50 Shades of Porn?

(Rated M for Mature Audiences Only)

Too often the church finds itself in the unenviable position of answering questions no one is asking, and remaining silent on the real questions of the day.  I try to avoid this trap by spending a significant amount of time studying/observing our culture and our community to discover what people are really engaging in with their lives.  I then take this information and attempt to filter it through the lens of biblical wisdom to see what God has to say about it.  I don't claim to always be correct, but I would rather answer a relevant question incorrectly than spend time correctly answering the questions no one cares about.

It was this mindset that led me to pick up the taboo, yet wildly popular book, 50 Shades of Grey.  Normally, I would just read the reviews of such a work, as I did in this case, and that would be enough. However, this book and its sequels are being absolutely devoured by the soccer moms of Lexington and every other suburb of our land, so I just had to find out what was driving so many seemingly proper, suburban moms to consume this novel about sadomasochism?

After reading half the novel, I reached my personal threshold and put it down. There are only so many times I can listen to this college girl, the submissive one (her name is as unimportant as her face, her personality, her dreams and her desires, as she is just a human sex toy), explain to me in great detail what it is like to be beaten, used, objectified, manipulated and orgasmic all at once.  There is a storyline to the book, and I am sure there are some surprises in the plot as you reach the end, I just didn't want to go through another 5-10 erotic, sadomasochistic sex scenes to get there.

Which brings me to the point of the matter.  Why is this book so popular?  What are American moms feeling or enjoying about this book?  Why is there no outrage about the book?  Will this book open up an entire new market for so-called "Mommy Porn" books, ones which display pornography in the written word and in the context of relationship, which is a little easier for mom's/ladies to stomach than traditional video porn?  I don't know the answer to all of these questions, but I do have some thoughts and opinions.

Mommy porn is the perfect description for this book.  Webster defines pornography as "the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement."  Although more and more women are watching internet video pornography, it is generally too rough and too cold for them because it is not about relationship at all, it is simply men dominating and using women for their own sexual desires and women pretending to enjoy it, though everyone knows they don't.  Female porn stars take drugs at an alarming rate just to get through these horrific scenes and their depression/suicide rates dismal.  Yet in this book, a lady can read this sexual pornography, feel some sense of fantasy based sexual stimulation from it and romanticize the entire encounter in her mind because she doesn't have to actually see or experience the reality of it.  The author has masterfully set it up this way, as the submissive college girl is living in this fantasy world where she is dreaming of 'winning over' this dominant, sadomasochist guy and actually getting him to love and care about her, even though he is clear that she is just a sex toy (his 14th I think) who is not even allowed to sleep in his bed.

So why is it so popular?  My guess is that it feeds the dark side of the female soul the same way video porn feeds the dark side of a man's soul.  Men run to video porn because it offers them the promise of orgasm without intimacy.  That is crude, I know, but I can't think of a softer way to state it.  Actual intimacy with another human is real work, requiring honor, patience, love, affection, honesty, humility and many other qualities.  When a man is truly intimate with his wife by living out these qualities, it naturally leads to sexual encounters that are mystical, profound and beyond any fantasy written in a book or viewed on a screen.  However, if a man doesn't want to do the work required to build relational intimacy, he can simply bypass it and settle for a 5 minute relationship with a video screen that requires nothing more from him than a credit card number and all of his dignity, as the guilt/shame from these encounters is immense.

So if this is how video porn feeds the dark side of a man's soul, how do Mommy porn books like 50 Shades of Grey feed the dark side of a lady's soul?  I am going out on a limb here, as trying to explain the soul of a woman is a more daunting task than deciphering the reality of Einstein's theory of relativity.  However, I have never been one to back away from a challenge, so here goes nothing.  The Mommy porn of 50 Shades is a story about a relationship between a young, naive college student and a very rich, powerful and handsome man.  This is the kind of story that all women would enjoy, as they are natural romantics.  This man has been wounded by sexual molestation in his childhood and he uses this fact to elicit great sympathy from the student, as she imagines how she can finally be the one to save and heal his soul and teach him how to love others instead of beating them and using them like prostitutes.  She believes this so much, in fact, that she is willing to enter into his world as a submissive sex slave, subject to any form of degradation he desires, in order to hopefully win him over and heal him.  After all, she surmises, it's not really his fault that he is such a perverted man.  That storyline is as old as the hills and it resonates with ladies in particular, because it gets played out day after day, year after year, as real women toss aside their morals, hopes, dreams and rational thoughts in an all out effort to be the ONE that finally 'changes' that (powerful, rich, athletic, popular, or you fill in the blank) man.  Everyone except her can see that he cause is hopeless, but she usually doesn't listen until its too late.

However, unlike the Harlequin Romances of old (I am assuming here, as I never read one and don't plan to), this romantic story of the naive girl trying to conquer the bad boy is laced with detailed, explicit sex scenes that are pornographic by anyone's definition.  Thus, they bring some degree of sexual excitement/adventure to the mind and heart and fantasy world of the female reader, just as pictorial or video pornography does for the male.  The detailed descriptions tantalize the female soul with the promise of wild, vivid, multi-orgasmic, submissive encounters with the confident, handsome, powerful man who is in full pursuit of her, using everything at his disposal to impress and romance his target.  So the end result is that a soccer mom can experience a degree of fantasy driven sexual excitement/arousal because it is cleverly embedded within a classical, romantic storyline that appeals to her heart. If someone took just the sex scenes and asked ladies to read them in isolation, they would probably be appalled and offended by them.  In the context of the storyline, though, that which is normally offensive becomes exciting and tantalizing because of its appeal to the dark side of a lady's sexual soul.

So what is the danger, Todd?  Maybe a book like this will stimulate a soccer mom in the sexual area of her life and she will take that  fresh energy back into her own bedroom and awaken fresh encounters with her husband?  If only that were true, I would buy 10,000 copies and hand them out myself, as totally sexless marriages and marriages that no longer have any joy or thrill in their sex lives are more common than not in our society.  But that line of reasoning is as foolish and flawed as telling a man to watch video pornography in order to 'renew and invigorate' his sex life with his wife.  Both instances are the equivalent of telling an obese person to eat Twinkies in order to lose weight.   The reality is that engaging your mind in pornography, whether written or video or pictorial, elevates fantasy over reality.  In this way, it decreases your appetite for real sex and real intimacy, while increasing your appetite for your own fantasies and the fantasies of others, none of which exist in real life!  So if you are always thirsting for a fantasy-based sexual experience/relationship that doesn't really exist, you begin to lose all appetite for the real sexual experiences available to you.  These actual relationships can be erotic, joyful, affirming, exciting, adventurous, etc., etc., ad infinitum.  God designed them to fulfill us in every way, but they require a real relationship, real intimacy, real sacrifice, real humility, real commitment and real time, among other real things. We often don't want to pay that price, so we allow the dark side of our sexual souls to run off into fantasy land and find arousal, if not orgasm, apart from any real relationship, but rather in our own time and in our own way.  Is that unfulfilling? Yes.  Does it increase intimacy in our marriages?  No.  Does it breed dissatisfaction in our current relationships?  Yes.  After all, why settle for a regular guy with flaws and no helicopter when you can be whisked away to a sex dungeon with a gorgeous 'bad boy' who owns the city.  Or why settle for a normal sexual encounter with your exhausted wife who worked all day when you can be enticed, desired and highly esteemed by a cosmetically rebuilt 20 year old in cyberspace?

I am probably going to take some heat on this one, as some are going to be defensive simply because they have already read and enjoyed the book.  If you are one of those, please understand that I am not condemning you.  I am simply asking you to step back and evaluate it objectively.  Is there any difference between written pornography and video pornography?  Video porn appeals to men because it is visual, hard core sex that allows them to fantasize about an anything goes environment with beautiful women they don't have to know, love, serve, honor, or help in any other way.  It is their means of getting to that selfish fantasy land that appeals to the dark side of a male.  50 Shades is hard core porn in written form that is embedded within a well-worn romantic tale of a simple lady trying to change/redeem a bad boy, but it is porn nonetheless.  It allows a woman to drift off into a fantasy land where she is consumed sexually by a very decisive, confident, powerful man who could have any lady in the world, yet only has eyes for her.  Both scenarios emphasize fantasy over reality.  Both scenarios diminish the worth and value of our actual spouses and instead breed lust for non-existent 'fantasy sexual encounters' dreamt up by authors and porn movie producers.  Both breed a sense of discontentment with the status quo and increase appetite for that which is forbidden and erotic (note: erotic is not bad in itself, but the thrill of eroticism increases exponentially when it is coupled with that which is forbidden - as in adultery, homosexual encounters, orgies, etc.).  Perhaps worst of all, neither of these forays into the fantasy world of eroticism have the ability to bring any lasting satisfaction or contentment.  They both simply increase the appetite for more and more fantasy driven sexual excitement/arousal, leaving men and women empty, shame-filled and discontent.  That is why this trilogy has sold out as quickly as it has and that is why men spend hours and days surfing internet porn, looking for the next erotic and forbidden thing that might bring a sexual spark.  Normal porn from last week just doesn't cut it anymore, and normal sex with one's spouse seems totally lame, since he or she is an actual human with real needs of their own, not sexual superheroes from the books or movies.

So in conclusion, I can't separate out a lady reading 50 Shades from a man watching video porn.  They seem equivalent to me, though society obviously doesn't see them as equivalent.  For the reasons mentioned above, they are equally destructive to the honorable goal of an exciting, erotic, mutually satisfying, joy-filled sex life within marriage that is driven by real intimacy with a real person.  This intimacy doesn't come easily, as it has to be built upon honesty, loyalty, commitment, safety, sacrifice, deference and love.  However, this intimacy is safe, fulfilling, contented, and has the ability to lead us to fresher and newer levels of sexual and relational communion for a lifetime.  Conversely, the false eroticism of pornography is an empty well that promises cool refreshment for our souls, but delivers only shame-filled emptiness.

PS: Rest assured that of the millions of soccer mom that have fed themselves on this pornography, many will soon find themselves less and less content with their current sexual relationships and will venture out to find that strong, bad, unconquerable man and will fall into his bed, losing so much in the process.  It is as predictable as the lurid affair or prostitute hookup by the man who starts off watching some soft porn.  Neither thinks they will actually take the next step and act it out in real life, but if you feed the sexually dark side of your soul, it will eventually become so strong that it will feed on you, and your children, and your legacy.  I have seen it enough to write a book on it, which is what I just did, I think.

So what do you think?  Comment at my blog, www.toddcarnes.com