Fifty Shades of Grey Inspires Sex Lessons In New York…
Saturday, May 12, 2012Posted in: What the fuckwittery is this?, What's going on?
Tags:EL James, Fifty Shades of Grey
And apparently it’s already sold out. Seriously? When will this end? Wahhhhhh! I can’t help it, I’m beyond bitter that some of the most badly written love scenes I’ve ever read has prompted this kind of ridiculous overreaction and hugely undeserved hype.
Here’s an excerpt from the Daily Mail article:
“Fifty Shades Of Grey has no doubt inspired plenty of bedroom activity but a new workshop based on the book is encouraging the act of role play in particular.
The erotic novel, written by British author EL James, is the subject of a sexual education workshop taking place tonight in Manhattan, New York.
Organised by Babeland, a sex toy boutique located in the Lower East Side, the Fifty Shades Of Hot Sex workshop will ‘discuss ways to make your fantasies into reality.’
Although the class is free to attend, spaces have already been exhausted.
The store’s website has offered a description of what people can expect from tonight’s ‘cocktail party’ workshop.‘Fallen under the spell of Fifty Shades Of Grey?’ it reads. ‘If you’re curious about how to try out some of the scenes from the book, we’ll discuss ways to make your fantasies into reality.’
The class is obviously targeted towards females but ‘people of all genders and sexualities,’ have been invited to attend given they are above the age of 18.”
I know that I should be happy that people are reading and that they’re at least reading a romance-ish book, but dammit I’m annoyed. Especially when I read shit like this about EL James. and her apparent disdain for the community that helped propel this book to such great heights. Sigh.
I wish I could find the Wendy Williams Youtube vid, where she semi reviews the book. After reading it, she doesn’t get the hype either.
Thanks to @NarinderKaur over on Twitter for the heads-up.
Katiebabs
May 12
9:40 pm
10 weeks at #1 on NY Times and USA Today with the other 2 books in the trilogy following at #2 and #3. This blows my mind that fan fiction has reached such epic WTFckery ness.
I wonder if Meyer and James will ever meet and would love to be a fly on the wall when they do.
Fangs for the Fantasy
May 12
11:01 pm
Sex workshops based on 50 Shades of Grey…
..
.
I… I never realised there were people out there whose sex lives were so utterly awful that being taught to emulate that book would be a step up.
Las
May 13
3:20 am
@Fangs for the Fantasy: My thoughts exactly.
The thing about the whole fanfiction angle…the fact that it’s fanfiction of Twilight just makes me not give a damn. People talk about how Meyer’s characters were stolen and all that jazz, and every time I’m like, “Dude, have you READ Twilight. It’s not like it required much work.” That shit reads just like bad fanfiction.
DA did an interestin series of posts about the ethics of fanfiction, and I just couldn’t get into it. Because it’s Twilight that started it all.
Ann Bruce
May 13
6:49 am
I haven’t read the book and don’t plan on doing so, but are the sex scenes hard-core BDSM or a non-participant’s fantasy of what it might be (i.e. vanilla)? I’m just imagining EMS having to be on hand for a nipple clamp or cock ring mishap; or an overly enthusiastic hand wielding a cane or flogger. And will EMS have to extricate people from harnesses gone wild?
Karen Scott
May 13
8:30 am
@Ann Bruce: Hi Ann, it wasn’t hardcore at all, far from it actually. It was BDSM lite, and even that might be overstating things somewhat. There were the suggestion of nipple clamps etc, but nothing really out there.
Anon 76
May 13
4:13 pm
@Ann Bruce:
I agree, Anne. From what I understand BDSM involves a very complicated trust between the participants. The person with the true power is the sub, not the dom. Without that agreed power a sub could find him/her self in a situation they didn’t bargain for, nor enjoy in the least. As you stated, serious injury could ensue.
I haven’t read the book (I’m not against fan-fiction but once the writer/copier profits on the characters and plot of another, well…) but I really hope that even a “vanilla” version of BDSM doesn’t lead people to some VERRA unhappy experiences.
Me? I like a little kink of that in my reading. In practice, not so much.
becky h
May 13
5:05 pm
I so damned sick of 50 shades that I want to
scream. The book was crap and the one it
was based on was just as bad. If people
need sex lessons from a book that bad
theyre insane
Cindy
May 14
1:10 am
I too am sick of the whole 50 Shades thing. I read 3 pages at work when I was putting a bookmark in and it was the worst written work I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. And now she’s getting a movie deal? Gah.
becky h
May 14
7:30 pm
What this actually tells people is to go out, write a book that is total crap and a ripoff of an already published work and you will get on the New York Times bestseller list. Guess I should have kept my old fan fics and crappy drafts of stuff i wrote instead of burning them.
Grrrly
May 16
6:13 am
The Sex Nerd Sandra podcast recently did an episode on 50 Shades, and it was basically an hour long slam of the book and how wrong it for many things about the BDSM lifestyle. The host of the podcast is an employee of The Pleasure Chest adult store in L.A., and a sex educator, and the guest for that ep is a fellow employee/sex educator who was planning a class based on the book. But the class was basically along the lines of “You like the book? Swell! Now let us tell you how to do this stuff safely, and with reasonable expectations.” I would hope the class in NY and any other similar classes that are being held due to this book’s popularity are along the same “Let us teach you how to do this the right way” lines.
As an avid fan of well-written erotica and an active member in my local kink community, this book was doubly insulting to my sensibilities. Even if I hadn’t heard the negativity around it before ever picking it up (which actually shamed me into “Give it a chance, there might be a reason it’s so popular!” and made me force myself through more of it than I would have), I wouldn’t have gotten as far as the quarter of the way through I did before throwing it down in disgust.