In 1973 Albemarle High Sheriff George Bailey gave local merchants till sundown to remove obscene materials such as Playboy from their stores. Actually he generously provided a week. He and most of his deputies, no doubt girding their loins, also screened Deep Throat, playing as part of the weekly student run cinema experience at the Chemistry Auditorium at UVa. He declared it “disgusting”. He was no doubt emboldened by the 1973 Supreme Court case, which among other things had deemed that a jury may use the standards of the local community rather than unascertainable national standards.
Today, a trip to a locally owned bookstore reveals dark oak and an old fashioned interior, with literature shelved higher than one can reach. Towards the rear, placed carelessly on the floor are three small piles of nondescript, neutral colored paperbacks. One might be surprised to know that these are a trilogy making up number one, two, and three on the New York Times Combined Print and E-Book best seller list. One might be even more surprised to know that they are ground breaking romance novels, depicting sado-maschochism and bondage in loving detail.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James is in some ways a classic romance novel, a genre disparagingly called “bodice rippers” by some. It has the usual elements: a young inexperienced woman, a tortured older worldly man and the couples evolving relationship. Missing is the requisite lurid cover, with a couple embracing in exotic, slightly threatening surroundings. In such illustrations, mammaries larger than any I have experienced are prominently displayed, but those are attached to the bare chested muscular hero; the heroine is demure. Present is that which is never written, at least in mainstream romance novels: graphic erotica. This is a Harlequin romance novel on cantharides.
Indeed, in the first installment, Anastasia is young, inexperienced, and unaware that she has blossomed into a beauty while she works seriously towards graduation. But in a chance meeting, Christian Grey, the 27 year old enigmatic autocratic owner of a business empire is entranced. She does wonder if she is being stalked after he shows up at her part-time job in a hardware store. She wonders how he traces her cell phone in order to rescue her from an unwanted amorous suitor after she gets uncharacteristically drunk after graduation. And she does wonder about his hardware purchases: Cable ties, duct tape and five yards of natural filament rope. He doesn’t look like a do-it-yourselfer. But he is rich and handsome, and so, so…. fragrant. A kind of Heathcliff in Armani, what with the “way those pants fall from his hips”. Not to mention those long fingers, so carefully described.
Atlas Shrugged meets The Story of O as written by an ovulating Ayn Rand is one way to describe this wildly popular book, dubbed Mommy Porn. The author, E.L. James, a middle-aged, married mother of two, finding little initial interest from the traditional publishing world self-published this, her first successful literary effort. Its surprising success as an e-book then caught the attention of mainstream Vintage/Arrow Books.
She is now on tour. She deftly deflects questions about whether there is anything autobiographical included. And no one has yet accused her of producing fine literature. Her attempts at integrating the physiologic basis of sex with sweaty erotica fall flat. The medulla oblongata in particular seems to get mistaken for some other organ. But if one can believe the press, she has a passionate following amongst her mostly female readers, and anecdotally, also from grateful husbands. There are claims of revitalized love lives, and whispers of secret rooms. The Hunger Games suddenly seems re-relegated to the juvenile literature section.
Here in Charlottesville, the books don’t seem to be bounding off the shelves, at least downtown. Perhaps the emergence of E-Books, and the alleged anonymity of the internet is helping sell what was previously taboo.
Prior to the internet, just buying a sex toy could be a humiliating experience. Spencer’s Gifts quietly carries such items. However, inevitably, the clerk would be a 16 year old high school student who looked like she could be a friend of your daughter. One acquaintance claims he solved the problem thusly: He would make his selection, wave it around, slam it down on the counter and say in a loud voice “I’m also go need a whole lot of batteries to go with this.” He declares no one ever met his eye, and he could never even be pulled out of a lineup. Now you just have to click “add to cart”.
Bondage has long been lurking around the edges of society, literature and media. I recall a friend joking that she hadn’t played Cowboys and Indians in so long that she couldn’t remember whose turn it was to be tied up. Watch Fay Wray, bound helplessly, struggle as King Kong toys with her garments. How was it that the heroine in silent movies was so often all tied up in knots? But while metaphors abounded, overt depiction did not. The Marques de Sade was vilified. Movies such as Behind the Green Door, and The Story of O (and the novel from which it arose) remained firmly triple X.
As in 1973, local standards are being tested. Some libraries are banning the book, Florida leading the charge.
But E.L. James has broken through some kind of bondage barrier. It is fair to ask, where all this will lead us. One can argue that it is certainly possible to go too far. Will one safe word be enough? And is it significant that on the internet anytime you agree or purchase, the button you click says “submit”?
Now even your hardware purchases may have hidden meaning. And who would have thought that being a boy scout could reap such benefits? This scout will give her A for effort, B for bondage and two thumbs up, as it were.
Wick Hunt
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