Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey

by Lori Perkins

  In the 1990s, the focus on positive portrayals of female sexual fantasy heralded by Rice’s books became a veritable flood of erotic literature for women. Pure erotica, without a romance narrative line, flourished, particularly at new publishing houses like Black Lace, which opened in the UK in 1993. Erotic romance also exploded as a genre, both through new publishers like Red Sage, which opened in the US in 1995 with the publication of its first Secrets anthology, and through established houses releasing full-length novels of erotic romance. Authors like Susan Johnson and Robin Schone, for instance, hit the New York Times bestseller lists with their erotic historical romance (Schone’s first book begins with the heroine thrown back through time and into a different body during a masturbatory orgasm). Publishing company Kensington released highly successful erotic romance anthologies starting in 1999.

  As erotica and erotic romance flourished, BDSM-focused fiction also carved out a niche for itself. In 1993, Laura Antoniou published The Marketplace, the first of a series of novels about a secret worldwide society of BDSM practitioners who train and sell consenting sexual slaves. The first novel follows four slaves through their slave training, examining their desires and needs to be sexual slaves and their experiences as they succeed—or fail—in their training. In 1995, future romance author Pam Rosenthal, using the pseudonym Molly Weatherfield, published Carrie’s Story. Rosenthal claims to have wanted to write a novel with “creative sex laced with intellect, voice, and irony.” The story very much reads like a cross between Story of O, McNeill’s Nine and a Half Weeks, and Rice’s Sleeping Beauty: a woman in New York City narrates—with a typical New Yorker’s sarcasm—how she finds herself in a BDSM relationship in which she explores submission and pony play. She consents, she very much enjoys herself, but she’s very conflicted about the activities her lover helps her to explore, especially as they seem to conflict with her own feminist feelings. Neither Antoniou’s nor Weatherfield’s books are romance according to Regis’ essential elements, but they both explore relationships, develop fully rounded characters, are deeply erotic, and expand the boundaries of BDSM fiction.

  Erotic romance author Emma Holly has the distinction of being the first to combine the subgenres of erotic romance and BDSM fiction. In 1999, she published two BDSM romances with Black Lace: Velvet Glove follows a male Dominant/female submissive couple, while The Top of Her Game follows a female Dominant and her male lover (but not submissive). While both books explore the BDSM desires of the characters, together and apart, at the end of both novels, but especially The Top of Her Game, the couples have “normalized” their relationships, eschewing their BDSM identities and most of their kinky activities. While not necessarily “cured” of the “need” for BDSM activities, the characters retreat from seeing BDSM as part of their individual identities and as essential to their romantic relationships and will admit only to perhaps using it to add flavor to their future sexual interactions. This structure hints at the much more focused rejection of BDSM “perversion” that we find in the Fifty Shades trilogy, in which Christian is cured of his need for alternate sexual expression by his partner’s healing love and happily-ever-after commitment.

  Although BDSM literature and erotic romance existed in parallel universes during the 1990s and came together momentarily in Emma Holly’s novels, they didn’t truly marry until the innovation of digital publishing at the start of the new millennium. Ellora’s Cave was the first and most successful of the digital presses of the early 2000s dedicated to publishing erotic romance. Started in November 2000 by Tina Marie Engler because she was unable to sell her sexually explicit erotic romances to traditional print publishers, Ellora’s Cave—with its digital-only business model, stable of authors with few other places to publish, and readers with few other places to buy what Ellora’s Cave sold—quickly became a multimillion-dollar-a-year company, establishing a business model that’s still growing today—a model that E. L. James took advantage of when she first published Fifty Shades of Grey with a small digital and print-on-demand publisher. Digital publishing expanded the erotic romance genre—usually set historically—into contemporary, paranormal, and futuristic settings. It also greatly expanded the market because of easy accessibility to an online audience who were no longer restricted by dependence on bricks-and-mortar stores’ willingness to stock potentially controversial books.

  In 2002, Ellora’s Cave published their first novel by Joey W. Hill, probably the most well-known author—some would even say the founder—of BDSM romance. Hill was one of the first, and is certainly one of the most successful, erotic romance authors to use BDSM to construct both the identities of her main characters and the trajectory of their romance narratives. In Hill’s novels, the BDSM play is not simply consensual, but practiced by characters who are individually BDSM-identified, to the extent that the barrier to the happy ending is often precisely that the characters need to recognize and accept how deeply rooted their BDSM identities are in their identities as a whole. That is, unlike Holly’s characters and unlike Christian and Ana in the Fifty Shades trilogy, Hill’s protagonists cannot achieve their happy ending without integrating it with their continued BDSM identification. Hill’s most famous and critically acclaimed book is Natural Law (2004), the story of female Dominant Violet and her submissive lover Mac Nighthorse, who not only solve the mystery of a serial killer who is stalking male submissives, but also grow individually and together through their BDSM play with each other.

  In the decade since the beginnings of digital publishing, erotic BDSM romances—and the digital houses that publish them—have become an essential part of the romance publishing landscape. As such, while E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey might be unique in capturing the imagination of so many people, it is by no means unique to the world of fiction. The trilogy takes its inspiration not only from the characters and—to a lesser extent—plot of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, but also from centuries of literary exploration of BDSM practices, identities, and relationships. Rather than being unique, it uses the well-worn and much-loved conventions of romance fiction, BDSM fiction, and BDSM romance.

  The barrier to the full expression of love between Christian and Ana is Christian’s apparent identification as a Dominant and sadist and his stated need for BDSM sexual activity. But rather than growing individually and together through their BDSM sexual exploration, Christian is saved from his “perversions” by the love of pure, virginal Ana, who helps him realize that he doesn’t actually require BDSM activities to be fulfilled. Much as the happy ending of romance has been rewritten countless times, so, too, has this exploration of BDSM. However, the journey is the thing, not the ending, and it is a journey that the many millions of readers of the Fifty Shades trilogy have taken and enjoyed.

  SARAH S. G. FRANTZ is Associate Professor of English at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, and President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. She has published academic articles on Jane Austen, J. R. Ward, Suzanne Brockmann, Joey W. Hill, popular romance fiction, and BDSM romance. She has coedited (with Katharina Rennhak) Women Constructing Men: Female Novelists and Their Male Characters, 1750-2000 and (with Eric Murphy Selinger) New Perspectives on Popular Romance Fiction: Critical Essays (McFarland, 2012). She is also a freelance romance fiction editor and BDSM manuscript consultant at Alphabet Editing.

  SHERRI DONOVAN

  The Legal Bonding of Anastasia and Christian

  A CLOSE FRIEND—actually one of my divorce clients—asked me what I thought of the contracts presented in the Fifty Shades trilogy, and it made me imagine how I would have counseled Ana and/or Christian if either had sought my legal advice. I had just returned from a national lawyer convention where every female attorney was talking about these books, yet no one had talked about the contracts.

  I had a field day.

  I looked at the ins and outs, legally speaking, of the relationship between Anastasia and Christian. I tried to imagine the rules and contractual
provisions that would best enhance their pleasure as well as serve and protect the submissive Anastasia and Dominant Christian.

  Anastasia and Christian are sexual partners who dabble in bondage, paddles, whips, and commands. If they hope to have their deepest desires met while utilizing the process of legal bonding and fair negotiation, they clearly need a unique agreement: a special prenuptial, or nonnuptial (if marriage was not foreseeable), agreement with terms that recognize and embrace their roleplaying. This would be similar to a domestic partnership document, however it would focus less on housekeeping and more on tying the knot through ropes and chains. Ana and Christian would need a contract that permits them to engage in a sexual BDSM rendezvous in the Red Room of Pain without getting sued and with each adult maintaining safety. I would have told the submissive Anastasia in particular that she needed a paper and/or digital file that expressed her wishes and rights equally to the Dominant, Christian.

  But first we have to explore the philosophical and legal question is: Can two people consent to physical aggression towards each other? The criminal code and family law protect a partner from violence against the other if it is against one’s will and is intended to cause harm.

  What if the painful acts are intended to give pleasure and are desired by both parties? Does it matter if the beatings are solely inflicted by Christian against Anastasia? Should the submissive, Anastasia, be permitted in the contract to switch roles if she wants to become the Dominant, compelling the Dominant Christian to play the role of a sex slave? Can pain and pleasure exist at the same time, and if so, is there a limit? How many lashes or strikes are physically permitted so as not to cause harm, injury, or death?

  These are the kind of questions and issues a lawyer would raise.

  But let’s return to the book itself, and look at the legal agreements found there.

  Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA)

  The first step in the process of legal bonding between Christian and Anastasia in Fifty Shades of Grey is the Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA). A nondisclosure agreement is a contract to keep certain items or a subject confidential. It is a document to keep a secret. NDAs are valid under certain circumstances, but the one that Anastasia signed would be subject to challenge.

  A good lawyer would question whether Anastasia was of sound mind to sign a legal document when she was filled with desire and yearning. She barely read it and did not have representation or the advice of counsel. It was fully drafted by Christian’s lawyer and given to her in a nonneutral setting, in a nonbusinesslike manner. Anastasia was at Christian’s house on a date; sexual heat was in the air. I do not know if you could go as far as suggesting this was entrapment, but it was certainly enticement. It is hard to think clearly and soberly when endorphins are kicking in, not to mention the distraction and awe of being in the company of a wealthy, glamorous man with Christian’s lifestyle—the helicopter ride and the luxurious abode.

  Anastasia was literally swept off her feet into a different world; she was under the influence of seduction.

  Did Anastasia and Christian have equal bargaining power? Their difference in age and experience suggests a lack of the preparedness and astuteness needed for Anastasia to sign a document legally binding her to Christian.

  Until she met Christian, Anastasia was a virgin, in not only sexual but also legal and business matters. The NDA was Christian’s idea, as he had carried out relationships with seventeen others before Anastasia. The process of legal bonding requires mutual consent, and that consent must be given of one’s free will, without duress or coercion. It also requires mutual benefit and consideration. In other words, you give to get. If the NDA bound both lovers to silence, it could be argued that both benefited, if both desired confidentiality. However, in this case, it appears that Christian had more of an interest in and concern for secrecy, to protect his reputation in business and thus his wealth. Anastasia may not have realized her own interest in confidentiality to protect her reputation and future career. But there is no mention of Christian’s obligation to ensure confidentiality in the NDA. Admittedly, he states that in return for Anastasia’s submitting to his NDA and the “rules,” she will get a “huge” benefit. He did live up to his promise that first night and gave it to her good.

  If I had been Anastasia’s lawyer, at the very least I would have added a clause to the NDA with an exception for:

  a) a couple of personal confidantes, like Kate

  b) doctors

  c) mental health professionals

  d) financial advisors

  e) lawyers

  I also would have suggested that the NDA include a clause that neither party could speak with the press and that each could obtain a gag order from a court if need be for any potential slips of the tongue.

  The Contract and Suggested Amendments

  Christian, in all fairness, gives Anastasia time to think about the rules independently, away from his presence. He sincerely wants her to make a thoughtful and informed decision. He recognizes that these provisions are asking a lot of Anastasia and wants her to be sure that she is ready and consents for the adventures ahead. He hands her the contract and tells her to research it. He also encourages her to add her own rules and limits.

  The full contract grants both parties confidentiality (thus correcting the NDA) and safety, and includes protection from sexual disease. However, the contract is very strict in its requirement that the submissive offer the Dominant pleasure at his request, without hesitation or question. It sets out that decisions concerning everything from schedules to hygiene to the type of sex play are to be made solely by the Dominant, and the submissive must negotiate for her preferences. It also provides for punishment and discipline for violations as the Dominant determines. These punishments may include flogging, spanking, whipping, corporal punishment, restraints, and handcuffs.

  Christian’s hard limits give some important protections from physical harm as a result of that punishment; in particular, there is to be no blood and there may be no acts that can cause permanent marks. The contract emphasizes the submissive’s health and safety more than once, noting that all instruments used must be hygienic. (A sense of some ethics is also displayed in Christian’s hard limits, in his prohibition against the inclusion of children and animals. But the submissive must determine if she is comfortable with not looking at or touching Christian without permission.)

  I like the specificity and the lists of the type of sex, toys, bondage, and restraints that can be used. But I would argue that the Dominant should not be able to do anything not listed, and a clause should be added specifying that. The types of punishments to be utilized should be itemized. I’d also suggest adding an opportunity for both to consent to items and acts not specified in the contract.

  I like the submissive safety code words: yellow—close to her limit; and red—actions cease. Anastasia can decide herself whether she cannot tolerate any more. The code words give her significant control of the situation.

  As an additional safety measure, Anastasia should be able to determine by herself if she needs to go to the doctor, and clause #15.8 should be amended so that she can get medical attention at any time she sees fit. The way it is currently drafted, the wording is vague and overly broad. And it is not necessarily in Christian’s interest to send her to the doctor and disclose what he is doing.

  Christian’s rules and the hard limits he would like as part of the contract include many vague and broad terms, like obeying any instruction and agreeing to any sexual act except those on Anastasia’s list of hard limits. The contract needs more specificity in these areas, as well as on exactly what beauty treatments Anastasia, as submissive, will undergo. Perhaps Anastasia could have made her own list of what she would not do treatment-wise as well sexually. (It should be noted, however, that contracts for sexual favors are void as a matter of public policy. They are not legally binding or valid in America.)

  The rules provided by Christian require Anastasia to be monogamous to him.
This requirement should be mutual, something Christian would likely not object to, because he likes and wants monogamy.

  In this sort of agreement, there should be escape clauses and a sunset clause. If either party wants to stop at any point for whatever reason, the curtain should rise. And indeed, there is a sunset clause included. The three-month contract automatically expires without a signed renewal. The renewal provides the opportunity for further negotiation and modification. There are also several escape clauses: one providing that all that occurs must be consensual; another that if there is a breach of the contract, it is void; and a third stating that if the Dominant violates the safety clause, the submissive can leave without notice. In addition, the Dominant can stop the contract at any time; clause #13 states that the submissive cannot, unless the Dominant gives permission. I would argue, however, that according to the contract, she can. Clause #3 says that all actions will be consensual. Thus, if the submissive, Anastasia, does not consent to an act, she is not obligated. It just needs to be stated more clearly, so there is no misinterpretation.

  Anastasia’s Initial Reaction and Subsequent Negotiation