50 Shades of Weinstein

CAUTION:

The following post should be read and interpreted

through the murky haze of “man-goggles”. You’ve been warned.

Christian Grey: “My subconscious looks on with approval, her normally pursed mouth smiling, and I am the supreme puppet master.”

 

Anastasia Steele: “He’s said such loving things today … But how long will he want to do this without wanting to beat the crap out of me.”

………………

What is more scary than Harvey Weinstein in his bathrobe?

Many years back when I was training for an Ironman event, I would wear… blush… a relatively skimpy Speedo bathing suit while doing my pool or lake swims in preparation.

My young kids recoiled in eyesore terror at the sight of their Dad displaying the gentle outline of his royal jewels in light lycra cover, almost like the disguising brown wrapper surrounding a newly minted PLAYBOY magazine.

They felt a true sense of abuse that, in retrospect, I understand. HORRORS!

But let’s move on…

So, is Harvey Weinstein the new Christian Grey? I get so confused.

Supreme puppet masters Harvey Weinstein and Bill O’Reilly and Bill Cosby and and and  …. somehow believed they each were the fictional “hottie” that drew women to them as bees to honey…

… but let’s face it, we all know the reality… it was more akin to flies to SHIT.

Not 50 Shades sexy, just 50 Shades creepy.

I can only imagine how frightfully difficult it must be as a woman (or even more so a young girl) to live in a world filled with testosterone-laden behemoths (strangers, friends, uncles, stepdads, dads) with the physical might to overwhelm you and take what they want sexually.

I can also only imagine how difficult it must be to be a woman living in a world where influence- and money-laden behemoths with the power to make or break your dreams of achievement or fame can overwhelm you (physically or psychologically) and take what they want sexually.

What’s even more scary?

We probably live in the MOST enlightened times of history where women actually exist in a locus of near equality with their male cohorts. Ain’t near enough you might say…

Just how truly truly worrisome it must have been to live as a woman 25 years… 100 years… or 1,000 years ago.

Not to be too narrow-minded, but being a man and trudging off to a gruesome bloody death in war was no picnic either, but at least there was a modicum of choice in the matter.

Abuse and rape don’t typically afford choice.

Throughout human history, coercion, rape, and sexual hegemony by men were for many, if not most women, as commonplace as free-floating oxygen.

But back to my confusion.

I’m betting that the #MeToo hashtag that is a ubiquitous part of our current news cycle could be used by almost 100% of the female population from at least one creepy incident in their lives.

Sexual touching and unwanted approaches have been as much a part of womanhood as the monthly “curse”.

And yet… once upon a time… there came upon the land a modern sexual tsunami called 50 Shades of Grey.

A mere few years back I wrote a post about how I was a befuddled male; I just couldn’t imagine how millions of women were clamouring for the supposed “romance” of the books and movies 50 Shades of Grey.

The notion of interactive romance in my little head doesn’t include a sub-section where an uber-wealthy man is able to dominate and subjugate a woman for his own selfish pleasure under the guise of it being ultimately for her pleasure.

She doesn’t know what she wants, not yet, but he’ll enlighten her. Huh? Women want to fantasize about being mistreated?

I reflect softly as a lovely hush of golden yellow leaves trace whispering paths of descent into my sun-drenched woodland garden.

I can only conclude that contradiction and ambiguity are integral to sex and the sexes (sorry… genders!), but I continue to hold my place in the line of the confused.

Of course I don’t have to imagine what it’s like to live on the other side of this gender-fence.

I’m trying to steer a straight manly path in a world fraught with potential pitfalls.

I’m acutely aware of how what I do and say might be interpreted.

I have a sense of humour that can take male/female issues to the edge. I’ve tried to stay clear of the line in the sand, but I grow ever more worried that I do, or have, crossed it with innocent intent.

“Fun” and “funny” are how they are interpreted and I can’t sleep at night with 100% certainty of where I’ve stepped. The one true certainty is to have never touched anyone inappropriately.

In reality, I too could claim the #MeToo hashtag.

I’ve been touched and propositioned over the years by women – never by anyone with financial or workplace power over me – most recently with an “innocent” bum pinch in the gym.

As a man, perhaps because of my sense of physical strength, I’ve never felt truly “threatened” other than on one occasion when a man, larger than myself, grabbed my exposed genitals in a Prince Edward Island beachfront changeroom. WTF!

I pushed away and got the hell out of that changeroom… FAST.

Ultimately, I feel nothing but sickly distaste for the “men in the news” these days.

Thanks to the volcanic feeling of revulsion many women are experiencing post Trump “pussy grabbing”, a cathartic cascading torrent of stories and past experiences are surfacing.

The dam has broken and feminine anger and empowerment is flooding the soiled landscape.

The “casting couches” we all knew of and may have snickered about in previous years are taking on a new, more appropriate interpretation.

A few million years back, the dinosaur era crashed and burned, and so too now must the era of unwanted dominance by the powerful and ignorant, male or female.

We male dinosaurs are edging our way through the modern jungle where the hazards for both sides of the Mars/Venus chasm are not always clear, where the pathways that once seemed clear are now more hazy; ghostly pathways where honest intent occasionally ends up as the wrong route.

But for today, this old T-Rex is making at least a symbolic effort and tossing his old Speedo into the quietly flickering flames of the autumnal woodstove.

 

50 Shades of … Shame …

Tsk tsk Christian Grey!

Are you serious? You’re showing your face in public again with some sort of boastful, manly pride?

Here we are once more, back in the news with a Valentine’s Day release of the tawdry film 50 Shades of Grey.

Our book-inspired imaginations can finally relax now that we can gaze in stunning Technicolor at your little fantasy world of mental, physical, and sexual abuse. Oops … my apologies Christian, you’d prefer that we call it BDSM to dress it up pretty and sound sensuously sexy.

…………………………………….

I don’t know whether to worship at your feet or spank the living shit out of you.”

…………………………………….

And you, Anastasia Steel?

Ana, you will look gorgeously enticing and naive and innocent, occasionally displaying some subtle signs of estrogen-strength that will float the illusion that dominance by and submission to another… any other … is really quite empowering, somehow acceptable, yes, even dreamily romantic.

Oh Ana, get thee to thy shrink!

Anyway 50 Shades … Congratulations.

It will be a colossal smash box office event. It will.

Millions of women with submissive stars floating in their wide, moony eyes will drag their gal pals, maybe even boyfriends and husbands to the event of the year.

The sequels will be in filming mode before you can snap a whip on a woman’s ass and “playrooms” will fill with nouveau riche moviemakers sporting huge smiles.

And me? Well, I’ll still be scratching my head at the hypocrisy of what women want in this world; and also the men who believe that objectification and dominance over women is just fine, thank you very much.

In a way, 50 Shades transports me through time and history … the story’s insinuation that men can sit back and assume a controlling, dominant role, well, it takes me back 150 years to the plantation porch – back to the good old days of Lincoln and slavery and the quaint notion that having a master/servant relationship is tolerable in any sort of sane world.

…………………………………….

I want you sore, baby,” he murmurs, and he continues his sweet, leisurely torment, backward, forward. “Every time you move tomorrow, I want you to be reminded that I’ve been here. Only me. You are mine.”

…………………………………….

Almost 3 years ago I wrote a post expressing my disappointment in current-day liberated women who flocked in huge numbers to read the BDSM mega-hit 50 Shades of Grey.  Well … have I softened on my stance over that time you ask? Definitely… NO…

https://lwgsummerland.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/50-shades-of-green/

It clearly taps into a large female segment who tingle to an interior women’s world that is beyond my understanding.

Obviously, I can’t claim that 100 million readers are all mistaken in their admiration and might I say –  desire –  for a sexual fantasy like this.

We all have interior domains that thrive inside – worlds of bizarre and untold fantasy that we would never want the rest of society to be aware of. I’ll cop to guilt on many fronts where fantasy of various makes and models thrive. But never a fantasy that places someone in a lowly, denigrated position …

A Toronto Star article this week made this point: “ … it’s not the BDSM that has Joe-Anne Dusel, provincial co-ordinator with the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan, worried.

“The elements of isolation and humiliation that go on outside of the bedroom are serious red flags,” Dusel said, noting that in the book, Grey tracks Steele’s cellphone, follows her to work, threatens her and isolates her from her family and friends.

“These are the tactics that the women who walk through our doors report on a daily basis they are experiencing in our own lives,” Walker said.”

We read the daily news and take in the dark, disturbing stories of Jian Ghomeshi, and Bill Cosby, and Ray Rice, and Chris Brown, and Charlie Sheen and we shake our heads saying “tsk, tsk”. And then paradoxically, we fill the local theatres to watch it acted it out as a desirable fantasy. Huh????

The book’s author E.L. James has long defended her books against accusations they promote violence.

But you know what? I don’t blame Ms. James for her book or the characterizations that are portrayed.

I don’t “blame” anyone.

It merely tells me that despite ALL of the strides that Western civilization has made in terms of gender equality and respect, there is still a huge number of those – both men AND women – who believe, or at least fantasize about a world where men can exercise total control over women.

 

… leaving me wanting, unzipping his fly, and pushing me down onto the couch so he’s lying on top of me.
“Hands on your head,” he commands through gritted teeth as he kneels up, forcing my legs wider…
“We don’t have long. This will be quick, and it’s for me, not you. Do you understand?
Don’t come, or I will spank you,” he says through clenched teeth.”

And those same women will sensuously sigh and raptly eat it up with delighted visions of denigration. Denigration at the hands of a handsome muscled hunk that treats them like a spent cigar butt on the street… enjoying a puff or two… but believing that it’s really just someone else’s trash.

It just leaves me sad…