Couples everywhere are having sex now. If they’re not having
it, they’re certainly talking about having it. That’s all thanks to last
weekend’s box office triumph of Fifty
Shades of Grey, the first mainstream movie that has ever depicted sex.
Before the adventures of Christian Grey and Anastasia
Steele, I don’t really remember hearing about sex in pop culture before. Steven
Soderbergh’s debut movie Lies and
Videotape was just about the advantages and disadvantages of film vs. tape.
Other movies like Last Tango in Paris
and Salo were kind of prim. Prince
did a lot of moaning in his songs like “Darling Nikki” but that was really just
GI discomfort. I bought Madonna’s Sex
book but was disappointed because it was just her wearing a pantsuit and
lecturing about gender.
Fifty Shades of Grey
is also the first book that really discussed sex. Lady Chatterley’s Lovers was really just a collection of recipes.
Philip Roth has never written a smutty word in his life. So this is a new
horizon in literature. P.S. Congratulations on reading your first book at age
43!
Also, Fifty Shades of
Grey depicts something called “BDSM.” Apparently people sometimes have sex
with handcuffs and blindfolds and there’s spanking. Did you know that? Were you
aware?
So this book and movie have really brought sex to the
forefront of the conversation. Carnal relations were really absent from our
culture entirely before. I used to hear “sex” and think it was just three
letters together in a random sequence. Now my eyes are open. Thanks, EL James!
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