Of 50 Shades of Grey and the numbers game

So Valentine’s weekend was the premier of 50 Shades of Grey, the movie. The movie set up two very opposing camps. Those who termed the movie sick and twisted; my Facebook timeline was filled with these. I saw blogs about how the movie set behind the fight for gender equality, how the movie misrepresents love, 10 reasons I will not watch 50 shades of grey among many others I will not bother to get into right now. On the opposing side are those who termed the movie as “harmless”, “flirtatious” or “fun”. There are enough blogs on that too.

When 50 shades of Grey was first published I was keen on getting a copy myself. Most of my girlfriends were praising this book and I was tired of being left out of the conversation. Now if you know me, you know there is nothing I love more than a good book, a hot cup of tea and my duvet on a weekend. So when I finally had the trilogy in soft copy, I was beyond delighted. I have a rule for filtering out a good book from a bad book; if it is still terrible at Chapter 8, it is a terrible book. It had terrible prose, bad dialogue and do not get me started on Ana’s inner goddess.

By the time I got to chapter 8, I knew the storyline was pathetic and not worth my time. I however attempted to read past chapter 8 till 12. By then I was so irritated that I just hit the shift and delete button on my computer and tried to wrap my head on how such a lousy book made it to be a best seller. So I searched Google for the plot. I was curious, perhaps I had bad taste or I missed something. The search results just confirmed my fears; if it wasn’t for all the explicit content this book would not have seen the light of day let alone getting published.

Our generation needs to start reading. I am talking Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Chinua Achebe and Harper Lee among other great authors. Blogs and newspapers are not literature, they are just articles. Get off the social networks and nourish your mind. Why you need to upload a #selfie and #groundie of you doing absolutely nothing, beats me. I am hundred percent sure that if it was not for the social networks, the 50 shades trilogy would not have gotten published let alone make it to best seller status. That woman had major life crisis, she spilled her crisis on the internet and became a billionaire thanks to this hash-tagging and trolling business.

I am however appalled by the need of majority of women to label 50 shades as a love story or romance. The closest label I ever seen to what exactly it is, is “mommy porn”. Why is it even called “mommy porn”? Does the label make the book less of what it is? If you ask me what the book is, I will call it a poorly written work of pornography or erotica. Now I do not know the difference between erotica and pornography but someone used a metaphor of feather versus the whole chicken and another said the difference is in the level of lighting and another said it depends with your taste. I however do not believe in the erotic-pornography continuum, it either intends to sexually stimulate or otherwise; simple.

Back to 50 shades, this is not a review of the book or the movie, I am more interested in why women want to hide behind the love story label. Why are women afraid of owning up to their sexuality? If a man watches porn, it’s normal but when a woman watches porn the whole world is horrified. Explains our hypocrisy about 50 Shades and the insistence to have a movie produced under the genre of ‘chic-flick’ or romance. It even explains why there are few to zero ministries to help women deal with pornography addiction. Women apparently do not struggle with the disorders of lust. Lust is a man’s problem. If I read another hypocritical blog about 50 Shades being sick and twisted or it being harmless fun, I will just flip. It is porn and it is exactly how porn is supposed to be. No grey areas about it, pun intended.

Women just like men are human beings and sexuality is an aspect of being human. While women are encouraged to be chaste, men are encouraged to explore their sexuality and gain as much experience as possible. Why the double standard dear society? It is a badge of honour for a man to have bedded half the town but a shame for a woman to have done the same. This is pretence of the highest level. Why society, why?
With women, your sexual experience is the definition of your character. A virgin is mostly considered a better woman than one who has slept with too many men. It doesn’t matter if the said virgin is a gossip, mean, pompous, rude among other negative things while the other woman is kind, empathetic, and humble among other positive things. Because of their sexual experience their character is decided in the eyes of majority. Even in 50 Shades Ana, the lead female was a virgin and Grey, the lead male had a vast history of sexual experience. Why couldn’t it be vice versa or just let Ana have experience too? It just goes on to perpetuate the double standard lie of virginity.

There is nothing that annoys me more than the numbers game. ‘The master key and crappy padlock’ metaphor to explain the differences in sexual values among men and women. Whoever came up with that needs to be beaten up. If you are not familiar with it, do not bother knowing what it is. I do not want your values corrupted. Women need to watch their number of sexual partners but for men who cares about numbers right. Too many partners and you will be termed “spoilt goods”, “easy” or “loose”. Why were these terms invented? Recently, I asked a girlfriend of mine why women should observe the ‘famous’ 90-day rule. She said to protect herself. Protect herself from what exactly? She calmly replied, from sleeping with the wrong guy. Who is the wrong guy? The guy who does not love her. So it’s okay to sleep with the man who loves you but there is a problem if a woman has a friend-with-benefits or a one night stand? So why isn’t there a 90-day rule for men? If you ask me, the 90-day rule is the most foolish thing I have ever heard in my lifetime. According to scientific evidence infatuation lasts for four months; so if the guy was only infatuated with you, will 90 days make him suddenly fall in love with you? I doubt it. If he was planning to “hit it and quit it”, I highly doubt 90 days will make a difference. The 90-day rule is just part of the numbers hullabaloo. What is it with men and asking about a woman's sexual history? will it make you feel better that there was only one guy before you or do you seriously expect a thrill-seeking, beautiful, extremely liberal, single woman past the age of 30 to have only slept with three guys since her first experience at 18? Take it from me: if she is past the age of 25, do not ask, you do not want to know.

As women we need to stop calling other women whores, unless it is her profession. If we women call other women whores, won’t it not give men the right to do so? Your sexual values are personal and that is between you and your creator. Do not impose them on others. You believe in waiting until marriage, good for you. Do not call other women whores because they choose otherwise. So you have had numerous FWBs, do not call other women prudes or uptight because they are not as liberal as you are. So you only have sex when you are in a relationship, do not frown upon her choice to have casual sex. A woman’s sexuality and sexual choices is her business. Women just like men are more than their sexual choices. Our sexuality as human beings is something personal and we should keep it that way. The point of this rant is, sexuality just like religion is universal, there should be no double standards about it. An atheist, muslim, christian, hindu or agnostic is such whether man or woman. If we are going to use labels let the rules apply to both men and women. So ladies can we agree that 50 Shades of Grey is not a love story?