Professor Huber
FAM 253-19Z
31 October 2017
Fifty Shades of Grey and Society’s view of Sexual Variation
E L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey is not only a masterpiece in exploring a Bondage Discipline, Sadism, and Masochism (BDSM) relationship between two completely opposite characters, but is also a New York Times Bestseller, which is why I chose this book and topic for my research paper. The main characters of this book are Anastasia Steel, who is an innocent literature student at Washington State University, and Christian Grey, who is a young entrepreneur. Anastasia is portrayed as a shy and kindhearted person who can be awkward and keeps to herself. Christian is portrayed as a young, handsome business-driven man; he also has …show more content…
Once Anastasia and Christian have an agreement, and start engaging in the BDSM relationship, she quickly wants to explore her sexuality in greater detail and learn her own ‘dark desires’ quickly after losing her virginity to him. The author does an exceptional job with this book because it allows readers to grasp what this type of relationship is like, since it is not a typical form of sexual expression. This book is groundbreaking because it truly tests societal norms in terms of human sexuality. It also lets the reader know that his or her sexual expression is solely based on the individual, as everyone is different.
After reading Fifty Shades of Grey, there was an instant connection between human sexuality, sexual variation and how it is portrayed in society. The term sexual variation is referred to as “sexual desires and behaviors outside what is considered to be the normal range, although what is unusual or atypical varies between cultures and from one period to another” (US National Library of Medicine, 2017). In other words, Christian and Anastasia are in a BDSM relationship, which is the main focus of the erotic romance novel. So, this type of sexual …show more content…
It is evident; according to society, most of the populous do not speak about human sexuality because of the "touchy" subject. The author has created a new era for expressing and experimenting non-traditional sexual lifestyles. Reading this book I now fully grasp that both characters are ordinary people who just enjoy non-traditional sexual lifestyles, which is perfectly okay. Anastasia and Christian are just as "weird" or whatever you want to call it, as the people who get aroused by feet, watching others engage in sexual intercourse, shoe fetishes, and mentioned in the article from Silva. In other words, by taking this course, and reading this novel and extensive research, I have learned that my sexual identity is someone’s personal choice to explore, and that society should not pressure anyone into sticking with traditional forms. In present day, individuals are used to censorship, which prohibits such things as BDSM because it is deemed pornographic material. Unfortunately, there are no ways to immediately change the way children are properly introduced to different sexual variation however now, when my friends ask me about these sexual variations, I can confidently educate them as to what they truly mean, and give them examples. This knowledge comes from the research done for this project and now with a somewhat “personal view” of what someone with different