{"id":30456,"date":"2015-03-01T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T07:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=30456"},"modified":"2015-02-28T09:59:29","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T14:59:29","slug":"kay-s-hymowitz-asks-how-smart-is-50-shades-of-grey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/03\/01\/kay-s-hymowitz-asks-how-smart-is-50-shades-of-grey\/","title":{"rendered":"Kay S. Hymowitz asks “How smart is 50 Shades of Grey<\/em>?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing in City Journal<\/em>, Kay S. Hymowitz<\/a> discusses what the book and movie say about modern women:<\/p>\n

In her standup act, comedian Whitney Cummings scoffs at the claim that men like strong women. \u201cSorry, I\u2019ve watched porn,\u201d she says. \u201cMen like Asian schoolgirls with duct tape on their mouths.\u201d In that vein, consider the popular idea that women want sensitive men who do the laundry without being told. Sorry, I\u2019ve read \u2014 and now watched \u2014 50 Shades of Grey<\/em>. Women like men who tie them up and flog them in a Red Room of Pain. With duct tape on their mouths.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m only half-kidding. The film\u2019s reviews, like the reviews of E.L. James\u2019s 2011 book, are full of well-deserved snark about its inane dialogue, flat characters, and contrived plot. But the story\u2019s wild popularity suggests that James knows something most of us don\u2019t about the mix of lust, romantic longing, and post-feminist morality that swirls inside the brains of young women today.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a remarkable coincidence that this particular pornographic fantasy has seized the global female imagination at the same moment that rape and sexual violence against women has become a leading social justice cause. The coincidence is heightened by the fact that the story\u2019s protagonist, Anastasia Steele, is a coed on the cusp of graduation. She is in many respects an ordinary, modern college girl. She\u2019s independent, a little boozy, cash-strapped, and working her way through school in a hardware store. She drives a battered Volkswagen beetle. Yes, she is a virgin. But that\u2019s not because she\u2019s a prude \u2014 \u201cHoly crap, no!\u201d as the feisty heroine would put it. She just hasn\u2019t found a guy who pushes her buttons. That is, until she sacrifices her virginity and good judgment to the highly practiced sexual power of the brooding and distinctly un-politically-correct billionaire Christian Grey, a man of \u201csingular tastes.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

But if James takes care to make the sex between Christian and Ana so consensual it could pass muster at University of California campus tribunals, she perhaps unwittingly points to the limitations of such consent. Though James wrote her novel before the current spate of questionable campus rape accusations, she all but predicted them. Ana\u2019s consent is shaped not by enthusiasm for Christian\u2019s predilections, but by her desire not to lose him. Consent seems a misleading word to describe this state of mind.<\/p>\n

The prevalence of pornography \u2014 and, now, of 50 Shades<\/em> itself \u2014 is bound to fuel this sort of youthful confusion. We can and should prize consent, but most 18-year-olds know little about their own motivations. Ply young men and women with images of extreme sexual adventure, barrels of liquor, and empty, unsupervised dorm rooms, and sexual assault is bound to remain in the headlines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing in City Journal, Kay S. Hymowitz discusses what the book and movie say about modern women: In her standup act, comedian Whitney Cummings scoffs at the claim that men like strong women. \u201cSorry, I\u2019ve watched porn,\u201d she says. \u201cMen like Asian schoolgirls with duct tape on their mouths.\u201d In that vein, consider the popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,28],"tags":[909,122,255,43],"class_list":["post-30456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-media","tag-bdsm","tag-movies","tag-sexuality","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7Ve","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30457,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30456\/revisions\/30457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}