Publications
Partners
The much anticipated 50 Shades of Grey is opening this Friday in South African cinemas, just in time for Valentine’s Day, and I cannot believe how much things have changed in the last couple of decades.
I can still remember when Basic Instinct came out. It was one year before the end of compulsory military conscription in SA and I had a cousin in the army.
The movie’s age restriction was 2-21 which meant that while my cousin was technically allowed to kill and die for his country, he wasn’t allowed to see Sharon Stone uncross her legs on the big screen.
Those adults above the age restriction flocked to the cinema in droves, but in secret droves, mind you. I’ve heard of many people who sent in scouts to see if there wasn’t someone who’d recognise them in the queues before they slipped in and bought their tickets.
And with good reason.
People were freaking out about it.
In those days sex was still something people didn’t really talk about. And a sexually confident, sexually aggressive even, woman, as Sharon Stone portrays in the film, was seen as nothing short of deviant.
Fast-forward 23 years (oh God, when did I get so old?) and the definition of deviance looks very different. We’re two days away from the mainstream release of a movie about bondage, domination, and S&M.
I say mainstream, because although there has been many hard- and softcore movies and thousands on thousands of publications of erotic fiction, this is the first time a novel in this genre has sold over 100 million books, has been translated into 52 languages and is now a major Hollywood picture.
And even more revolutionary, it’s about female desire and told from a woman’s point of view and by a female director.
Of course people everywhere have many, many issues with the whole 50 Shades thing. My personal beef was just the sheer horror of the prose. I could only skim read through the first one to get to the dirty bits and even that was hard for me. Especially since there are so many well written works of erotica out there.
I also see a lot of people already having a field day criticising the movie, for everything from lack of chemistry, to bad acting.
And on a more serious note, the consent issues and domination has sparked a lot of claims of the work being anti-feminist and misogynist.
Personally, I think it’s anti-feminist to tell 100 million women what they should or should not be turned on by, but dubious consent in erotic fiction and fantasies is a whole other can of worms that I’m not going to open now.
Either way, women’s sexuality and desires and female erotic aids have gone mainstream. And do we really think that’s a bad thing?
Follow Women24 on Twitter or like us on Facebook.
