It’s February 13, 2015. Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are feuding, Uptown Funk is at the top of the charts and Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson are butt-naked in the R-rated box-office hit of the year: Fifty Shades of Grey.
The pop-culture sex bomb was let off in theatres around the world on Valentine’s Day weekend — a long-awaited climax, as fans of E L James’ Twilight-fanfiction-turned-erotic-BDSM-novel got to see the source of their sexual fantasies come to life on-screen.
It grossed a hefty £468,780,145 and had such an effect, that a woman in Milton Keynes reportedly ‘erotically soiled’ herself in the back of a Cineworld. But it wasn’t all fun and orgasms.
Critics slammed the film for glamourising an abusive relationship with one viewer claiming ‘the fine line between abuse and pleasure is so thin it’s almost non-existent’.
Meanwhile, in the film’s wake, the use of the rough sex defence – estimated to have been used 60 times in the UK alone – to victim blame dead women by insinuating they asked for rough sex was coined as the ‘Fifty Shades defence’.
When 21-year-old Grace Millane was strangled to death, her killer claimed that she had begged him to help recreate BDSM scenes from Fifty Shades of Grey, and admitted to having ‘violent sex’ with her.
Yet, despite its apparent flaws, the movie spawned a gigantic fan base which is still alive and well a decade on, especially among women. One of them is 39-year-old Jennifer Walderdorff.
The mum-of-one watched it in the cinema back in 2015 when it first came out and loved it.
‘I enjoyed the fact it was salacious, it was a story about sex and people talked about it under their hands,’ Jennifer tells Metro. ‘It was naughty and people would whisper “I’m going to see Shades of Grey”. I found it hilarious.’
Jennifer, who runs a sustainable fashion consultancy business, also found it ‘freeing’, she says, likening the film to peeking behind the door of what could be occurring in people’s intimate relationships. Most importantly, she feels it normalised kink.
‘It brought up the discussion of toys, there were floggers and blindfolds, hair braids and rope binding your arms, there were also positions like doggy style,’ Jennifer adds. ‘The movie put those things on the table to talk about, and people were more inclined to listen.
‘Millennials like myself were the prime demographic too. We were in our late twenties and thinking about marriage and wanting someone who wasn’t going to be scared of a little adventure in the bedroom.’
Jennifer was in a seven year long relationship when she watched the film and felt inspired to become more theatrical in the bedroom after Dakota and Jamie’s saucy performance. She upgraded her lingerie and began using the ‘stand and carry’ sex position with her partner.
‘There’s a scene in the movie where Christan also does this, good thing I was a more athletic back then, because now I’d need a forklift,’ she jokes.
Is it really that deep?
When it comes to the accusations surrounding Christian Grey’s controlling and borderline abusive behaviour, Jennifer admits to being perplexed.
‘It wasn’t that deep,’ she insists. ‘There are relationships where there’s abuse and it’s a case of leaving them, I understand that. But when Anna gets drunk and Christian picks her up outside the bar, I just thought “God that’s what I would want!”
‘I imagine a lot of people would prefer to be rescued if they were in a position that made them feel unsafe.’
Award-winning intimacy coordinator Ita O’brien has worked on movies such as Normal People and says that while Fifty Shades of Grey predated the intimacy coordinator role, it failed to draw the line between sexual exploration and an abusive relationship dynamic.
She tells Metro: ‘All gamuts of our intimate expression should be captured on screen because it’s a reflection of us, so anything can be written about in books and scripts, but it’s how we couch it.
If something is abusive intimate content and you’re portraying a scene that’s about domination and abuse, it shouldn’t be made to seem sex positive and empowered because that can be really damaging.
‘The claims that Grey’s possessiveness, jealousy and obsession with Anna was sold as BDSM is concerning.’
When Ita worked on the set of Normal People, which also had BDSM scenes, she made a point to mark a clear beginning and end to that sexual play, to stop that sub-dom dynamic from becoming all-encompassing. She believes that, in Fifty Shades, that dynamic invaded every part of the film.
Making violence against women the norm
The film has also been accused of having ‘non-consensual sex and heavy amounts of verbal and emotional abuse,’ by one non-plussed viewer – a dynamic throughout the franchise that sociologist Finn Mackey believes normalises sexual violence against women by turning it into entertainment marketed as ‘edgy and exciting’.
‘It encouraged the idea that women are inherently masochistic and want to be dominated by men, which is a very old and sad narrative,’ Finn tells Metro.
‘Anna is almost childlike and is overpowered by this older, more experienced man. His extreme wealth and sexual experience is meant to be a sexy example of manhood, yet his life – with his helicopter, penthouse, dungeon set-ups and fancy suits – is unattainable to most.’
The sociologist also explains that the film made it appear as though consent is ‘something that women have to be persuaded to give and that men have to pursue them to get’, because of the way Christian chases Anna to convince her to enter into a relationship with him. Something Finn warns could increase the likelihood of male violence against women.
The sociologist also makes the point that by eroticising this narrative, women may become more at risk for abusive relationships.
A blockbuster excuse
It’s not a one-off, as victim blaming is a pattern that has risen in the 10 years since the film was released, according to Lawyer Marcus Johnstone of PCD Solicitors.
He tells Metro that he’s seen a big growth in the number of allegations of rape and sexual assault associated with BDSM and the rough sex defence.
‘Books and films that explore the fantasy of rough sex have undoubtedly promoted the idea that a woman may want sex, even when she says no,’ Johnstone explains.
‘Prior to the Fifty Shades film men would more often claim that no sexual activity took place at all.
‘Now, thanks to the film and the rise in kink-orientated platforms, they are more likely to say that the activity took place – but that violent sex is what their alleged victim asked for.’
Sociologist Finn adds: ‘The franchise contributed to the mainstreaming of that excuse. Women are allowed to have violent or rough sex fantasies, but the very definition of a fantasy is it’s within your control.
‘They’re fantasising about Jamie Dornan doing xyz with them, not about a stalker who follows from home to violently rape them.’
However, Jennifer believes that 50 Shades still deserves more credit than many critics are prepared to give it.
She explains that some movies should simply be allowed to remain as a ‘form of escapism,’ adding, ‘Movies can imitate reality but it’s not always necessary it should be compared to real life.’
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