Pam:
this was going through my head the entire time also!!!
I should point out: I read Romance novels all the time and have read plenty of racy stuff, including S&M and have completed studies at the PhD level in Cultural studies that include articles on S&M. I have no trouble reading any of it. I am very open minded.
To my mind, 50 Shades just happens to have caught public attention at this time. It could have been any other book. There are much better writers working within the Romance genre, and there are far more titillating reads. I don't even consider 50 Shades all that racy. Most of the action in this series is spent on Anastasia's conversations with her inner goddess and superego (here's where the worst writing exists) and on her contractual negotiations with Christian and the plentiful vanilla sex that goes on between them. If anything, I think the hype surrounding the books exceeds the content itself.
What I found both interesting and dismaying at the same time is the fact that it took the publication of these books for the topic of women's sexual fantasy lives to hit the front page of Time magazine. Why was this such a surprise to anybody? Of course we have sexual fantasy lives, of course we have fantasies about bondage, being "taken" against our will, etc. The article in Times magazine asked: "how do women square these fantasies with their feminism?" Answer: easy! It's fantasy. Giving permission for my partner to be forceful in the bedroom does not in any way mean I want to be raped or endorse such violence against women. Nor does it mean I do not believe in equal pay or that I am not concerned by how few women we have in high ranking positions in business and politics. I can only conclude that the entire editorial staff for that Time article must have been male.
Sorry if I "yucked" on Pam's "yum." Isn't Ryan Gosling in the running for this role?
Clare