Barbara Amiel reviews a popular book for Maclean’s:
The question of whether it is truly sexually gratifying to have a Wartenberg pinwheel roll over your nipples while handcuffed to a stretcher bar with a ball gag in your mouth is something I hadn’t really thought about in the sheltered life I lead. I haven’t even been beaten with a Perspex ruler. I did once go out with an Englishman who was reputed to have an extraordinary collection of canes and crops for flogging but, apart from asking if I rode, which I did not, nothing in our brief acquaintance seemed to unlock that door.
These arcane sexual matters now have a pass into normal conversation ever since the breathtaking success of the new trilogy of novels Fifty Shades of Grey set in an idealized world of BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, masochism) and all their sex toys. The author, under the pseudonym E.L. James, was on Time’s 2012 100 Most Influential People in the World list, which tells us something, I expect, but probably nothing good. The plot of the novels is bog standard Cinderella with a modern twist: a young virgin, Anastasia, meets an extremely wealthy unable-to-commit Adonis, Christian Grey, who has a thing for inflicting physical pain because of—here comes the contemporary bit — his abused childhood involving a crack cocaine-addicted mother. By the end of the second novel, Christian has reformed and he marries Ana in book three.
I was genuinely riveted for at least the first 20 chapters. One always likes learning about a new culture. Now I know that the beginning position for a submissive is sitting on her ankles, hands positioned on spread thighs and head down until Master allows you to look up. The novel is a tease: you get to see the drawer of sex toys in volume two — clamps and various devices to wear in one’s bottom or front — but the actual descriptions of congress are, apart from explicit names for various bits of the body, pretty tame. Like much soft pornography, this book has the sound and scope of a prudish author and a legalistically prudent publisher.
