True, 50 S is NOT the only book young women are going to read. But the massive success of novels like Twilight and 50S and the very particular type of female characters they contain leads me to worry that publishers will take note of it, and search out ever more vacuous heroines to push on the reading public. And the Heyer heroines of the world will be eclipsed.

Yes, western women have more choices, more options than any women in history ever. We also have a culture that seems hell bent on using us as nothing more than cogs in the capitalist machinery, while also demanding that we be perfect mothers, citizens, good in all ways. There is no support system–that is what American women, in particular, have lost. Not to deify the Scandinavians, but for fucks sake, can we not learn the lesson that affordable childcare, healthcare and good schools make it better for everyone. I don’t have kids–never wanted them–but this cheeses even me off.

I heartily agree that young women, especially, are the perfect prey for the misogynistic, hateful standards that the marketplace creates. But those same young women also have a much greater diversity of images and ideas than I had 20 years ago, thanks to dum dum dum the internet. And most young women gain experience that allows their personal agency to overcome (at least to some degree) the brainwashing. I refuse to see all young women as victims of the great Overlords of consumerism. Mostly because I’ve met some kick-ass young women who amaze me. Not all of them. There are some real dumb twits out there. But there always have been. A great deal of the populace is happy watching whatever drivel is on tv. Is the mindnumbing drivel part of the Overlords’ plot to make us dumb and stupid? Yes, sure. But there were always dumb stupid people–sitting in bars, sitting in churches, sitting in strip clubs, sitting in theatres, reading drivel.

And for most women, these are not the only books they will ever read. They are not stuck on a desert island with only these texts to inform their identity. I have more faith in the subversive power of the kick ass women in an Eloisa James or Georgette Heyer novel than anything Judith Butler has ever written. Women read more than men in the US, and they read more widely. And women DO know the difference between fantasy and reality (despite that old tired argument against lady novels and lady novelist.)

But here’s the other thing: outside of “women’s fiction” (whatever that means) there is nowhere else in the mainstream culture that addresses women directly. 97% of what we “consume” is created by and for men, or at least with the assumption that men are the universal standard. So suddenly there are books that are directed at women, and the marketplace has to recognize the power behind that gender-specific segment of the population. Much like the media-frenzy over Bridesmaids last year. “OMG! Women are funny! Who knew that women go to the movie?” It’s the same thing with 50. “OMG! Women like reading about sex! And it’s dirty sex!”

In the grand scheme, who gives a fuck that Time Magazine discovered that women have libidos. In the immediate, even though it’s mediocre, 50, etc pushes women’s erotic agency (real women, not the passive character) into the forefront, just at a time when our reproductive rights are being questioned (again!). You’d think we hadn’t done this over and over and over for the past century.

It’s like Nixon going to China. Nixon was a conservative asshole, but there is no way that any liberal-minded politician could have risked going to communist china. Only a right-winger could do it without risking his career. 50 is an easy pill to swallow–not too transgressive, not too brainy, not too anything.

More important than the lame character, is the fact that women are happily reading their “porn” without hiding it inside a Good Housekeeping magazine. Even though it’s not porn, it’s not even erotica. But REAL WOMEN get to indulge their sexual interests publicly. We don’t get that in our culture. And there are enough women doing it that suddenly the marketplace is scrambling to meet this “unexpected” demand. That says to me that women will gain power through their economic consumption, but also through the creation of erotica/erotic romance. And that women’s desire will become real to the culture–because in a capitalist society, nothing is real until you purchase it. And most women have not “purchased” their sexuality, so it remains invisible.

The 200 gazillion porn industry is 99.9% focused on the male gaze (yeah, I went there). YES, I know! 50 is not porn. But it is about desire, or the desire for desire. Whatever button it hits, is aimed at the lady button, not the male. And for that, I am happy. Because I want THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD to get their giz off and for it to be right and true and safe and celebrated. Jesus, I sound like the catalog text from a female sex-toy collective.

It then follows, that these women have no choice as to how their lives play out. That we should not ‘blame’ them for seeking refuge in fundamentally bad writing, because they’re helpless, trapped slaves who don’t need reading material that makes them think. Only material that makes them feel good and keeps the misery at bay just an hour or two longer.

While I agree that there are many, many places on the globe where women lead lives of almost unimaginable drudgery – where they are forced into marriages they don’t choose, forced to have as many children as their bodies will bear and are used like beasts of burden by their societies, I have to say that I just don’t buy that most western women live in anywhere near those conditions.

I would venture that the majority of women in the Western world DO have a choice as to who they marry, how many children, if any, they have, and whether to pursue levels of income that exceed their actual needs. But it does take KNOWING those choices are available in order to make realize you can make them. And, in my very limited and admittedly anecdotal experience, it was books that taught me that you don’t have to make the choices the society around you forces you to believe you must make. Those books DON’T comfort you. They force you to question the choices you make and the inevitability of the life you live. And those books aren’t 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight or the vast bulk of Romances out there.

I do, however, believe that the expectation for Western women to look like 16-year olds until they’re ninety, to have pert tits and tight asses and turn themselves out like something on the cover of a fashion magazine in order to be considered sexually desirable IS an untenable pressure. Because regardless of whether our lives our relatively pleasant (mine is – I chose not to have children and not to seek any great amount of wealth, either through marriage or career) or a litany of misery, we are all under immense pressure, both internally and externally, to play the part of both the Madonna and the whore in order to be ‘wanted’. And, ironically, it is not possible to lay the blame for this entirely at the door of men, since the vast majority of them are very happy with far less than fashion plates.

I personally suspect that, at its root, the appeal of these books lie in a reaction to a consumeristic machine that must keep us feeling perpetually undesirable, because that keeps us purchasing all the things that might – just might – help us attain or regain that state of perfect desirability. I think 50 Shades of Grey (and Twilight) allows for escape into a world where we are the objects of desire of a man who wants us no matter what we look like or what we’ve achieved.

I don’t think all books should serve ideological agendas. I have no problem with escapism. Although, personally, I choose to escape into the far future for my own personal refuge. But I do worry that books that offer us empty vessels we can seek comfort in do postpone a decision on our parts to escape the pernicious trap of having to pursue a level of sexual attractiveness and romantic perfection that none of us, ultimately, can buy, barter or steal.

I felt the same about Fifty Shades of Grey. It was getting a lot of flack, yet it was appealing to millions of women. When you see a phenomenon like that, it’s worth reading the book just to find out why.

I actually got a bit annoyed during the Fifty Shades hysteria (which seems to be dying down) that people kept reviewing it without reading it. I can’t help feeling you really should know something about what you’re criticising before you criticise it. And that really pissed me off about the twitter insults that got thrown at you: her adamance that she wasn’t going to read it.

I think that these novels (specifically for the adult female reader) are relevant because they signify the almost unsustainable nature of many/most women’s lives. They are more magical than Harry Potter, speaking to a particular female fantasy. Because many/most women are hauling the heaviest shit, often single-handedly, and there’s absolutely no respite.

Most women have jobs. Most women have kid. Some women have spouses. And while this generation of breeding males is undoubtedly more involved with their children than any previous generation, there is still a marked imbalance. Despite their education, skills, philosophies, politics, I have met very few families where there was a fair and equal balance of work. So women are working three to four jobs. The stress level in almost unbelievable. I don’t have kids, but stand in awe of my friends (successful, educated, capable women) who manage to bear the constant demands on their time and personal resources. And most of these families also have concerns about money, schools, health care. Perhaps the previous generation is starting to need assistance–there’s another job for the woman.

So imagine you want to leave behind the assholes at work, the shitty boss, the kids, the divorce, the PTA or noisy neighbors, the commute. And there is a book about an average woman who doesn’t have any of your problems. And in this book, there’s an adoring Magic Man who offers a solution to every problem that the female character may ever have. This book is a total escape from your world. And you like it because for a few hours, you aren’t dealing with supervising incompetents at work or afraid of losing your job and living with your kids in a car. And it’s a fucking joy to let those problems go for a while, especially if you get some romance and sex in the mix.

For many years, I only read literary fiction. I worked at a publisher, managed an independent bookstore, went to an esteemed college, studied literary theory. I had a certain credibility. I was also a judgmental ass for many years. Because when absolute trauma and disaster struck, I wasn’t picking up Foucault or Franzen or Ozick or (god forbid)Roth. I started reading SFI and Romance and anything else that was as far from my life as I could get. That’s what these books are, and that has value and worth for the readers who find something in them. Because like sex, you get to enjoy whatever the fuck you want as long as no one gets hurt. I read the twilights and the 50s. They had a certain compulsive quality. I don’t think they are ART but that doesn’t mean they are shit. They also don’t define me as a person or a woman.

I’m tired of women always having to be “good”–both in a mainstream cultural definition and in the sidelined pomo academic definition. I’m a feminist and that means I can read whatever I want. I can make my own decisions and deal with the repercussions. Why are women always on the receiving end of this sort of discussion? I can’t even think of a book that would engender (har!) this sort of discussion about men. And in my mind, in the real (first) world, women have many more options than men. Not that the power distribution (or pay) is equal, but the feminist movement broke open the definition of female in a way that most men still don’t have. But still, we pile on the women, even though they are holding up most of the world.

Here ends the screed. Obviously, I could keep ranting, but really.

I’ve dreamed secretly of being the Frank in “Frank and I” but the unlikelihood was the very attraction. (Well, one attraction.) Perhaps this is the key, not being so afraid of being an asshole.

There is a connection, here, with the thoughts in your essay on Offense and the woman with the tee shirt. No surprise here, but giving due.

Be well,
Ishmael G

PS and thanks again.