The 50 Fiasco

...or why you won't see anything 50-related here.

Much as I'd love to, I will not expound at length over my expanded feelings about 50 Shades, but I will leave this to keep from answering the same statements over and over.

You don't like it because you're a prude.

Anyone who knew me, or has followed my fanfiction or role-playing career, would probably laugh themselves into a ruptured spleen if they heard this. I've written my share of NC-17 stories - some het, some slash, some threesomes and I do love to read them when they're well-written and enhance the story.

I don't consider 50 erotica, though. For my definition of erotica doesn't include body parts that act as "inner goddesses" or, at any time, the words "down there." Unless the heroine is asked where the wine cellar is, and says the phrase while pointing to the basement door. 

The hype of this series has also created a copy cat environment that has a majority of the newer adult fiction focusing on sex, sex, and more sex. Fine if that's what floats your boat, but imho, you can only read Tab A into Slot B before it starts getting boring and nothing has me hitting the back button faster than a plot synopsis that focuses on the sexual aspect of a story over the actual story itself. They've become the bodice rippers of our time...and I can only hope they fall out of fashion again.

This is the main reason I read mostly Young Adult/College Adult fiction for the time being.

How can you not find Christian hot???

Easiest one ever. Because he's not. I don't care how rich he is, or how big his penis is (still trying to figure out how Ana, a self-admitted virgin, knew how well endowed he was as she had nothing for comparison.) Christian is an abusive misogynist with severe control and psychological issues that have very little place in any D/s society. As far as I know, Ted Bundy was attractive enough to lure co-eds into his little VW bug. Didn't work out too well for them, either.

Let me state this for the record. 50 Shades is *not* BDSM. In any D/s relationship, the main purpose is pleasure. For the Dom and the sub. And yes, sometimes that pleasure is obtained through pain, through the use of floggers, whips, gags, ropes, etc. These are used to enhance the pleasure/pain - not to cause it. A Dom will use these to bring out the sub's pleasure, or if the sub is collared, to correct indiscretions. 

No Dom I've ever met has ever considered himself "fucked up." No Dom I've ever met has ever threatened to "tie you down and gag you and fuck you anyway if you say no again" unless that was part of the scene they were playing out.

Take note - in a D/s relationship, in most cases, the submissive has the control. If this lifestyle was researched more than spending five minutes on Google, or if the lifestyle was thought of with anything more than disdain by the author, this book might have an accurate representation. 

Rec note: If you want a quick read that portrays the lifestyle accurately, I suggest spending an hour or two with Tara Sue Me and her lovely story <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4764216/1/The-Submissive>The Submissive</a> and it's companion piece <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4918631/1/The-Dominant">The Dominant</a>. She does better than any. Yes, this is a Twilight fan fiction....but so was 50 Shades.

So you've read Twilight fan fiction, you should like this.

I've read it, and I've written it. And 50 was the "It Fic" along with "University of Edward Masen" (aka Gabriel's Inferno) when I started out in the Twilight Fandom. I tried to read both. I never even *got* to the sex in these stories. The writing was so abysmally bad, I closed the tab in Firefox and never looked back.

To quote Forrest Gump....and that's all I have to say about that.