Why is fifty shades of gray so popular

Released in , th e first book became the fastest-selling novel written for adults of all time , and the three-part trilogy sold more than million copies , putting it in the same class as the "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" series and making its author, E. This is quizzical, given that the critical consensus is that both the books and the movie are pretty terrible. To untangle that knot, we've gathered possible explanations from a range of reporters, critics, and academics:.

If you cut away the light bondage, "Fifty Shades" is the same story as "Beauty and the Beast," which was originally a French fairy tale first published in before becoming a blockbuster Disney feature. It did. People love to hate " Fifty Shades," argue British feminist lit scholars Sarah Harman and Bethan Jones in a article for the journal Sexualities , and that's a big reason that the series has swelled in popularity.

In this way, "hate reading" the books is a way of deeply engaging with them, as well as telling everybody about your taste. While t he haters might dismiss the books as "bad literature," "popular," and "drivel," they're still talking about the books with their friends — making everybody more curious about what's inside. It followed a very basic plotline, reused cheesy language, and was a third-grade reading level equivalent. And yet, everyone from your teenage sister to your grandmother confessed to being so hooked, she finished the entire trilogy in record time.

I must be the color of 'The Communist Manifesto. We spoke to NYC psychologist and relationship coach Dr.

Dardashti explores what facets of "Fifty Shades" that women are connecting to, fantasizing about and wanting more of in their own lives which in turn, has made this piece of fiction so popular and the underlying implications of those desires. Men in the movies are based off an almost-impossible mix of qualities, which are also all the characteristics that most women would appreciate in a man, explains Dr.

People were buying the books in droves and seeing the films just as quickly as they were premiering. In fact, Fifty Shades Of Grey is the most popular book of the last decade. It has sparked vicious debates and controversies. Despite the sheer mania surrounding the series, James is still grappling with the popularity of the franchise.

This is not how experienced members of the kink community have sex. No matter what, these guidelines are always explicit. Some parties you might go to might hand those to you as you go in. In other words, E. In interviews, practitioners said they like kink and BDSM for lots of reasons: For some, pain releases the same kind of endorphins you might feel after running 10 miles, or after orgasm.

Some enjoy the intense power dynamics involved in being completely dominant over or submissive to someone else. People might have fetishes for certain objects, like shoes or leather, which they feel the need to engage with in order to be sexually satisfied. But that is not how the kink is portrayed in Fifty Shades. For all the talk of nipple clamps and butt plugs, BDSM is actually presented as a pathology, not a path to pleasure. Toward the middle of the first book, when Christian hands Ana a list of possible activities they might partake in, she reacts with shock—and, to an extent, a disgust that she never gets over.

The thought depresses me. Although these kinds of desires can be related to other mental issues, the organization says in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , merely having these desires does not justify clinical intervention. With but a few swift strokes, he can get her to orgasm—loudly, frequently, in any position and any location—by intuiting what her body wants. Sex itself is portrayed as a comprehensive proxy for the emotions involved in their relationship. Fifty Shades eroticizes sexual violence, but without any of the emotional maturity and communication required to make it safe.

In the wake of numerous allegations of rape on college campuses— at Princeton , UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Michigan , and many more—school administrators, students, sexual-assault-prevention advocates, policymakers, and more have been having important conversations about what constitutes consent.

Particularly in booze-soaked college environments, full of relatively sexually inexperienced young people, what constitutes consent? Obviously, there are many clear-cut cases of sexual assault on campuses, and the people who commit those crimes deserve to be punished fully and harshly. But the law is clearly limited in its ability to determine what healthy sexual norms are, much less establish them—especially in environments like colleges campuses, where most people are sexually and emotionally inexperienced.

Sodomy, for example, was considered a felony in every state until , and until the Supreme Court ruled against sodomy bans in its decision in Lawrence v. Texas , it was still illegal in 14 states. Gushee also acknowledged the popularity of the Fifty Shades books within his community.

It somehow crossed the line to socially acceptable. According to several recent studies, what a lot of people want is to be dominated. A study of predominantly heterosexual, college-age men and women found that both sexes preferred fantasies of being dominated by the opposite sex, rather than dominating others themselves.