Ana and Christian fly around in a glider.
Warnings:
I'm going to spend a long time right at the top talking more about the sex from the previous chapter. Skip ahead to the jump if you want to miss out on that. Later on, I'm going to spend a lot of time wishing that Ana and Christian would hurry up and have breakfast-sex at IHOP, but that's just wishful thinking on my part. They don't actually do it.
Those of you who read my take on Chapter 23 may be asking the same question I'm asking:
Wait, so this is supposed to be sexy?
It is, right? Isn't that the whole idea? People using the phrase "mommy porn" are all idiots--there's nothing about this mess that suggests that it's aimed at mothers in any way. But, it is decidedly pornographic. Or, if that's too strong a term, it's supposed to be erotic at least, right? Isn't "erotica" just like, porn for snobs?
Here's what I'm stuck on: nothing happened in Chapter 23 at all, like usual. Pretty much it was just about Christian meeting Ana's mom, Carla, and Carla insisting that Ana head upstairs and have sex with CG, despite CG's obvious stalker tendencies.
And then they did have sex. And the first thing about that sex scene that's striking is Ana's absolute dependence on Christian. She's oddly removed from her own body--only enjoying herself when she cedes control to Christian and then takes things one step further, essentially experiencing her own sexuality exclusively through Christian's eyes. You're familiar with the concept of the male gaze? Shorthand for the way that art (visual art most obviously but the idea can be applied more generally) on the whole presumes a male audience--and to go further, a straight, white, male audience. Ana is portrayed in Chapter 23 as essentially needing to adopt this male gaze as her own and use it to perceive herself.
Part of what fascinates me about this terrible book and its popularity is this sort of contradiction. Here we have what is ostensively pornography for women, written by a woman, but a scenario that is completely geared toward a man's experience of sex.
This makes me think Bic's "Cristal" [sic] ballpoint pens. Finally! A pen for women! The listing on Amazon for Cristal is one of those delightful community satire projects that crop up on Amazon from time to time. Most of the reviews are, as you would expect, bitterly sarcastic. And they should be! Because it's just a mutterblushing pen! My understanding is that ladies have managed to write with the same pens as men for quite some time. At least as far back as Title 9, right?
And that's my question with 50 Shades. It's all the same ideas, the same scenarios you'd expect if this thing were aimed at men, instead. There's some pseudoscience that will tell you that men and women's brains are wired differently or have different bumps or whatever and that's why men like porn and women "don't" but it seemed intuitive to me (even pre-50 Shades) that maybe if someone tried to sell porn to women that actually presumed that perhaps women were human beings with opinions and desires, there just might be a market!
50 Shades proves this. . . . sort of. Millions of women have read it! But also EL's portrayal of Ana Steele is endlessly degrading. Ana is a complete doofus. She lacks any agency, any subjectivity. She requires a man's instruction in order to derive any pleasure from the body that she quite literally drags around with her everywhere she goes.
So what I'm saying is, it turns out that it wasn't even necessary to adjust the sexist assumptions of pornography in order to sell a commodity tailored for straight men to straight women. You just have to package it differently, and distribute it through different channels. That's the real difference here, right? 50 Shades found an audience through networks of Twilight fans and through internet fanfic sites and then exploded via Amazon and Kindle. These are not places that straight men are venturing when they're feeling horny, I expect. So maybe that's the lesson. The way to sell porn to women is just to sell it out a different door. Good job, capitalism!
Here's what I'm really trying to figure out, though:
Why was it so important for EL James to stage a sex scene while Ana was menstruating?
The Complainist's resident medical advisor offered, unsolicited, her take:
"Can I offer a lady person's perspective on the last published 50 Shades chapter? Gross. Yeah, mostly gross."
This is reassuring to me in two ways. First, I work from the assumption that men and women aren't nearly as different as our popular entertainments, lazy comedians, and so on would have us believe. But despite this assumption, I do recognize that there's something potentially offensive about a man (me!) heaping such clever insults at a book marketed as entertainment for women. (Editor's note: and here we are excluding EL James herself, whom we actively seek to offend.) There's that chance that someone will try to convince me that I simply don't get it, because I'm a dude. So! I am always particularly reassured when women agree with me. Because some of my best friends are women! I swear!
Second, as readers who know me in real life understand, our resident medical advisor shares my actual residence. And so little would trouble me more than to learn that she found any of this book appealing. You, gentle reader, may have learned some troubling things about me as we've shared this time together, but I have not yet learned anything troubling about anyone else, and I do hope that remains unchanged.
But back to Ana and what is, perhaps, the bloodiest sex scene in popular fiction: why? Why, why, why? What did EL James seek to accomplish in Chapter 23, when she showed us so very much about Ana's uterus?
As I often find when trying to make sense of this dumb book, I can come up with a few plausible answers, but they all seem insufficient, so I don't trust any of them. Here are a few plausible answers, all of which fail under actual scrutiny:
- CG's willingness to do it every single day of the month means that he's particularly generous and considerate of Ana's desires. Interesting theory! It's too bad that it's contradicted by the whole rest of the book, since CG is not at all generous nor considerate. Besides, if he were really being considerate, he could've been like, "Oh, is this an awkward time? Why don't you tell me using words what sort of sex things you'd enjoy doing on this particular night, and we can do those things, and I won't be disappointed if the things on your list don't match up perfectly with the things I'd most like to do myself." You know--instead of acting totally unilaterally. (Side note: this draws attention to just how limited CG's actual sexual repertoire is. He's basically limited to missionary plus restraints. Yawn.)
- EL probably chose to talk about Ana's period because EL is such a stickler for realism. This is a real-life thing, so shouldn't it be part of this very realistic novel? It is true that EL does often overwhelm with pointless details that any other writer would skip, but come on. The pointless details are not because EL wants to be realistic. They're a result of EL's writing process, which mostly involves treading water in between arguments or sex scenes. Plus, the sex was already the least realistic part of the book.
- The fact that Ana's on her period makes the scene extra sexy for the reader! This isn't true, is it? I'm pretty sure this isn't true. At least, that wasn't my experience, nor the experience of my medical advisor, but I suppose your opinion could vary? Seriously though: go ahead. Tell me if you think this is anything but the worst! You can even do it anonymously! I don't care! But don't lie to me. Only post anonymously that you enjoyed it if you did. I don't need a bunch of trolls, trolls!
- This is just more vampire shit, right? I guess this is most likely. The whole scene was just some vampire bullshit that got left over from a previous draft in which Christian was literally a vampire. Which, in a way, makes it worse, right?
Seriously, though--if anybody wants to explain to me how any of this is hot, I promise to listen! Because it would be way more fun to read this mess if I found any of it hot.
But where were we?
