Fifty Shades of what?

There have been a lot of people weighing in and some very interesting suggestions about Fifty Shades of Grey. I haven't commented much - until I read a blog today, written by someone who didn't want to see the movie, had never read the books, ended up seeing the movie under the coercian of friends, and then preached about it to her children.

While I totally support wanting to teach our children all about what a loving relationship is (and isn't), I question how well we can do that without having investigated the story beneath the movie-world hype and the internet memes.

When I think of Fifty Shades of Grey, I think - "Wow, this is one messed up guy. Just like the rest of us." For me this book isn't a bed of roses description of what love is, it is a path through which two people, who come from inevitable pasts of various degrees of damage, to a place of redmeption, to FIND love. For me, it's not an endorsement of BDSM, nor is it an endorsement of some of the more unappealing features of either of the main characters (just the incessant, and often unnecessary jealousy was enough to drive me batty), it is, however, a path.

We all come from our pasts, some of them more damaging than others. (Grey's past is clearly unsavory and while it doesn't give him an excuse for his behavior, it certainly makes it more understandable for the reader.) All childhoods are messy in one way or another, and it's from this history that we are trying to navigate to love.

When I read a romance, or watch a rom-com, this path is the intrigue for me. Where did the players come from? What did it teach them to believe? Are they able to overcome those beliefs to find a place of truth? Are they able to connect, truly connect with another human being? How does their experience of their past contribute to the story of how they reach towards their future and are they successful? How do they redeem themselves - in their own eyes? In the eyes of their beloved?

Fifty does this. Grey, whose past is alluded to throughout the book, has taken on behaviors and beliefs which are challenged throughout the story. Like many victims of violence in childhood, he came to believe that control was the only way he could safely navigate life. And this belief is challenged again and again by Anastasia, until he can admit that the control is not as important to him as - - (wait for it...) Ana's love. Anastasia whose past was patterned with instability and who doesn't trust men much, due to her mother's difficulties with them, overcomes her belief systems and seeks stability in Christian. This isn't really that abnormal. We are all stamped by our pasts and our relationships very often reflect it! Just because this story discusses a sexual lifestyle that a lot of people don't know much about, doesn't make it that different.

The sex - well, apparently it's mindblowing, but it's still not the main part of the story. While the kinky stuff is definitely an ongoing storyline, it goes hand in hand with one of the main principles of love whether it's vanilla, bdsm, chocolate, peanut toffee or something else and that principle of love is that to experience true and pwerful intimacy, there has to be a very high and intense level of trust between two people. In order to get to a place of true intimacy, life requires that we drop our often misguided beliefs and judgments, our walls, our desire for some outward perfection in order to experience the moment, to be fully present. Do they do this? Are Christian and Ana able to get past their programming and beliefs to a place where they are fully present? I'd like to believe they do. Are both of these people able to find their way to a loving and kind relationship, based on mutual respect? I think they do. Will there always be vestiges of their pasts inside them? YES!!! We ALL carry our pasts and the daily work for each and every one of is to continue finding our way from those pasts to a present free of the reaction from them. While the writing and the story aren't insanely powerful, it does present - again and again - that these two individuals are working to overcome their pasts, to work daily to be present today, after having been programmed by so many yesterdays.

How is this different for anyone? For you or me?

Fifty Shades could be much worse. Christian might never have found a path to release his past and continued for the rest of his life in meaningless and emotionally unfulfilling dom relationships. Now THAT would have been a book about abuse and relationships without love. But he didn't. Ana might never have found a man who could challenge her. But she does. Fifty isn't what I would call classic literature, but it doesn't need to be demonized either. It's just a story about how two people work through difficult pasts to find love.