Popularity of ‘Fifty Shades’ Is Natural Result of Shame-Based Sexuality ‘Education’.

Viewpoint articles are written by members of the SPH community from a wide diversity of perspectives. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University or the School of Public Health. We aspire to a culture where all can express views in a context of civility and respect. Our guidance on the values that guide our commitment can be found at Revisiting the Principles of Free and Inclusive Academic Speech.

There is no denying the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. With more than 100 million copies of the book sold and more than $90 million in box office sales on its opening weekend, Fifty Shades has catapulted into the public discourse.

And, therefore, into the realm of public health. I have spent years talking to young people, college students, school administrators, youth program staff, and parents about sexual health in this country. So what does it mean that Fifty Shades is now selling bath oil, vibrating love rings, lubricant, and blindfolds at Target? Is this the dawn of improved sexual discourse in the United States? If we have mainstream acceptance of bondage, sexual contracts, and the like, are we going to see an overall improvement in the sexual health and satisfaction of our country? Or, does Fifty Shades just reflect the current state of inequality in the bedroom between men and women? Is it the ultimate elevation of dating abuse, sexual violence, and other gloomy realities about human (hetero)sexual behavior? Unfortunately, I think it is more of the latter.

The first thing that strikes me while finally reading Fifty Shades is this: Wow, people are really not kidding about the terrible writing. Just how badly written is the trilogy? It makes the Twilight series—the origins of Fifty Shades, as it was first created as fan fiction—look like Pulitzer material. As Salman Rushdie put it in 2012, “I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published. It made Twilight look like War and Peace.”

Nor is there much new about Fifty Shades, especially sexually. Is there really anything edgy or brave about a dominant man and a naïve girl with big eyes? It is just an R-rated version of a Disney movie.

It is incredibly depressing that badly written erotica acting out very old sexual scripts for women and men has become so popular. People can debate the meanings, symbolism, and impact, and they have (with thanks to the fabulous Aida Manduley for the link—and don’t miss her hilarious live-tweeting of reading Fifty Shades), but the bottom line is the trilogy’s popularity Is a deeply discouraging insight into our current state of sexual health. And frankly, it is also not a surprise.

With recent generations raised on abstinence-only, shame-based sexuality “education,” is it any wonder that we now are offered a sexual fantasy that insists on a female character who is clueless, uninitiated, and in fact has never even masturbated? What did we expect the natural progression of abstinence-only would bring us? Don’t forget that the origins of abstinence-only programs moved from preventing teen pregnancy—a worthy and evidence-based public health goal—to promoting heterosexual marriage as the only accepted form of human sexual behavior, an unscientific, moralistic treatise that has proven completely ineffective at changing outcomes. But abstinence-only education has undoubtedly changed our culture. It has brought us more sexual shame, more fear of our desires—particularly female ones—and less knowledge about our bodies and physiology.

否

We all have work to do to improve our sexual health: increasing communication with our partners; beefing up our birth control; getting tested and treated for sexually transmitted infections; speaking up early and often about the critical importance of active, engaged consent; and working on undoing the shame and misinformation so many of us learned or absorbed growing up in a sexually repressed yet sex-sells-everything, misogynist, homophobic culture. There is so much work to be done. Let us not get distracted by a book or a movie and instead focus on creating our own genuine and authentic sexual selves. We deserve nothing less.

Sophie Godley is a clinical assistant professor of community health sciences at SPH. She can be reached at sgodley@bu.edu.