50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 14

TLDNR
Ana and Christian are sad about things. 

Hey so after I wrote this, Elliot Rodgers murdered a bunch of people because women weren't blushing and forgetting to breathe around him the way Ana Steele does around Christian Grey.

I'd like to say more but I haven't managed to put together anything sensible yet, but I feel like I ought to mention it, particularly since last week, we read about CG's ex, Leila, who almost shot Ana and and CG.

EL James misrepresents the world on basically every page in large and small ways. It doesn't matter that EL, for instance, doesn't understand how popular mac and cheese is in Seattle. But I think it does matter that the big "danger" in this book is an unstable ex-girlfriend. It matters because even though Christian exhibits nearly all the textbook traits of an abuser, EL creates straw-men in order to make CG look better by comparison. José refuses to accept "no" in the first book. And now Ana's boss is a super-creep. And then Leila shows up in Ana's house with a gun.

But of course, statistically, Christian has always been the biggest danger to Ana. Because he's the boyfriend! And it's always, always, always the boyfriend. It's basically never not the boyfriend. Almost all women who are victims of gun violence are attacked by an intimate partner, not a stranger. Women who are shot in their own homes, like Ana almost was, are virtually always shot by a partner or former partner. In the US, three women are murdered by an intimate partner every day, on average. Women get killed by their boyfriends, not by their boyfriends' ex-girlfriends. Women get killed by men.

I bring this up because Christian Grey is exactly what a dangerous misogynist thinks he sees when he looks in the mirror--a clever man who knows what's best for women. A "gentleman" ready to treat a woman like a piece of property--but for her own good! A "catch" who's not like the other guys! No not at all! I bring this up because I find this entire shitty book indicative of a culture that tells men that women are things to be possessed.  And that is a mindset that gets people killed.

We're not starting out with a lot of jokes, I'm afraid. But sometimes this shit just isn't that funny.

There are some jokes after the break, I swear.

On to Chapter 14!

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 8 part 2

tldnr:

Ana and Christian go to a hotel so that they can avoid Leila. They have sex there and Christian tells Ana that he loves her. 

I'm trying to improve my writerly discipline by taking a class at Hugo House which is a Seattle writing center. It's possible that I have damaged my skills in some way by reading this terrible book, as evidenced by my classwork. I'm supposed to be writing a novel but mostly I'm just using my story's narrator as a conduit for my complaints about working in customer service. Also I keep thinking up different pointless phone apps that I'm pretty sure don't actually exist and largely ought not to, but I keep including them in the story too. I don't really know what my problem is. I know part of the problem. I go a little off the rails whenever my medical consultant is scheduled for night shifts. Things get pretty weird around Complainist HQ during these times. Really not pretty. Oh except for how I just eat pho all the time. That part is great!

I wrote that paragraph because I figured everyone was super curious about what I might be up to. Do you think it's weird how often I use the word "super"? I do and also I've stayed up too late and have gone a little off the rails. See previous paragraph. 

Wait what were we doing again?  

Our story thus far:

 

50 Shades of the Complainist: Chapter 16

tldnr:
Spanking, then sex. 

Warnings:
Again--refer above. 

Anecdote:
I have this problem where I troll the "Writing Gigs" section of craigslist and respond eagerly to the oddest requests. This has been more fruitful than you might assume! For instance, last year I was contracted to ghostwrite a single chapter of a novel. My employer never did get around to letting me know the last names of any of the book's characters, but he was pleased with my efforts, and paid promptly. More recently, I volunteered to "beta read" a draft of an "erotic mystery." I read and gave quite a few notes because I'm very good at that kind of thing. (I'm friendly about it, too. If 50 Shades were the work of some earnest, anonymous scribe pleading for help on craigslist, I'd be infinitely more generous. But! This thing has made EL James more money than can be found within the borders of certain small countries. The world has already been generous to her, so I don't have to be.)

Anyway, I mentioned on Facebook that this craigslist author got me a gift card for fifty bucks. Quite nice, considering that I volunteered without any offer of payment. The best part is that a handful of my friends conflated the gift card with this blog, and thought, even if only momentarily, that EL was the author mailing me gifts. This, of course, is not the case! However, I would like to state now, as publicly as I can, that I am willing to be bought, and I am not expensive. So, you'll know what happens if, a few weeks from now, I start a post by writing, "Hey you know, I never thought I'd say this, but this thing is kind of growing on me a little!"

In the meantime, I am kind of stuck. I just don't understand how this book gets read by anybody other than people who despise it because seriously. Chapter 16 is a nonsense chapter, totally lacking in plot or intrigue.

50 Shades of the Complainist: Chapter 10

tldnr:
Ana and Christian drive back to Ana's house. 

Warnings: Hell, I dunno. Christian probably threatens to rape Ana at some point? Look, guys. This is hard. 

I'm kind of dreading writing about this chapter because it poses a dilemma. The whole thing's so pointless that I'm kind of stuck talking about either everything or nothing and I'm worried that I'll accidentally end up talking about everything. At least the sex chapters have a certain narrative logic. Not to be needlessly crass, but sex scenes move towards, you know. A "climax." They go somewhere. Now that we're out of the sex chapters for a while, we're stuck with just a lot of bullshit meandering while we wait around to figure out if Ana will either a) sign CG's sex contract or b) "cure" him of BDSM. It's sad that, while there are two possible outcomes that the novel hints at, they're both really the same. They both involve Ana and CG being in wuv forever and ever, and with no conflict on offer besides the simple fact that Ana is dumb and boring and CG is a shitbag, there's not much reason to keep reading, is there?

Oh, right! My hilarious jokes! Phew. Good thing. Forgive me if I'm a bit off my game. I gave myself a week or so vacation. Hard to say exactly how long, because time spent with EL behaves differently from normal time. It really can warp your perception. For instance, at this point Ana and CG have known each other thirteen days. They met on May 9, and it is now May 22, and this is this particular weekend marks the first substantial amount of time they've spent together. Wild, right? Doesn't it seem like we've been putting up with them for weeks? Oh, right. Because I've been writing these things for weeks and you've been reading them.