Fifty Shades

Anyone in the BDSM world has probably read BDSM fiction long before it was made popular and mainstream (Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone?).  Way back in the late 50's, a French book called "The Story of O" shocked many people (and to this day is one of my favorite books on my shelf).

I picked up the "Fifty Shades" trilogy though, because I love romance novels and also because I love power dynamics.  While I could turn this into a book report, I won't.  I am almost done with the second book of the trilogy, but what stands out the most to me is how much I identify with the characters.  Granted, the female lead characters "on again, off again" attraction to kink is off putting, as is her blatant disrespect and the games she plays with the Male Dom in the story.  But regardless, there is something underneath it that stands out to me.

The two characters playful banter back and forth, the way you clearly see the Dominant man is basically in charge in a protective manner (and usually sexually as well)...but there is also this constant checking in...a sense of "I want to take care of you, protect you" and the female lead hopes, someday even love her.  The Dom so clearly wants her to be happy, and also refers to himself as "Fifty shades of fucked up" (hence the title)...not fucked up because of his desire to inflict pain, but his past.  Like any good character, his great looks and charm hides a dark side, a dark painful past he's trying to move past and she cannot understand.  She also struggles with the common "Why would someone who has everything, looks, money, power, fame, ect, love her?"   She is not a submissive really, she does not get into the heavy BDSM that he is used to....and yet, they both work through their inadequate feelings and become closer.

I feel like, in my own life, that I took am fifty shades of fucked up.  I carry within me a degree of self-loathing from childhood that I have never really shaken.  A past of relationships where I felt used, and happy to be used, as long as the other would love me.  But I didn't know what love was.  I confused attention (bad or good) for affection, genuine attraction for novelty, and to this day I carry around a peace keeping attitude only the child of an alcoholic could have.  In my household, I "check in" on my roommates, I ask them how they are...when they say "Fine" and its clear from their tone they are not, I shift into that "how can I help" mode that only pushes most men away.

The nightmares of my inadequacy, self-loathing, and doubt in myself are like specters that haunt my life.  They have haunted me since childhood.  And yet, on some nights, I still wake up screaming in a cold sweat.

~bailey