A few months ago there was some discussion of the books. Perhaps a search will bring some of that up. The books have been wildly popular in Europe. I have not gotten to them. Still digesting Harry Potter and trying to determine why he and Hermione did not get it on.

A witch and warlock in training with the assets of the world's leading School of Witchcraft at their disposal and talking portraits on the walls to advise them and the form shifting going on? Keep Snape away and it would be truly magical. With the imagination J.K. Rowling demonstrated can you imagine what a scene that would have made? I have toyed with the possibilities many times. Loosen up!

50 Shades is for anyone who wants to be Barbie. If you look at a Barbie doll and think "this is the ideal female" - the 50 Shades series is the erotica for you.

I even find the reviews of the series boring. Enough already!

Seems to me these books and the women enjoying newfound sex are using groupthink because of these books. Like this is all stuff the would have enjoyed without the books, but thought society would look down on them. But now that the world is going spanking and bondage crazy, they can ride the wave of acceptance.

I have several female friends that har read these books several times, and they all have told me they've really gotten into the submissive thing of like being told to be "naked and wet" when TW husband comes home in a short time. Now if only m wife would get the time to read them. Lol

about the psychological impact of always being sub and why that's the first place peeps go when getting into kinky - she is sub. And spanking - why punish for sex? Sex is GREAT! Sex is GOOD! so why this idea that she should be punished for it? Just say the hell with it all - both of you get naked - and enjoy yourselves.

Yeah but Twilight was a disgusting series written by some Morman woman whose mental age was 13. I agree 50 Shades just the same sort of thing. Being spanked does not feel good unless your pyche is damaged and no it isn't 'cool' to be sub. Wicked, yes, that's 'cool' but sub - no.

Don't know about the books. Do know it's creating quite a wave. Even people assuming that there will be a baby boom because of the more sex people would have, because of the book. Even if that would be true (which I find doubtful), since 90% of all babies in the Netherlands are deliberately conceived, I'd hardly think that would be an issue :)

About the cool thing of being sub. I'm not that familiar in this territory, but I'd think that being the one in control of the safeword, makes you the one in control. From some point of view: that makes the sub even more "dominant" than the one dominating. Aka: the "cool thing". As long as the game is played fair and thus the safeword is honored, of course...

Just out of curiosity and without making judgement, I do find your last comment interesting, EEK. Given you call yourself a dominatrix and do generally speak about your bedpartners with respect, then what do you call those who you dominate? Or is the word "cool" the issue at hand? I can imagine, because being cool usually says more about social standards than it does about a person and his/her desires.

I don't think being spanked is that negative an action in itself. Of course there are those who want to be spanked and undergo more hurtful or humiliating acts, because they crave to be punished for having sex. Which may be the fact in the books, I can't judge that. I do know that spanking can also simply be about highlighting sensation. Just like after caressing, running fingernails across the skin highlights pleasure (even when it happens to leave marks). So I think it all lies in the intention of the giver and interpretation of the taker. Which goes for any sexual act really. You could make a punishing action out of the most basic sexual acts like thrusting as well.

I do find it interesting to notice that particularly the highly educated feminist women I know have taken an interest in reading 50 shades of grey (or Dutch translation of it). Even more peculiar since the books are also often reviewed as "badly written". Yet it seems they consider it a part of sexual revolution more than anything else. As if it signals: women are freely discovering their darker desires and are celebrating that.

Maybe it's the same type of contradictory thing that happened when "Emmanuelle" appeared on screen in the '70s. Women stood up cheering in the theaters, because Emanualle is depicted having sex on top. They considered it part of female empowerment and sexual revolution. Which is quite a paradox, considering the theme of the movie is that Emmanuelle is being "educated" by an older man into the world of sex and at some point she is even given away as a price in a boxing game! Which can't be called female empowerment in the least...

I admit that I have NOT read any of the books. I remember that the first time I ever saw the series mention was an article which said the books were about S&M or BDSM. Being a BDSMer myself that got my attention. There has been a bit of a buzz in the worldwide kink community over whether the series accurately portrays what it is that we do. I know people who believe that it is a false representation and others who believe that it is R rated at best. I have a friend who is a fairly well known kinky-sex-novelist who considers the novels very light in comparison to her work. I have another friend who says that she wants to give copies out to her vanilla (BDSM jargon for non-kinky) friends so they7 can begin to understand what she is about.
I have probably participated in most if not all of the scenarios in the series although, from what I have heard, most of them are not that kinky. If these books are helping women learn to realize their fantasies then I think that's a good thing. If you find the books, interesting, arousing or somehow stimulating of your own sexual creativity that's great.

Started reading the 1st book, but just can't get through it, because it's sooooo poorly written. I hate all that stuff about the inner goddess. I almost just want to read only the sex scenes lol.

I've read all three recently, on my own accord even before my wife who probably won't read them. I was just curious what all te fuss was about.

In all honesty they weren't as bad as I was expecting, but I think the key is I never went into them expecting a Pulitzer quality read. It's like when you purposefully watch a cheesy movie for the sale of it being cheesy.

To me, the whole idea of te books are a daydream of "what if I won the lottery, what would I do?" It's all a story of someone becoming "new money". Buying $10,000 paintings for a kitchen because it had a did theme, etc. The sex scenes for me were repetitive, but it was nice that they were included and not just an implied "then we made love" like a standard book.

But yes I also agree with EEK it's a modern day Barbie movie, where as long as you're "true to your heart" the most fantastic set of circumstances can happen. It's like for the Christian character the research was "ok let's go online and find every attribute that women are turned on by and stic them together: young, wealthy, moody, dangerous, aggressive, emotional, aloof, caring, muscular, kick boxer, experienced, full if firsts, inexperienced, childish, hung, gentle, rough, cryptic, straightforward, clothing, scent, sweaty, clean, stubble, clean shaven, musical, loner, and loving family". Now just write long enough that all those are roughed upon.

Meh, I haven't heard anything that would entice me to read it. Various shades of annoyance and amusement came from my freinds.

I don't care if other people read (and enjoy) 50 shades for whatever reason, and I'm glad women are trying out other erotica as a result, but like any other fantasy I think it is a bad place to get sex education.

This book seems like a teenager wrote it.. I continue to read because I hate loose ends other than that it's a silly fantasy book. I don't see anything unusual that they seem to do that would make me want to go out and do something wild.