about how the series appeals to frustrated housewives (It's been dubbed "Mommy Porn") and how it has spiced up relationships for previously bored couples. There are learned, intelligent pundits out there who are stating without embarrassment that this little trilogy is giving women, young & old, a chance to explore and indulge their sexual fantasies and that if it enhances their real-life sex lives and intimacy, hurrah, hurrah!

Seriously.

I have two problems with this.

First, the aforementioned double standard. What double standard you may ask?

See that little watercolor illustration I painted up there? Think you'll ever see it for sale in any airport, anywhere, ever? No, and not just because it's a fairly innocuous, almost pedestrian bit of pin-up.

It, and nothing even remotely resembling it, will not be for sale at any airport, anywhere, ever, because it's primary audience is heterosexual males. That's the double standard.

"Hah!" The protests are made! "You can buy Details, FHM, Maxim, etc. in airports everywhere!"

Those magazines are the equivalent of Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Glamour. The only difference is the gender targeted, and the fact that there is far more sex and actual nudity in Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Glamour.

Heterosexual male fantasy is primarily visual. Titillating pictures of women, clothed or nude, stimulate heterosexual men, kick-starts their imaginations - and we can't have that now, can we?

I mentioned Costco will never sell Playboy. Neither will Wal-Mart, or Target, etc. Company Policy. And chew on this - for years Costco, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. would not sell the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. The few stores that did sell the SI swimsuit issue, did so with provisions such as it being kept behind the counter, or sealed in a plastic bag (That's how my local supermarket, King Soopers, sold it for years. This is the same local supermarket that currently has a table covered in stacks of the Fifty Shades trilogy - just like Wal-Mart & Target).

Why? because the primary audience for the SI swimsuit issue is...heterosexual males. Find me a supermarket, convenience store, bookstore, etc., that has printed material geared towards heterosexual males on readily accessible display. They don't exist. All the magazines and books for hetero men are behind the counter or wrapped in sealed plastic bags.

Go ahead, check it out next time you're in a Barnes & Noble or 7-11.

Heterosexual males have never been able to publicly indulge their sexual fantasies. Never. Anybody who thinks that is a false statement is ignorant of history. Anything that might in the slightest be interpreted as something that might get a hetero man aroused has been labeled as mature subject matter and kept out of sight of those who might be offended.

If a bit of soft core porn came down the pike that encouraged hetero men to explore and indulge their sexual fantasies, think there will be talk show symposiums hailing it as a good thing because it enhances hetero men's sex lives? Think huge amounts of floor space will be given over to it in department stores and major book retailers?

Doubtful. Maybe Howard Stern would do something.

I can hear the protest fairly clearly: "Are you blind? Do you not see all the porn that is available for hetero men? It's everywhere! Get on the Internet! It will slap you right upside your head!"

That protest misses the point. The Internet is used privately for such, not public. I cannot use the computers at any library in the state of Colorado to access anything that is remotely considered porn (there are big signs at every computer stating that your library privileges will be revoked if you do), but all three Fifty Shades books can be checked out. By anyone. Or read in the library in one of their big comfy chairs.

Wait, there is more from the protesters: "Haven't you seen all the T & A that's in advertising? All the nudity in films and even on television? You can't claim that you've never been to a Hooters or a Twin Peaks! Look at all the Strip Clubs!"

Short reply: All the T & A in advertising, all the nudity in any media, all the restaurants such as Hooters, Twin Peaks, Tilted Kilt, etc., and especially all the Strip Clubs, only feature scantily clad or nude women for one purpose. 

To separate heterosexual males from their money.

Not one beer commercial, not one cleavage-baring waitress, not one pole-dancing exhibition, has ever existed for the purpose of allowing a hetero male to "let go" or be "proud and open about his sexuality" or "spark sexual thoughts and feelings" that will allow him to "indulge secret fantasies". It's all been done for good ol' moola.

BTW, everything in quotations in the previous paragraphs are from actual reviews of Fifty Shades - I just switched the gender pronouns.

Even shorter reply: The sole purpose of using anything that may remotely stimulate a hetero man in a public forum has always been to take advantage of his libido for profit.

For centuries people who have used women in the sex trade, in any way, mean, or form, have all been labeled as exploiters of women. There is no doubt truth to that, but what has been overlooked is the fact that those people also exploited men, to the nth degree. They made fortunes taking advantage of the hetero male libido.

Hetero men are not slaves to their libido, they are enslaved by it. 

The list of people who have done anything that appeals to the hetero male libido without the sole intent of making profit off it... doesn't exist.

My second problem with the Fifty Shades phenomena is a little more complex, and personal. I may not be capable of putting it all here for the world to view, but I will take a serious stab at it.

Critics of media that incorporate words and pictures depicting women in what could be interpreted as of a sexually exploitative manner and intended to appeal to hetero males have stated that such material distorts the image of women, objectifies the female body, and presents a seriously twisted idea of how male/female sexual relations should work.

I agree, and further, I state it works both ways. From personal experience.

My generation of hetero men, those born after the publication of Sex & The Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan, and the advent of the Women's Liberation Movement, have grown up in a world wherein we were told it was most definitely not a man's world.

I, having been raised by a single mom and three older sisters, really had that hammered into me.

My generation of hetero men was the first generation that always had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), the law that prohibited discrimination in hiring based on sex, race, etc. We always had the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which, with the exception of occupations that have legitimate reasons for wage discrepancy (blue-collar jobs that require intensive labor and long overtime hours, such as mining) has pretty much eliminated the wage gap (Go ahead, name me a job in which a man and woman with the exact same education, skills, experience and ability, doing the exact same work for the exact same time period get different rates of pay. Lawyers will be parachuting in before you can blink.)

My generation of hetero men have always been told "No means no". We've always been aware of what marital and date rape is, we've always known that domestic violence is never, ever acceptable.

And now we have this Fifty Shades trilogy, and millions upon millions of women eating it up. Couple that with all the praise being heaped upon it, and what do we have for the average hetero male?

Confusion, and the same seriously twisted idea of how male/female relations should work that critics of hetero male targeted porn say hetero men get.

Oh yes, the protests are starting again: "It's only fantasy! No woman wants to be a rape victim! No woman wants to be beaten and controlled like that! The girl in the story is just indulging in a desire to explore sexual taboos without having to be thought of as a slut or whore because she's not responsible for what she's being made to do..."

Right. Shoe, meet other foot. Hetero male porn is fantasy too, just like James Bond and The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. Only difference, indulging in hetero male porn gets you crucified, vilified, etc.

Fifty Shades, and Erotica (as women like to label their porn), can do exactly to a woman's perception of what a male/female relationship should be as the critics of hetero male porn contend it does to hetero male perceptions of M/F relationships

Now for a little bit of personal revelation. I was once involved in a relationship with a woman that I had thought was pretty damn special. (Long since over, it remains the longest relationship with a woman I've ever had)

One afternoon, about two years into our relationship, I paid a visit to her workplace with a fresh bouquet of roses in hand (I bought this particular woman a dozen roses about every two weeks - I have bought one woman flowers, once, since that relationship ended well over a decade ago).

She was out of her office at the time I was delivering the roses, but as everyone who worked there knew me, I was allowed to dispose of the old flowers and put the new bouquet in the vase.

Except I needed scissors to cut the stems, and as I couldn't find a pair on top of her desk, I looked inside the center drawer.

Where I found a BDSM lifestyle magazine, and a mail order catalog for BDSM apparel, toys, etc.

An ant could have pushed me right out the window. I was stunned. However, I quickly finished with the flowers (the scissors were in the top drawer) and left. I needed to get out of the building and digest what I had just seen.

When she got home that night I wasted no time confronting her about what I'd seen. Of course I had to endure accusations about invading her privacy, disrespecting her, etc., but I held my ground, stayed focused on the issue (anyone who has ever had a debate with me knows this to be a major accomplishment) and did not relent until she finally told me what the hell it was all about.

She revealed to me then (uhm, did I mention we had been in a relationship for about two years, and actually living together for over a year?) that she had fantasies about being a sex slave, being kept by a Master, and everything that goes with it (Look it up, I have no desire to describe the BDSM lifestyle). Seems she had been reading the literature online for some time, and had printed out a few of her favorite stories. She'd even joined chat rooms in which she could play out the role of a slave with an anonymous Master.

Now, at this point in our relationship, I was as committed to it and her as much as a man can possibly be. So I told her that, if this was what she wanted, this is what we'll do. I decided to learn all I could about the scene, and learn how to be a qualified Master for her.

I gave it my best. However, I just didn't have it in me. Oh, I could get into the activities, the bondage, blindfolds, collars, paddles, etc., and play out the whole Master/slave bit (She even found us a "contract" online that we both would abide by, and we agreed upon safewords, the powershare, etc.) But seriously, It wasn't my cup of tea, and it really soured my desire for her.

Again, to make it short; our relationship ended about a year afterward. 

I hear voices of protest again: "Hey, everybody is entitled to his or her choice of pleasures, and just because she didn't have the capability to tell you hers when you two first met, and it resulted in your relationship ending and your poor little heart getting broken, it doesn't mean you have the right to condemn women around the world for the momentary happiness they find in the Fifty Shades trilogy".

Actually, it does. It is the apogee of hypocrisy to say it doesn't, especially in this day and age. It's a double standard to say it doesn't.

But wait, there's more.

It didn't end with her. The very next woman I became involved with revealed to me (early on) that she was into the BDSM scene and also wanted to be a slave. As I was enamored/infatuated with this woman, I again tried my best to indulge her, but to no avail. It was over quickly, and no hearts were broken, so what about it?

My luck got worse, that's what. The next woman I got involved with after that happened to be a woman I had known years before, a whole lifetime ago. We got back in touch with each other via email, and after a couple of months, got together in person.

...And eventually she told me she wanted to be a slave in a BDSM relationship. At this point I was becoming convinced that this was what all women want, and if I was to have a successful relationship, I had better learn how to be an effective Master.

But I couldn't get into it, just couldn't. It had been ingrained in me to treat women with respect, to be affectionate, to never raise my hand or voice to a woman, that a controlling man was a bad man, etc. 

So that relationship came to an end.

I was now convinced I was somewhat of a Freak Magnet. None of my friends would argue the point.

So I decided then that I was going to start asking the women I got involved with right from the get go what they liked, what they wanted. I would ask at least three times. I would ask almost to the point of exasperation for the women I was with to tell me exactly what it was they wanted.

Before anyone starts thinking that I was interrogating these women, no, I wasn't. It was always done in the natural course of conversation - you know full well what I mean.

And almost without exception the only reply I would get (If I would even get a reply - women want more communication in the bedroom my ass) was "I don't really know, whatever you like is fine."

Which was the answer the first BDSM devotee had always given me until the truth came out, so I became convinced that all women wanted to be dominated, especially in the bedroom. They all wanted to be tied up, they all wanted to be spanked.

Except not all women actually do. Some do not at all. Unfortunately, I would only find that out after I initiated the actions, which of course resulted in a number of women I really liked coming to the conclusion that I was a weirdo and getting away from me as fast as they could.

So, the last few women I've been with, I've applied the "ask three times" rule. I ask three times, and if I get no definitive answer, I bail. Screw the guessing games.

I have had a few conversations with women about the Fifty Shades trilogy in the past couple of weeks (They are actually what sparked this rant). 

One of the conversations was via text, and it was basically me decrying the whole BDSM thing. I have grown to dislike that scene so.

The other conversation was at a restaurant, and it was with a woman who had told me some time ago that she hated being spanked, and hated guys who were control freaks. However, during the course of the conversation that night she said, verbatim, "I would love to met a guy like Christian Grey".

I got up and left the restaurant, and despite a few text from her wondering what had upset me and asking me to talk to her, I haven't, and I won't. I'm damn tired of being mislead.

So there you go, my two problems with the whole Fifty Shades dealio - the double standard, and the way crap like that contorts a woman's perception of what a relationship should be.

I've become the male Andrea Dworkin. Damn.

Disclaimer. I, in no way, mean, or form would ever attempt to regulate or censor what a consenting adult finds titillating, provided it does not harm or take advantage of another human being.

Okay, I confess, the personal revelations crap was just me being whiny, but I had to get it off my chest....