a cultured discussion of the relevance of 50-shades as a reference text

[TinaMigarlo]

@Bimbanana @eagle_360
the thread title says it all.
Bimbanana wanted to know when we do this, so... here we are
eagle_360 cited the work as a reference text, so, that input should obviously be summoned.
I made it a separate thread, because:
1) no need to clutter up the other thread and veer off topic for OP
2) this is smut-hub, this might be a potent topic

here's my take on fifty...

it was all year heard about, talk about a media buzz.
TV. Comedians. Pundits. Talk show hosts. Radio.
There was no *end* to it. If you lived under a rock, you knew this book was out there.
if you couldn't even read, you knew this book existed.

All I knew? This book was out there. It was huge news. And it was supposed to be the dirtiest thing ever.
controversy, discussions, it was ridiculous.
A friend asked me if I ever read it? No. Did I want to read it? Nope.
I did ask about it though, I was starting to write again.
I was asked what I knew about it, and what could I say. Its a dirty S&M love story, dirty book store S&M finally went "mainstream".

and I was told... no.
she had read it, then was reading the second and third as they came out as well.
I was told... its *nothing* except a box-stock, off the shelf, every day romance novel.
Period. End of story.
You know how every romance is a formula, but there's always a setting?
the setting, was S&M.
But... there was hardly any "action" like I was thinking.

But... I head this is the dirtiest thing ever...
and she laughed, that was the AD CAMPAIGN.
you read it? They TALK about the toys. They TALK about doing stuff.
the author DESCRIBES all the toys and their use to titillate, but... almost no action.

did I want to read some? Well, what the hell.
I was told to start... here.
I read... whoop, dee, do.
she got twenty birthday smacks with a belt. big whoop.
like every vanilla couple doesn't do that once in a while.

I backed up 40 odd pages... read read read. No action.
I read after another 30 odd pages... read read read. No action.
I said:
"All the hype? That was it? I've read dirtier stuff in regular novels!"

and that was the big secret, to the "dirty" 50-shades. It wasn't.
It was just a novelty way to generate controversy and a viral marketing campaign.
for an off the shelf, otherwise unremarkable romance.
what I used to always call a "bodice ripper" (the kiss, too wild to be reigned... *puke*)

half the people loved the thing, the other half panned it. It was universally both loved and hated.
To me, it was just a savvy premise to a romance novel.
there, that's my take on the original, and the same reader gave me constant updates on the second and third books, trust me.

fast forward. I got the DVD for a dollar at a flea market. Might as well watch the movie, see what all the hub-bub is about.
I fell *asleep*
next night? I watched a different part... fell asleep again.
I'm not kidding, several nights I tried, it just literally put me to sleep.
I ran across DVD 2 and DVD 3, one free other for a dollar. now I got two bucks into all three DVDs.
all three? put me to sleep, I couldn't finish one.
(romances, books or movies? do that to me)

on another site, the writing was widely panned.
Excerpts were posted, images right out of the book, sentences highlighted.
a little cringe, a lot of "ly" words everywhere.
Didn't seem like the best writing ever put out.
Not saying MY writing is any good, but I'm not the big shot best selling billionaire author, either.

I saw it all as a viral marketing campaign, to get girls to read what they read anyways. A romance.
but hey... why not read THIS One.
Also? billionaire romance, because the old fashioned millionaire romance, got boring.

in the wake of this thing, I feel it really kicked off...
1) billionaire romance trope
2) dirty sex demand, in mainstream. no more hiding it.

there. bimbanana and eagle_360 can now give their take on the thing, before I say what I took from it, and did with the idea as a reference.
I'm a nobody, but eagle has some success, and bimbanana is a screenwriter, so... lets hear you guys hot takes on it.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

The thing that amused me most about it was the author's frank statement that it started as Twilight fan fiction - her whole premise was "What if Bella and Edward met as adults instead of high school students?"
And then she replaced "vampirism" with "s&m," changed all the names, and had a hit on her hands...
She wrote two sequels. And then went BACK and genderswapped the characters... It was practically printing money.

The closest thing I heard to a review of it was, believe it or not, by Rush Limbaugh - his wife liked the first one but not enough to follow the seires, so he read it and thought it was the worst thing he'd ever read, partly due to the having more implied filth than actual filth (and he praised Breaking Bad as being amazingly well-written and acted, "despite the characters having no redeeming qualities whatsoever"; I think even doing so in the same episode, unless it was one of those weekly "clip shows").

 

[Bimbanana]

I'm actually do producer work more than doing screenwriting tho.
So my take is : ITS A MAGNIFICENT RESULT (Yes, we producers are result oriented)

It opened the eyes of millions of pure & innocent people (definitely not the people in this thread), which might be the actual target market (not the pro like some people here). Made them to be more honest with their kinky side despite their society perfect angelic appearance.

I like that we can be more open on talking about non-normative fantasy in public spaces now. (well, maybe not on every spaces)

But! Look at that! my chapters quota haven't been met yet.
So i'll go back to my hermitage and come back here later.

PS: although please do call me if there's any cosplay session in this discussion.

The thing that amused me most about it was the author's frank statement that it started as Twilight fan fiction - her whole premise was "What if Bella and Edward met as adults instead of high school students?"
And then she replaced "vampirism" with "s&m," changed all the names, and had a hit on her hands...
She wrote two sequels. And then went BACK and genderswapped the characters... It was practically printing money.

The closest thing I heard to a review of it was, believe it or not, by Rush Limbaugh - his wife liked the first one but not enough to follow the seires, so he read it and thought it was the worst thing he'd ever read, partly due to the having more implied filth than actual filth (and he praised Breaking Bad as being amazingly well-written and acted, "despite the characters having no redeeming qualities whatsoever"; I think even doing so in the same episode, unless it was one of those weekly "clip shows").

Oh? this is new for me.
Thanks for the fun fact

 

[TinaMigarlo]

i had heard more than once, it started out life as a fan fiction of something.

now. what came out of it?
next thing you know... romance stories started getting dirtier and dirtier.
readers were demanding more dirty.
next thing you know, the phrase "chick lit" starts getting thrown around.
IE, its technically a romance, but its basically porn.

for me, this is nothing new under the sun.
if you look back in time, dirty bookstores? where you buy toys and lotions...
they were called colloquially dirty BOOK stores, because they sole naughty paperbacks.
S&M was always a hot item.
writing insider lore? more than one real writer, got their start cranking those things out.

they were guilty pleasures.
you didn't want caught dead with one in public.
of course, like any guilty pleasure.
NO ONE EVER read one? SOMEONE was buying the damn things, lol.

along comes dirty stories online... those places get ad revenue out the butt, someone reads the stuff
(literotica, anyone?)
then along comes self publishing, and book downloading and kindle and all that.
like MAGIC, you can't get "caught" with the book laying around, or seen at the dirty book store...
so with privacy assured, the things started selling again.

50 shades just got the whole deal going mainstream.

here's where I scratch my head, though.
there's all these "concern police" running around.
"Porn should be outlawed, it objectifies women"
"Porn leads to violence towards women"
Blah blah blabbity blah blah, bunch of performative bull-spit...

look at the SALES of the so called "dark romance" stories.
bad boy criminal, basically rapes, abuses, captures and tortures... the "heroine" of the "romance'...
... and she loves it. She, "discovered" a new "side" to her "sexuality" that she hadn't known was there...

women LOVE this stuff.
men like to LOOK at porn fantasy
women just prefer to READ it
and when you get down to it, the dirtier the better.

sex sells, who knew, right? LOL

 

[CharlesEBrown]

i had heard more than once, it started out life as a fan fiction of something.

now. what came out of it?
next thing you know... romance stories started getting dirtier and dirtier.
readers were demanding more dirty.

Ah no, not true at all - romance stories were bordering on porn long before Twilight was published, let alone its fan fiction written. Harlequin even spun off a sub-line of Spicy Romance Stories to cater to that side back in the late 80s or so (at least that was the pub date of the one my wife left out that I tried to read once).
Of course, for a while they had several sub-lines - Spicy, Western, Dark, Regency and at least two others.

along comes dirty stories online... those places get ad revenu out the butt,

Perhaps even literally...

someone reads the stuff
(literotica, anyone?)

What saved (for some) or ruined (for others) Laurel K. Hamilton and her "Anita Blake" stories - allegedly, while she was writing the second book, her marriage started to fall apart. While she was writing the third book, a friend tried to console her and maybe save their marriage by introducing both of them to erotica. Instead, it took over her life and her writing. Her sales remained stable - the people turned off by the increasingly present and graphic sex were replaced by people reading only FOR it. From some fans of hers, I heard that she started reigning it in around book eleven and book fourteen was back down to book three levels, and also the best thing she wrote ever. But I only read one, two and eight (that latter generally considered the worst thing she wrote)

look at the SALES of the so called "dark romance" stories.
bad boy criminal, basically rapes, abuses, captures and tortures... the "heroine" of the "romance'...
... and she loves it. She, "discovered" a new "side" to her "sexuality" that she hadn't known was there...

Were you around for the "Big Fictional Romance" of the 80s - Luke and Laura on General Hospital? He accidentally (was planning to rape someone else, she turned up instead and he didn't realize his mistake until he'd already started) raped her, and they wound up falling in love and getting married over two years of the show.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

I don't do romance.
I don't do soap opera.
I knew romances were "getting better" for women back in the day?
just because I heard people talking.
I assumed that what was "spicy" or "dark" for 1990, would be wimpy compared to today's dark romances.

fast forward to couple years ago.
I was on another site, someone comes in and says look at this.
"some chick" had written an explicit naughty story, fetish erotica.
it was the big overnight success story on downloads, 120,000 downloads her first month, new unknown amateur author.
We figured out what she made with minimum pricing on KU
My lord, this chick is set for life if she doesn't waste the money...
as well as has her foot all the way through the door to be a professional author now.

samples of this 100 page literary masterpiece were posted around for days.
The plot? Wasn't, at all.
It was just a loosely strung together series of pornographic sexually explicit fetish erotica scenes.
literary porn.
we all agreed, it was poorly written. There were still typos,
there was goofy amateur stuff like reading a twitter post.
I'm not even throwing shade here, I looked at that?
Jesus H Christ, I can write better than THIS crap.
And thus was born, my SMUT project.

I'll pause here, to allow for station identification, and expert opinion...
before describing what I did to tackle the "great smut challenge".