50 Shades of Erogenous

I didn’t want to but I finally read 50 Shades of Grey and I realize what the fuss is about. Despite the hideous beginning and the clunky set up, this book was written for everywoman. For every woman who has ever had a farting disappointing husband who won’t do housework, for every girl who has ever had a crush on a hunk and been taken back to his place only to meet his village idiot stoned flatmates, then tripped over his PlayStation on the way to his bed. For every woman who has left a pub with a guy and gone to his flat to find week old baked beans on the kitchen counter and the smell of unwashed bedding in his room. For all of us who’ve been underwhelmed by sexual encounters and the mundane chores of our lives rearing children and cleaning out the garage. 50 Shades is sex set in Vogue Living, where all the chores are done and the personal trainer is paid for. It’s pure fantasy without the dirty period stained undies and the car breaking down and your best friend who won’t tell you your thighs are too fat so you both eat chips for dinner every night. The fantasy is why women have bought it in droves, it’s sex with the lifestyle we’ve been sold by Ikea advertising that can be ours, but will never be ours because we can’t afford it; we don’t have the staff or the time or the money for the helicopter or the leather furniture. Christian Grey is an arsehole, but he’s a gentlemanly arsehole. And a lot of women would rather that than some fumbling boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, who smells of his mechanic’s workshop and too many Chiko rolls to feed his hangover. Some of us want class, the lord of the manor to come down and sweep us off our dainty feet and take us away from the humdrum, the mundane existence we live when all we can afford is takeaway once a fortnight and a dodgy DVD from the shop down the road so we can pay for our holiday in Bali once a year.