fifty shades of annoying the ever living crap out of me

I read an article today on cnn.com about Explaining 'Fifty Shades' Wild Success. And dang it, I wanted it explained to me!

This whole phenomenon is utterly baffling to me.

I have collected erotica for about 18 years now.  And no, I'm not talking about Johanna Lindsay-like smut books, but classics by Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Anne Desclos and then pretty much everything that Susie Bright puts out there as well as Maxim Jakubowski, so on and so forth.  Altogether I have over 30 anthologies and novels both fiction & autobiographical.

So maybe that's why nothing in here is 'tee-hee' shocking to me or blush rendering.  I've read it all before - and then some - except by authors who can write.  I swear this is some of the worst writing I've ever read and I do consider Stephenie Meyer a bad writer despite my love for the books.  I have repeatedly picked up the first book and just can't stomach the over the top obviousness of it, the terrible character names and the cliched catch phrases and 'oh my god no one should be this good-looking' lines.  Meyer already did that thankyouverymuch.

So when I read this article I realized how maybe I'm just not in that 50 Shades demographic.  Here's my take:

Most of the people I know who have read the books, raved about them and then badgered me to get them are Twilight fans.  Not surprising considering this trilogy was written by a Twilight fan on a Twilight fan fiction site.  There is an interesting phenomenon (ha!  I used that word twice and spelled it right each time) in which someone who is a Twilight fan will mention a book she likes and it slowly catches on until the damn thing has a movie deal (The Hunger Games, I Am Number Four - gag -, The Mortal Instrument series, The Beautiful Creatures series).  This can be both awesome (Hunger Games) and bloody awful (I Am Number Four).  One of the most common review quotes on the back cover of YA Supernatural/Romance books is 'Fans of Twilight will love this book!'

And it makes sense.  I wasn't a big YA reader until I picked up the Twilight books.  Now I would say I've read more YA in the past 3 years than general fiction.  When you find a genre you like you tend to stick with it until you've made yourself sick of it.  And the covers (which is pointed out in the cnn piece) is very Twilight like.  Very simple, bold, curious covers in only a few colors.  Even for me, someone who most certainly judges a book by its cover, it's appealing.

The subset of readers who were not Twilight fans that rave over this book are the people who rolled their eyes at the Twilight madness and called Bella a horrible female role model and Edward a psycho stalker.  They knew enough about the books because deep down they really wanted to read them, but their hipster attitudes didn't want to be part of that crowd.  So they turned up their noses to the series because it was childish and unrealistic because, you know, books aren't supposed to be any sort of fantasy.

So these people, they saw 50 Shades and thought, now here's a book I can read and I'll be cool because it's got handcuffs and butt plugs in it and that's soooooo shocking.  There's not a sparkly vampire to be seen!  Plus, you've got the added bonus of not having to be found searching the teen section at Barnes & Noble for the book.  You shall be in Grown-Up-Book-Land.

I'm not saying I won't read these books and possibly end up loving them.  I own them.  I owned the Twilight series for about 6 months before I finally gave in and read them, but I waded through 82 pages of that book and fell in love.  This one, it's been a shitstorm in my head just trying to get through the first chapter.

Honest to Buddha I just don't get it.  I cannot stomach this writing.  It's almost a crime against the erotica genre.  On the other hand it's nice to see women so readily relishing in some porn without being ashamed so, carry on! 

Power to the porn!