Lines from ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ depict rape by legal definition, not romance
Tighten your seat belts because we’re at that point in this book. Yes, the part where they have sex the first time with dubious consent, at best, non-consent, at worst.
Ana asks if he’s going to “make love” to her, and he says yes. He needs to get that first time out of the way, to, in his words, “rectify the situation right now.” Because her being a virgin is a major problem to fix… I don’t think “make love” means what Grey thinks. “Make love” implies an emotional connection. He just wants to use Ana.
But those are the words he says to get this tipsy, scared, overwhelmed young woman to walk with him into his bedroom. Like an idiot, rather than reaching right for condoms, he asks if she’s on the pill, and considers condoms to be a back-up for a no. Well good god, Grey, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.
Deep down I know I should send her home. But the simple truth is, I don’t want her to go, and I want her.
Well, what do you know. He has a flicker of a conscience. We won’t see that often, I’m sure.
“Do you want the blinds drawn?” I ask. “I don’t mind,” she says. “I thought you didn’t let anyone sleep in your bed.” “Who says we’re going to sleep?” “Oh.” Her lips form a perfect small o. My cock hardens further. Yes, I’d like to fuck that mouth, that o. I stalk toward her like she’s my prey. Oh, baby, I want to bury myself in you. Her breathing is shallow and quick. Her cheeks are rosy…she’s wary, but excited. She’s at my mercy, and knowing that makes me feel powerful. She has no idea what I’m going to do to her.
That’s frightening, and ominous. Not only are they still not on the same page, since she apparently thought “make love” meant going to sleep together, but he’s aroused by her outright fear. Again, an adrenaline rush comes with fear, but can also cause excitement, like on a roller coaster. Doesn’t mean she really knows what’s about to happen, considering she thought a playroom meant he wanted to play an XBox, and he said they’d make love, and she thought they were going to sleep and is surprised he means something else. He’s also turned on by how she’s captive.
Now, in the comments here, and in the comments on Jenny Trout’s first chapter recap, there had been some debate over Grey calling Ana by her full name, even though she doesn’t like it. “But Ana’s too close to his birth mother’s name,” some people say, to excuse him blatantly ignoring Ana’s name preference in favor of what he wants to call her, even though he has no problem calling his first sex partner by her first name of Elena, which is closer to Ella. We find out later that, “I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all look like the crack whore—my birth mother.” Oedipus is in the building, folks. If it’s true that Ana is too close to Ella (again, not as close as Elena), I guess that would explain why he calls her “Ana Steele” right now.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you, Ana Steele?”
I suppose that idea could further support how he likes the idea of sex with his mom. I’m going to say it. EWWWW, WTF?
He quickly undresses her by “slowly feeling off her blouse” (doing something quickly by being slow about it–that’s typical of James’s writing), and stands back to stare at her.
“Oh, Ana. You have the most beautiful skin, pale and flawless. I want to kiss every single inch of it.” There’s not a mark on her. The thought is unsettling. I want to see her marked…pink…with tiny, thin welts from a crop maybe.
Most people would see skin that’s not damaged on someone who didn’t consent to it to be a good thing, not unsettling. Between consenting partners, whatever. But Ana is still clueless. She doesn’t know what she’s in for, and she doesn’t know what he’s capable of. He knows she’s captive. She knows she’s captive. He created this power imbalance, and now he wants to hit her. He won’t though. Not yet.
They kiss, and he thinks her fumbling and mistakes in a kiss to be sexy. Who believes he was really bothered she’s a virgin? What an unreliable narrator. You can’t be pissed someone’s a virgin while really being so turned on you and excited about can’t stand it and want her.
She tastes luscious. Wine, grapes, and innocence—a potent, heady mix of flavors.
See? She’s had too much to drink if he can still taste it, even though it’s been a short time since she last drank. He starts trying to arouse her, but I can’t get past how he’s sniffing her crotch and licking her foot after she’s been at work all day.
“Show me how you pleasure yourself,” I ask, gazing intently down at her. She frowns. “Don’t be coy, Ana, show me.” Part of me wants to spank the shyness out of her. She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you mean.” Is she playing games? “How do you make yourself come? I want to see.” She remains mute. Clearly I’ve shocked her again. “I don’t,” she mutters finally, her voice breathless.
That’s how innocent she is, and he wants to whip her and is turned on by the thought. The most believable character trait in this scene, aside from him being evil, is his obsession with his chest not being touched. But since that stems back to when his birth-mother’s pimp burned him with a cigarette a few times when he was a toddler, he really should be past this already. He’s holding on to his past on purpose at this point. There are a few thoughts of “If you’ll let me” sprinkled in, but I’m not falling for this as a sign he’s a good guy. Literally every single one can be removed and absolutely not be missed, like:
“We’re going to have to work on keeping you still, baby.” If you’ll let me. I’ll teach her to just absorb the pleasure and not move, intensifying every touch, every kiss, every nip.
Take that out, and you’d never know something was there. They were just tossed in in random locations instead of integrated into the story. With only about a minute of nipple play, Ana has her first orgasm. And Grey gloats that he owns it. If you want to GIVE someone an orgasm, you don’t get to own it. He thrusts himself into her, and it only takes another minute or two and she’s orgasming again. Pretty impressive for someone whose never so much as touched herself, and highly unlikely.
“You haven’t answered me,” I growl. I need to know if she found that enjoyable. All the evidence points to a “yes”—but I need to hear it from her. While I’m waiting for her reply I remove the condom. Lord, I hate these things. I discard it discreetly on the floor.
Nasty pig. He’s going to leave that for the housekeeper to pick up. They get ready to go at it again, and he grabs another condom. Even though he’s an idiot for only using them if someone admits not being on birth control, at least they’re used at all. In a matter of minutes, she’s close to the edge again, and he orders her to hold off. She lost her virginity perhaps ten minutes ago, has already had two orgasms, and is able to control a third.
“Come for me, baby,” I growl. And on command she shudders around me as her orgasm rips through her and she screams my name into the mattress.
The chances? Laughably infinitesimally small. And then they go to sleep. Seriously. That’s the end of it.
This was duller than the first book, where Ana actually described her first orgasm, in full, as, “Oh my. That was extraordinary. Now I know what all the fuss is about.” Literary masterpiece, I tell you.
Here’s a cookie for you for getting this far. You deserve it.
And here’s a happy place to retreat to. It’s at Silver Falls State Park, about an hour form here. Take your cookie and imaging yourself sitting on one of the stone benches and listening to the water falling into the cool pool below. Happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts now.
-Photo by Josh Whalen
Happy thoughts now, since this book’s about to get a lot worse.
Alys Marchand 
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Silver Falls State Park does indeed look like a beautiful place to spend munching on a cookie or two. I’d be a little wary of bears though. My friend Google tells me that there are some there in the more remote areas.
Why on earth would he think that hitting this shy young woman would make her less shy? Deluded prick!
Reading this latest recap, it occurred to me for the first time that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Christian has repressed memories of his mother being fucked by clients. His young mind wouldn’t have been able to comprehend that behaviour, and it might have helped to scramble his brain to the mess that craves not only whipping little brown-haired girls who look like his mother, but also fucking them. Just a thought. And I am now concerned that I am speculating about events that might have occurred in the early years of a fictional character.
Bears aren’t so common there. I’ve been there many times (used to live in the town next to it), and never saw one. Don’t worry about bears. 🙂
A lot of people have walked in on their parents having sex, and aren’t scarred by it. And there’ve been many generations when parents regularly had sex in the same room as their kids. Charles and Caroline Ingalls didn’t have another room to go to to conceive Carrie and Grace and their unnamed son, yet Laura (of Little House on the Prairie fame) and Mary weren’t traumatized.
The son’s name was Charles Frederick, called Freddy.
The son’s name was Charles Frederick (Freddy).
That’s right. It was Laura’s son who went unnamed. Sadly, it was common to wait until a baby was a month old to give a name. Laura’s son died within just a few weeks. I just finished reading The First Four Years, and got her son and Freddy mixed up. Freddy was around eight or nine months, wasn’t he?
Good point about parents having sex in the same room as their children in the past. However Ella might have had to engage in some brutal and unpleasant sex with her clients including humiliation and verbal abuse, of a sort I can’t imagine Charles Ingalls doing to Caroline in front of their girls, and that’s what I had in mind.
I sincerely doubt that. Based on Christian’s memories and words, she shielded him from an awful lot, and more people buying the services of prostitutes don’t get off on having a child watching. A child crying or saying something can pull someone out of a scene. A child standing there watching is a pretty major turn-off for most people, including people going to prostitutes. The person who burned Grey is Ella’s pimp, and all a pimp really does is require a cut of a prostitute’s money for “protection,” even though the biggest danger is from the pimp if a woman doesn’t pay up. We know Ella had her own apartment, and it had toys and food, and it doesn’t sound particularly filthy since toys could go pretty far under the couch instead of there being a ton of trash. If anything, if a trick showed up, Christian could have stayed in the living room while she went to the bedroom.
I would rather deal with bears than men like Christian grey.
Oh yes, Silver Falls. I love that place. I also love Proxy Falls, up on the old McKenzie Pass. I’m going to imagine myself at both places happily munching on cookies.
I’d have a hard time believing that those who thought Christian was so alluring in the first book would think the same way now. What a complete a-hole. Ugh, makes me want to throw things.
I’ve never been to Proxy Falls. If I wasn’t recovering from tendinitis, I’d go check it out and take a hike soon.
There are two more of these books coming out.
As I said on Jen’s site, this chapter, at least, would make a decent BDSM porn story or novel. But NOT as romance, erotica, chicklit, contemporary lit, or romantic erotica, where some degree of realism and logic is adhered to.
( It’s occurred to me as I type this that readers who swoon and call it “romantic” are actually feeling the hard, sexual turn-on that comes with reading pornography and just lack the language to express it. Or maybe they call it romantic because being turned on by D/S and BDSM literature where characters think and do morally, ethically, and physically nasty things to each other is still taboo.)
It might make a pretty good porn story if the sex wasn’t so repetitive, dull and described in the most twee terms. Also, you would absolutely have to take out all the bullshit of Christian forcing Ana to eat etc. because I, for one, would not be able to maintain my ladyboner while reading that.
I couldn’t get a ladyboner after reading how much he was trying to control her so fast.
James also uses the same terms too often. She reminds me of Mr. Garrison (from South Park) writing a porn book and repeating “penis” as often as possible, except with the work “cock,” which is jarring compared to how James is using nothing actual body part names for Ana. Clitoris. Vagina. Breasts. Cock. Cock. Lips. Cock. It was strange.
I agree the thing is horrendously written and plotted,and that’s a turn-off. As is the fact it drags on way too long and is basically boring. To qualify as publishable porn, it would need a ton of very ruthless editing. But the basic idea is a classic one for BDSM, a sweet young naive thing seduced by an experienced, sadistic dom. Lots of people (including me at times) like to read that, while realizing it is a total fantasy without ethical or moral considerations, the characters being cliched puppets for our amusement. One doesn’t judge or identify with the characters as people being controlling or mindlessly stupid, just with what happens to them sexually, in a sexual context. With this framing, it doesn’t matter that they don’t use condoms or the helicopter crash would never happen that way. The disconnect from real life becomes part of the fun — like going on a ride at Disneyland or watching a Jurassic Park movie.
(I’m not saying James is a genius for writing Grey that way — it’s clear it happened unconsciously due to her ineptitude as a writer. As with FSOG, she was trying for erotic romance and sympathetic characters with Grey, not flat-out porn.)
In short, I’m saying that if the book was heavilky edited to be BDSM porn, it could be a decent one. As it is now, it’s just awful on every level.
Jondalar did it so much better……;-)
And again James forgets that birth control pills do not stop the spread of STDs, which I pretty sure that Christian is crawling with them.
Yup. Pretty concerning that STDs don’t cross anyone’s minds in these books. He’s willing to trust someone’s on birth control, and who cares about STDs.
Thanks for the cookies and nice view!
Also, i just can’t get turned on by the sex scenes at all in this. I read tons of (good, well written) fanfic which is so sexy and in comparison this is so boring! Nothing is described at all compared to many graphic sex scenes I am used to reading. It’s almost like she should just cut to black lol that would be more interesting. I almost wonder if the fans of these books have never read real erotica before? how can anyone find this romantic or be turned on by it?
Ps sorry if its TMI, but i can identify with Ana & her innocence a bit. Although at her age i’d definitely discovered my sexuality but i was quite a late bloomer. Didn’t feel any sexy feelings at all in my teens, even late teens. In high school i couldn’t be bothered with all the fuss about kissing & sex. I’m 26 now and in the last few years have read tons of erotic fiction and finally “get” the appeal of sex haha Like I’m making up for lost time or something lol 😉 Also, love the term “ladyboner” .. Hilarious!
I don’t really think much is TMI these days. 🙂 It’s one thing to be a later bloomer, but Ana’s situation is supposed to be that she’s so innocent and pure that she doesn’t really know what a blow job is (though, of course, she’s an expert her first try). I’m sure you are least knew that, and what a butt plug is, and the basic mechanics of how it all works, even if it didn’t interest you. Somehow Ana’s so ignorant about everything that she literally wanted to talk to Kate for “the mechanics.” This takes it from late-bloomer to downright implausible.
I’ve heard that the scenes get raunchier, but I’m willing to bet that he just says “cock” a few more times. The sex so far is literally some of the most boring I’ve ever written. There was literally nothing worth noting. It’s like it was written by a teenage boy who’s afraid to say “cunt” or “moist hole,” but who recently decided that “cock” sounds better than “wiener.”
I think that the whole Ella thingy comes back to “This is Twilight fanfic” part of this horrendous fic’s story. In original version a.k.a the fic Characters had been Bella and Edward. Bella Ella. Sounds very similar, especially when mumbled a bit, as Ana/Bella would do. However since this had went to the publisher the characters could hardly go by Bella and Edward, so the names had to be changed. James is a shitty writer and her editor wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed either, probably so they left Ella, forgetting that with the change it’ll loose the meaning. If James was a better writer she would have either leave mother’s name and name her lead something that sound familiar like oh idk Stella or she would have changed mother’s name to fit Ana like to let’s say Hannah. But she’s not smart enough for that