50 Shades of Judgement

For me, it started the phenomenon by infiltrating my twitter feed, celebrities started posting photos of the monstrosity with tag lines like, "Sick in bed, but still have Mr. Grey to keep me company." Then it started to be mentioned on my Facebook, and according to my feed "4 people are now talking about 50 Shades of Grey." Soon enough, I'd switch on the television and there it was, that ugly grey windsor knot staring back at me. It had allegedly taken the world by storm and apparently what the world wanted was a good spanking.

Fifty Shades Of Ghey

I was in K-Mart one day when I saw the book piled high in what must have been a specialty 'sexy' display. Sheepish housewives milled around it with their drooling, toothless toddlers strapped into their shopping carts, staring in every direction but Mr Grey's. They were not so subtly waiting for an opportune time when no eyes were on them, to reach out and nonchalantly grab the novel in all it's titillating glory. I imagined they would smuggle it home in Coles shopping bags filled with dog food and Huggies and greedily indulge in the so-called erotic novel while their beer-bellied husbands were passed out next to them in an Emu Export induced coma. I couldn't help myself.  I had to see what all the fuss was about, why women were falling over themselves to read this kinky romance novel, plus it was only $10.

I immediately read it cover to cover. Now don't take that the wrong way, it was not because I was gaga over Grey, it was because I was waiting for the eroticism to begin, for something actually arousing to happen. After I begrudgingly finished it, the first thought I had was, how come this 21-year-old virgin can orgasm not only the first time she has sex (which apparently didn't hurt one incy-wincy bit) but can then go on to have multiple orgasms every-single-time? In the words of the late Nora Ephron, "I'll have what she's having." I don't know if it's just me, but the sex scenes within this "book" seem to last for approximately 1.5 minutes, which is why it made me assume at first that it was written by a man. So, we can assume that either Mr Grey is other-wordly good or Miss Steele is having some mechanical help that isn't mentioned (iVibe anyone?)

Images of monkeys sprang to mind, dressed in little bowler hats and polka-dot bow ties maniacally banging away at type writers with cigars dangling from their mouths and saying, "this is totally average and mediocre writing but there's enough "thrusting", "naughty but nice pain" and "biting of the lip" in there for a best seller."

E L Gibbon

In fear of this sounding like a book review I think I'll come to summation with this; Read it, or don't, either way you'll either be judged for your close-mindedness or your complete lack of literary taste.