Taylor Kinsler: The risque trailer has left people speechless. The highly-anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey film will premiere this coming Valentine’s Day. The movie, an adaptation of the book by author E.L. James, has stirred up debates about whether the film legitimizes violence against women.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, as well as countless other advocacy and religious groups, have started petitions to boycott the movie. They claim the film flaunts images of sexual violence, abuse of power, female inequality, and coercion. Former Miss District of Columbia and domestic violence awareness advocate, Jennifer Corey, believes the relationship portrayed in the book was consensual and is excited to see the film.
Jennifer Corey: I think the way women if, are portrayed in the book as being submissive is different than a traditional master/submissive role. Or dominant/submissive role that you would normally talk about amongst women and men, because their relationship in the books was consensual.
I think that’s really important to talk about when discussing this sort of submissive relationship. I think the book had so much success that it definitely should have been made into a movie, but I think with all the press that surrounding it, it’s the perfect time for the actors and for the people involved in the film who are getting all this media attention to be talking about consent.
That’s something that’s really big right now. Talking about sexual assaults on college campuses and what consent actually is, so I don’t think for feminist reasons, that she’s hurting anything or anybody. I think we should support other people’s decisions in their personal lives, especially things that don’t affect other people.
On the other hand, I also want to make sure that we’re having the conversation about safe sex – about consent and about sexualization of young girls. The film’s director, Sam Taylor-Johnson, defends the movie and its portrayal of the relationship between Christian and Anastasia, saying it is actually liberating to women.
Taylor Kinsler: She said, quote:
Sam Taylor J.: If you start a movie with a woman seen through a man’s eyes that women is objectified by him throughout, so we deliberately don’t start that way. We start with Anastasia coming into his world and grappling with it, so she’s an autonomous person.
To get to the heart of the matter, News to Share’s Wallace Net visited Secret Pleasures in D.C., a store devoted to serving members of the kink community. Gwen, the education coordinator, says that the kink community feels Fifty Shades of Grey is fictional and does not portray a healthy relationship.
Gwen: It’s a really broad community. It’s much larger than people realize, and it’s comprised of people that you wouldn’t necessarily think were into kink. Especially sort of with the advent of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Wallace Net: Oh.
Gwen: The opening dialogue about kink and BDSM. A lot of us have two feelings on the book. The book was phenomenal in that it really opened up people’s ability to talk about kink and realize that maybe some of the things that they were really interested in didn’t mean that there was something wrong with them, and didn’t mean that they were broke and the book gave them permission to explore another part of their sexuality.
Since it was a lot of people’s first intro to kink, they kind of used it as a manual and there’s a lot of problematic issues with Fifty Shades. There’s an abusive relationship. He stalks her; she uses a safe word and he leaves her.
There’s a lot of issues in terms of how BDSM is portrayed, and the lack of safety and the lack of communication that the book portrays that I think a lot of people were picking up on and didn’t realize it was problematic because they’ve never been involved in the scene in the first place.
Sex is a way for us to let go and sex is a way for us to explore different aspects of ourselves, and BDSM isn’t any different. Whether that involves sex of any kind or not. Gwen showed Wallace how kink is intended to be fun and is not as unnerving as the film portrays it. Basically, you just put it around the wrist like that.
Wallace Net: Okay.
Gwen: I promise I won’t leave you in there.
Wallace Net: That’s fine. That’s really fine.
Gwen: What you want to make sure with cuffs in general is that you can put at least one to two fingers in between the cuff and the wrist.
Wallace Net: Okay.
Gwen: So that you’re not cutting off blood flow.
Wallace Net: Got it.
Gwen: Because the last thing you want is to lose the use of your hand, so those are locked in there. I can put a little clip on here.
Wallace Net: Okay.
Gwen: I can pull your arm like that.
Wallace Net: Wow. Okay.
Gwen: I can lock this down so you can’t get out of it. I can put a padlock through here if I wanted to.
Wallace Net: Oh.
Gwen: These are like leather flat pan paddles. They’re really nice because they’re wide, so they distribute this impact.
Wallace Net: Yeah.
Gwen: So they’re not going to be as harsh when they hit. A lot of people will gravitate towards these ones because they look really nice.
Wallace Net: Yeah.
Gwen: They feel really soft.
Wallace Net: And smooth.
Gwen: Yeah, they’re really smooth and they can be disinfected so-
Wallace Net: Oh.
Gwen: Very good if you’re going to be using it with multiple people. Bondage tape is an awesome beginners tool.
Wallace Net: Oh, okay.
Gwen: When people are like, “I want to get into bondage,” but they don’t know anything about whips or they don’t know anything about knots or don’t have a headboard which are all really valid things, bondage tape is cool because it sticks to itself but not to the skin.
Wallace Net: Oh.
Gwen: It looks like an Ace Bandage, right?
Wallace Net: Mmhmm.
Gwen: We start, again, making sure—
Wallace Net: Yeah.
Gwen: That there’s enough room.
Wallace Net: There’s enough room.
Gwen: That you can’t fall. You can make really sexy clothing out of it. You can wrap it around your body and have your partner unwrap it for you.
Wallace Net: That’s great.
Gwen: It’s reusable. If you have enough patience to untie it. The issue with metal handcuffs is that if you’re planning on struggling with them at all the metal can be really abrasive.
Wallace Net: Yeah.
Gwen: And harsh on the skin.
Wallace Net: Yeah.
Gwen: Even though the ascetic is really hot people really love them especially if they’re doing like cop role play and stuff like that.
Wallace Net: Can I put that on?
Gwen: Yeah. Absolutely. There’s a huge push back from the BDSM community in terms of being more active in getting the word out that BDSM is not an abusive act, and that it’s being done two or more consensual adults who are agreeing to do what they’re doing.
Taylor Kinsler: Controversy aside, Universal Studios is expected to rake in over 60-million dollars on opening weekend. While it is difficult to predict how audiences will react the movie has certainly garnered the attention of people across the country. For News to Share I’m Taylor Kinsler, Washington, D.C.
