Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey

by Lori Perkins

  Lia: The beginning of a scene sets the tone for our activities to come, and all my senses are on high alert. Chris will usually speak softly but firmly to me as he secures my body to a cross, table, or other equipment. With my arms and legs in ropes or chains, I realize that escape is futile and begin my dreamy descent into “subspace,” a state of mental and physical being wherein my mind and body experience waves of release by way of a vast spectrum of hard and soft sensations.

  Chris usually starts our scenes by flogging me. The gentle brushes of the long, leather strips against my back and shoulders at first feel like a soothing massage. I relax and sway to the rhythm of his strokes. He frequently stops to caress me, to kiss my face and my neck, and I feel his love in this attention. He continues the flogging, combining both hard and gentle impact on my back, buttocks, and legs, and I sense the heat rising in my skin. My muscles pulse with energy and I find myself craving equally the heavy thudding of Chris’ floggers and the pillow softness of his kisses. When he steps away from me, I miss his breath on my back and gird myself in anticipation of the next round of blows.

  Suddenly I writhe at the first crack of a sweet new pain as he uses one of his whips. And then another. Back and forth the blows rain, and I writhe uncontrollably beneath two whips. The pain slices and flares reliably, then dissipates, echoing throughout my body. From excruciation to relaxation, tides of intensity wash over me again and again. I can hear my blood pounding as it courses through my veins. My cries and whimpers erupt in counterpoint to the cracks of the whips and I am an instrument in the symphony of sounds around me.

  Throughout it all, I feel Chris’ laser-sharp focus on me. Once he has turned me around to face him, I suffer his lashing on my breasts, belly, and thighs. My eyes are riveted on him and I marvel at his artistry, in awe of the swirling arcs he creates with his whips. I want to please him; to outlast the pain of the stings, to make him proud of me. The intensity of the lashes rises and falls with my breath. Seconds could be minutes or hours, as I’ve lost all sense of time and place. When finally my legs quiver beneath me and my knees give way, Chris comes to me and embraces me. He kisses my face and my neck. He is smiling at me as he quickly frees me from my bonds and wraps me in his strong arms.

  Aftercare

  Our post-scene process of reconnecting is very important to us. In the afterglow of our shared delight, we admire the resulting marks on Lia’s skin, both of us pleased that the crimson evidence of our play will remain on her for several days. Reveling in a natural high that will last for hours, we snuggle and share our feelings about the scene and our love for each other.

  Our Hopes

  We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the national conversation sparked by the trilogy. The current mainstreaming of BDSM sexuality encourages us that the general public’s curiosity will lead to greater acceptance of alternative styles of loving. While Fifty Shades is arguably not great literature or even great BDSM, it does feature several aspects of BDSM that are important: consent, negotiation, and BDSM as components of a caring and loving relationship.

  We feel blessed to have found in each other a partner that honors and nurtures all the aspects of our lives: the professional, the mundane, and the intimate. We hope that those who enjoyed reading Fifty Shades are equally blessed and inspired to find fun and creative ways to live and love.

  CHRISMARKS is a self-described Sensual Sadist. He teaches BDSM workshops for his private educational group, Black N Blue U., as well as for other regional organizations and national BDSM conventions on various topics including: BDSM ethics, limits, and safety; massage techniques; spanking; flogging; short whips; and his newest workshop, “Kissing for Maximum Erotic Effect.” ChrisMarks is pursuing a path to a master’s degree in counseling, is an ordained Non-Dominational Minister, and his interests include the intersection of BDSM with psychology, spirituality, and disability issues. He runs Black N Blue Trading and is a designer and manufacturer of whips and floggers. He also has over twenty years experience as a trained massage therapist. In his free time ChrisMarks serves on the Board of Directors of the Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexuality (www.CARASresearch.org).

  LIA LETO has been an active participant in BDSM sexuality for over twenty years. She is submissive to her partner although dominant in the rest of her life where she is a college professor, a novelist, and the founder of a nonprofit serving survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Lia earned a master’s in ethics and world religions and a Juris Doctorate. She has worked as a judicial law clerk, as first assistant to a district attorney bureau chief, and as a researcher for leading ethics and legal scholars. For over two decades she has taught group and private fitness classes in strength, flexibility, and self-defense at top health clubs, universities, and corporations nationally. Lia enjoys copresenting workshops regionally with her partner. She is also an experienced bodyworker—a fact her Dominant, ChrisMarks, really loves.

  SUSAN WRIGHT

  Fifty Shades of Sexual Freedom

  FIFTY SHADES OF GREY combines three of my favorite things: it’s a romance novel with kinky sex that caught the attention of the media. I’ve been tracking the media coverage of alternative sexuality since 1997, when I started the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, working to de-stigmatize BDSM and helping people who have been hurt by the negative stereotypes associated with kinky sex.

  Suddenly now everyone is talking about BDSM because of Fifty Shades of Grey. Reviewers typically describe the book like this: “Ana is a young woman who signs a contract with the wealthy Grey, who controls everything from when she exercises to what she eats.” But that’s not true—Ana never signs the contract. It’s simply introduced as the first step of the extended dance they do with each other.

  Much of the tension in the book is created by the characters’ desire for each other without a desire for the kind of relationship the other wants. Grey wants a formalized relationship where each person maintains a certain role in their power exchange, while Ana wants a “hearts and flowers” romantic relationship. They set hard limits for themselves while also compromising and doing certain things to fulfill each other’s needs. That’s what makes it so hot. A couple talking to each other about their deepest desires? Who doesn’t want more of that?

  That’s why so many women are responding so enthusiastically. There is a way to get the amazing sex you want, and it actually involves talking about it. One of the easiest ways to get that conversation going is to show your sex partner a book and say, “Hey, check out this scene.” That way you don’t have to say, “I’d like to try bondage and a blindfold tonight, dear.” Instead you can indicate interest in the activity through the characters, and that way if your partner dismisses the idea, it’s not you personally they’re rejecting.

  We’ve been led to believe for too long that great sex happens magically. That there’s no need to tell your partner what you really want because, if you’re really meant to be together, somehow they’ll already know.

  But in Fifty Shades, instead of the spontaneous, rock-your-world sex that you get from typical romance novels, Ana and Christian email, text, and talk about what kind of sex they want. Neither expects the other to be a mind reader. Fifty Shades Darker begins with Christian asking Ana why she didn’t use her safeword if she didn’t like the intense spanking he was giving her. He points out that he can’t trust her if she won’t communicate with him. That’s why they talk after each scene to make sure they both understand how the other felt about what happened.

  These characters explore their feelings and desires with each other in a way that is very typical of real kinky people. When you’re playing sex games, you have to lay out the rules and set the boundaries together in order to be on the same playing field. Playing with power and intense sensations, as you do in BDSM, requires trust, communication, and honesty, and that creates true intimacy. From there, you can go anywhere together.

  Unfortunately talking about sex makes many
people uncomfortable. We aren’t taught how to talk about sex, so when anyone tries to speak up publicly, they usually get shushed. Consider the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey was banned from libraries in several counties in America. Other romance novels—notably the paranormal romances written by Laurel K. Hamilton and J.R. Ward—include graphic kinky sex. So why was Fifty Shades treated differently?

  The content of Fifty Shades didn’t get it banned; its reputation got it banned. Fifty Shades has gotten the mainstream media trumpeting about BDSM in an unprecedented way, so social conservatives have made their own statement by refusing to acknowledge the book despite the big demand for it. Libraries should encourage more reading—yet when it comes to sex, politics triumphs over good sense once again.

  A few people, like Dr. Drew Pinsky, question this sudden public interest in Domination and submission, and fear where it will lead. They claim BDSM is “violence” (which it’s not) and people must be protected from it—even though everyone in America is free to skydive, rock climb, and play football, all of which cause far more physical harm than BDSM.

  The people who don’t get BDSM want to know why we do it. They figure it must come from some kind of cultural imprinting of the patriarchy or be a rebellion against the pressures of work and family or even some kind of emotional or mental health issue. There are fears that women, in particular submissive women, who enjoy BDSM are suffering from self-hate or insecurity, or are victims of abuse.

  In actuality, some people are just hardwired for more intensity with their sex, whether that intensity is emotional, mental, or physical. We take the symbols that exist around us and use them to heighten our erotic response. And coincidentally, by working with your partner to get to these more intense places, you build an incredible trust and acceptance that goes beyond the mere physical.

  Some people will never want to surrender themselves sexually, and some people will never want to dominate another person sexually, but a significant number of people do enjoy BDSM. We shouldn’t be shamed or told our choices aren’t contributing to the enlightenment of humanity. Sex is a powerful drive and ignoring or subverting it throws everything else out of whack. It’s hard to be a powerful person when you’re busy denying who you are.

  So why is kinky sex still taboo? The persecution is so pervasive that I conducted two surveys in cooperation with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (www.ncsfreedom.org) to find out exactly how widespread it was. We had 1,000 respondents in 1998 and 3,000 in 2008 and found that one in three kinky people have been attacked or discriminated against because of their sexuality. Some people lose their jobs because of their sexual behavior in their private lives; others lose custody of their kids. Some people are shunned by their family and friends because they’re having kinky sex with consenting adults. Others have been shamed by their doctors and their therapists.

  Even law enforcement officials have discriminated against BDSM practitioners, prompting 90 percent of the respondents who reported they had been the victim of persecution to not report the crime for fear of additional persecution. As one survey respondent said, “I was sexually assaulted and because I was engaged in SM, my claim was not taken seriously and I was blamed for the incident. In the SM community, ‘no’ still means ‘no.’ People do not understand that.”

  Kinky people are caught in a catch-22: sex sells, so we are saturated with sexual images in the media, yet our roots in the Puritan culture lead to sexual repression. We have a tendency to judge other people to determine if they’re doing right or wrong according to our own personal choices. Some religious political extremists have a self-righteous belief that theirs is the only true way to live. Those people work very hard to stop BDSM educational and social groups, to shut down events and prevent other adults from accessing one of the few places where you can safely explore your sexuality.

  And yes, this kind of discrimination is also proof that we are living in a patriarchal society, one that is accustomed to controlling sexuality, usually women’s sexuality, most recently demonstrated in the fight around reproductive health rights. Men are allowed more sexual freedom—unless you’re a gay or bisexual man, in which case you’re fair game for any kind of abuse.

  But when it comes right down to it, as long as your sexual behavior involves consenting adults, how you express your sexuality is nobody else’s business. We need to grow up and be responsible about our own sexual choices, and this national discussion is a good step. Anything that gets people talking about sex—not just sensationalizing it or making fun of it—is a good thing for Americans. We can see from the reaction to Fifty Shades of Grey that people are eager to explore their sexuality.

  This may be BDSM’s Stonewall, our breakthrough to the mainstream and greater understanding. Who would have thought it would take Twilight fanfiction to get us here?

  SUSAN WRIGHT has published over thirty novels and nonfiction books on art and popular culture. Susan is the spokesperson for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, which she founded in 1997, and has published articles and presented workshops at professional organizations and universities on discrimination against kinky people, BDSM versus abuse, and media influence on the persecution of alternative sexuality.

  Fifty

  Shades of

  Writing

  RYAN FIELD

  The Delicate Balance

  THERE’S AN INTERESTING STORY behind how I discovered Fifty Shades of Grey. It wasn’t at a pool party, like the one I attended a few weeks ago where Fifty Shades was the topic of conversation among half the guests during dinner. It wasn’t at the supermarket, where I ran into someone who was reading Fifty Shades and asked me if I’d read it because he knows I write erotic fiction. And it wasn’t at a graduation, where some of the guests were whispering and giggling about this new steamy book on all the bestseller lists.

  I actually found Fifty Shades while perusing the internet about two or three months before it went mainstream. There’s this one book review blog I frequent often, because I usually find that the negative book reviews they publish are almost always books I know I’m going to love. It never fails. On that particular night, there was an extremely scathing book review for Fifty Shades written by a serious BDSM reader and I knew immediately I had to buy and read it. Practically every single negative comment in that review was something I knew would keep me reading. So I went to Amazon, downloaded it to my ereader, and found myself drawn into the story line the moment I started reading. This happened back in February 2012. At the time there were a handful of Amazon reviews for Fifty Shades. Last time I checked there were now over 8,000.

  As a published author of gay erotic romance and erotica, I’m not as familiar with the BDSM subgenre as I am with others. Although I’d written truncated stories with light BDSM scenes that I’d worked into less complicated plots over the years, I’d never actually written a full-length novel where the love, emotion, and erotica revolved around a BDSM theme or “lifestyle.” It was Fifty Shades that inspired me to do this. And not because it was a huge bestseller; I read Fifty Shades and posted about it on my website months before it went mainstream. Fifty Shades inspired me because BDSM was a topic that I’d kept at a distance for too long, partly because I didn’t feel comfortable writing about it and partly because I wasn’t certain I could do it justice.

  When I finally decided to try, in a full-length BDSM novel titled Jonah Sweet of Delancey Street, I set a few personal goals—including avoiding the same mistakes BDSM readers thought Fifty Shades had made. Those who are avid writers and readers in the BDSM genre take it very seriously. From what I read in various reviews about Fifty Shades, many in the BDSM community seemed to think essential elements of the “lifestyle” were not included in the book. Ironically, I also think this is why so many in the mainstream who knew nothing about BDSM loved the book and made it a huge success. They were all curious about BDSM, in the same way I was when I first heard about it, but didn’t know enough about the “lifestyle” to see any flaws. />
  By listening to readers and other writers who have very strong opinions about BDSM erotica and erotic romance, I learned more about the important elements they felt Fifty Shades of Grey lacked. While I don’t believe there are too many mistakes one can make in writing BDSM fiction, because it’s hard to find a set definition of BDSM anywhere, I do believe there are a few key elements that are essential to BDSM fiction, which readers come to expect. And yet I still couldn’t understand why the serious BDSM readers were so upset about Fifty Shades. As an amateur, I didn’t see any problems with the book, and from reviews I’ve read and comments I’ve heard, neither do most other amateurs.

  I needed more information for my novel, and I needed to dig deeper to find out why there were so many differing opinions about what was required in a BDSM novel and what this all meant to Fifty Shades. So I asked questions both of people who were and weren’t serious BDSM readers. Almost every single avid reader of BDSM I spoke to during my research mentioned one element I found fascinating: the delicate balance between what happens during erotic BDSM scenes and what happens during non-erotic scenes.

  It’s not the only element BDSM readers look for, not by any means. Serious BDSM readers tend to be extremely articulate and they know what they want. But this one element was important to all of them, with respect to character development and how the BDSM moved the story forward. In erotic romance where there is BDSM and love is the focus, some even said they believe this element moves the love in the story forward. And it adds to the trust and respect that are both necessary to all BDSM stories, long or short.

  I knew I had to be careful with my own story; it worried me for a while, to the point where I almost didn’t tackle the project. What had inspired me so innocently with Fifty Shades might also hurt me with my own book. I might not be equipped to write BDSM material convincingly, and I knew my audience would lean more toward serious BDSM readers than the average mainstream reader who knew nothing about BDSM (though I wasn’t opposed to attracting mainstream readers who weren’t experts on BDSM in the same way Fifty Shades attracted so many readers). I knew I had to balance the important erotic BDSM aspects with the equally important psychological and emotional elements in non-erotic scenes. As significant as the distinctly defined roles of the submissive and Dominant are to all BDSM books in erotic scenes, it was just as significant for characters in BDSM books to find an emotional balance in non-erotic scenes if the love or the relationship was going to endure.