This is Not about Fifty Shades of Grey

The world probably doesn’t need yet another discussion point inspired by Fifty Shades of Grey, especially from someone who hasn’t read the book or seen the movie.

What I have seen, however, is some of the online conversations about it, though probably a tiny fraction relative to the whole. And naturally, we tend to gravitate toward people we have things in common with, so what I read isn’t necessarily representative of the broad picture.

While another take on the phenomenon of the moment will probably cease to be relevant in a week or so, it can still function as a springboard toward addressing in more depth one of the subjects I touched on last week—analyzing and contextualizing nested sources—as well as the topic of primary vs. secondary sources.

I’m not deliberately avoiding Fifty Shades so much as putting my time into activities that interest me a whole lot more. Because I haven’t read it, however, I had to be very careful about how I discussed it when taking part in a recent conversation on a social media site about it, and I think it makes a good example of how to appropriately discuss a topic that one is not a firsthand expert on.

Here’s a version of the reply I posted to a social media site as part of a discussion about whether or not the relationship depicted in Fifty Shades is abusive. I have edited it somewhat, in part to read more smoothly and in part to obscure other participants’ identities. What is shown here is not the entire conversation but just the relevant parts:

The original poster wrote: “Has anyone actually read Fifty Shades of Grey? I have not. My Facebook feed is blowing up with how this is domestic violence and a horrible example of a relationship for young girls. Are these people right, or are they judging a lifestyle they don’t know about or understand?”

A conversation participant wrote: "I really didn't see it as an 'abusive' relationship in the traditional sense of the word because he told her what she was getting into—he went out of his way to do so. I don't know if that happens in real life BDSM relationships. She could have walked away at any time but the fact is she didn't want to."

My reply:
If by abuse in the "traditional sense" you’re thinking in terms of physical abuse, I haven't seen many people argue that the Ana/Christian relationship is that (though I’m sure there are those who do and would think all BDSM is abuse). For the rest of us, that would be easy to reject by appealing to the subject of consent. The larger reason it's criticized as abusive is that it reflects the emotional and controlling basis of abusive relationships and not what people believed qualified as abusive before 1972 or so, when feminists, law enforcement, and mental health workers started to redefine common understandings of domestic violence. But first about BDSM and the part "I don't know if that happens in real life BDSM..."

BDSM relationships are notoriously focused on communication, almost to what would be considered a fault by those who think that talking about sex during sex kills the mood. Within the ethic recognized by active practitioners, a real dominant is not only concerned about his/her submissive’s state of mind but is centered on it. Ideally, what a “dom”/“domme” is aroused by is not his/her own dominance but on earning the sub's submission—his/her trust. BDSM is roleplay, albeit a form of roleplay that sometimes rides very close to the edge of reality, and riding that edge is what some practitioners find appealing about it. But it doesn't cross over because not crossing over is precisely the point.^[1] No means no, except when "platypus" means no. And then "platypus" absolutely, positively means no.

When feminist and BDSM critics say that Fifty Shades is about an abusive relationship, they're not (or shouldn't be) talking primarily about acts that lead to physical pain. What they're talking about is the emotional context that it takes place in. So far I haven't heard any sources—even those who don't see abuse in it—claim that Christian isn't emotionally manipulative, that he isn't controlling, that he doesn't stalk Ana. Out of the fifty abusive moments in the trilogy covered in the link posted early in the conversation — "Fifty Abusive Moments in Fifty Shades of Grey" — only five of them, at most, involve physical abuse.

And that's pretty much how it is in most real life abusive relationships. If all abusive relationships were physically violent all the time, they'd be—for many victims, though not all—a lot easier to leave.^[2] Instead, most of the abuse consists of setting up an emotional context in which the victim's perception of choice (or actual choice) is constrained. The victim comes to think either that the prospect of leaving is futile or even more dangerous than staying (#26 in the above link) or that there's hope in the abuser acknowledging his/her wrongdoing and ceasing abuse.

(I don't get the impression that the latter happens in Fifty Shades because it doesn't sound like Christian ever acknowledges that he does anything over the line, but in real life abusive relationships it's characterized by the "I'm sorry, I love you, I'll never do it again" stage that is the lynchpin in the cycle of violence.)

"he told her what she was getting into, he went out of his way to do so"

Obviously, giving consent is necessary within a responsible BDSM relationship, but the key thing here—what is central to critiques of abuse in Fifty Shades—is that while consent is necessary, it is not sufficient on its own.

1) Consent needs to be given in a noncoercive context. That means it's free of emotional manipulation, free of caveats and requirements, free of implications that consenting to one thing means consenting to a bunch of other things that haven't been clearly spelled out. Is the context for Ana's consent free of all those things (#23 in the list, if it's a valid interpretation of the book, suggests not)?

2) Consent needs to be specific. Specific to the type of activity and specific to the moment in time. Saying "yes" to sex once doesn't mean giving open-door permission thereafter (if #18 is an accurate portrayal, Christian trods all over that one). Apparently, Christian wants her to agree to be his sub 24/7? That's something well-seasoned submissives would likely be wary of from someone they just met. For him to present someone with no sexual experience whatsoever with a request like that very early in their relationship suggests an intent to manipulate and to remove her ability to say "no" before she has a full and experienced understanding of what she's actually saying yes to.

3) Consent must be retractable. If you have a safe word, but the emotional context of the relationship has left you too scared to use it, then what you have is not BDSM, it's abuse (#36... and then apparently he adds insult to injury by berating her for that fear in #41, before engaging in what is a completely unambiguous act of threat-based abuse, if the writer here is recounting the scene reliably).

The “Fifty Abusive Moments” post provides counterexamples to Christian’s acts in #25, 26, and 36 that he might have engaged in if he were actually a “caring” or “reliable” dom. It strikes me as doubtful that Christian could plausibly approach an experienced submissive in the way he approaches Ana. He's not looking for a real sub but a naïf who can be easily taken advantage of because she doesn't know how to tell kink from abuse and has only Christian's own explanations to go by (putting oneself in the position to define a victim’s reality is a common abusive tactic). And he's not going to tell her that a BDSM relationship is actually supposed to be at least as much about her as it is about him.

After I wrote this as a reply to a comment in one of those online conversations I mentioned above, it occurred to me that it could be recycled to highlight the process of using a nested source responsibly, one of last week's subtopics, and to include some discussion of primary and secondary sources.

Had I written the above for an academic paper, I’d have provided a lot more backup for most of these claims about BDSM, domestic violence, and the concept of consent. As it is, I’m leaning on my own background as a sexuality researcher, domestic violence/sexual assault worker, and violence theorist to establish a cohesive point that pulls in all the elements of the discussion topic.

You’ll notice, though, that the post isn’t really about Fifty Shades of Grey, though it uses the franchise as a background. It’s actually about 1) abuse, 2) the difference between abuse and BDSM, and 3) someone else’s internet post about Fifty Shades.

Students may be asked to write a paper about someone else’s take on a film or work of fiction or to “compare and contrast” the writings of two or more writers on a single topic. Plus, there’s also the case covered in my previous blog post in which you’re writing about a piece of material quoted/cited by an intermediary source. In all of these situations, it’s important to clearly distinguish among a) the primary source, b) your secondary source(s), and c) your original points and arguments.

In the above discussion, the primary source is, of course, Fifty Shades of Grey. The fact that my experience of the book and movie is secondhand is a setback for me in making my arguments, but that’s mostly because it’s so accessible right now as to be hard to avoid. In the academic world, it’s very common that your primary source isn’t immediately accessible. It might be a historical event or a distant indigenous people. It might be a psychological study performed 50 years ago that would be completely unethical by today’s standards. It might be the result of a physics experiment performed on a unique and expensive piece of equipment that you won’t have access to until well into your professional career. Using primary sources is dandy when possible, but there are often times when we have to rely on secondary sources for our research.

And sometimes, secondary sources are the point. There are two types of secondary sources I use in the Fifty Shades discussion. The main one is the “Fifty Abusive Moments” post, written by (if I’m reading the page right) one Emma Tofi. The other secondary source consists of the online discussions that have taken place around the infamous franchise, e.g., on Facebook, Twitter, and any number of blogs.

Let’s talk about the second one first. I actually think that it would make a fascinating research project to do a wide-ranging analysis of the types of discussions taking place in social media about Fifty Shades. That would take a lot more time, work, and initiative than I was about to put into an off-the-cuff reply to an online comment. But public online conversation is a great resource for those who study just about anything social, cultural, or sociocultural. Since I wasn’t conducting a research study but just characterizing what I’d seen of online discussions, it was important that I not overstate my experience or present it as representative. So instead of “no one’s saying that it’s that kind of abusive,” I said (essentially), “I haven’t seen much of that, but I suppose it’s probably there.” I focused instead on the type of discussion I had seen.

The main secondary source I used was this fantastic “Fifty Abusive Moments” post that someone else had shared early in the discussion but that didn’t seem to be getting much attention in the conversation that followed. It’s really long, and it was unlikely everyone in the conversation had read it the whole way through (though I know the original poster did). For each point I made in my comment, I made sure to point to specific paragraphs in the post so that others could easily find what I was talking about. However, I also acknowledged repeatedly that I was taking Tofi’s word for it, that I was using not the primary text but her interpretation of it.

This latter writing technique is very important when you’re discussing a source that is discussing a different source—in distinguishing between the “innie” and the “outie,” as I termed it in last week’s blog post. I could have assumed that Tofi’s interpretation is spot-on (it sure sounds good to me and rings true within the broader discussions) and simply passed all her points on without disclaimer, but then even if I were citing her as my source, I’d have been presenting myself as someone who’d read the books, and I could’ve been held accountable for defending those views in parts of the books that Tofi doesn’t describe.

This is actually one reason among so many others to cite your sources. I had a student once years ago who characterized an author in a paper as a “Feminist Existentialist Philosopher,” which didn’t ring true to me. When I questioned the characterization, the student pointed out to me where she’d gotten the text from: the intro blurb preceding the author’s essay in the textbook I’d compiled. Naturally, I had to point out that she should have put quotation marks around that text and cited it (even though it was only three words). This wasn’t just about lifting someone else’s text, though; it was about owning it. If the text had been in quotes to begin with, I’d have known it wasn’t the student’s words, and I wouldn’t have held her as accountable for them. Proper attribution of sources defines your relationship to them and tells the reader where in the conversation about this topic you fit in.

The strongest arguments are also not the ones most loudly or aggressively argued or the ones with the broadest apparent reach but the ones that hold up to scrutiny. Being specific about your sources and your relationship to them will always work to your advantage.

[1] What I mean by this is that the dom/sub values never verge into abuse or anything uncaring. I’ve known some people in passing (e.g., on internet forums) who said they made their BDSM relationship full-time, sometimes by abandoning their safeword voluntarily. Although they experience their dom/sub roles 24/7, I’d maintain they’re still roles by virtue of the fact that the sub can say at any point, “This isn’t working for me anymore. We should really revisit our situation,” without fear of abuse. While in some cases, stepping out of the role might also mean stepping out of the relationship, the point is that if they do so, they can do so safely. A dominant isn't an abuser: any power and control being exhibited is part of a voluntary role dynamic and not part of an unsafe environment.
[2] There are women and men stuck in relationships that truly are physically abusive almost constantly. I struggled with the wording of this sentence because I didn’t want to erase that experience. It’s important that abuse not become defined as solely physical, but it’s also important that no alternative definition precludes outside or extreme examples.