I went to see 50 Shades of Grey because I wanted to understand what everyone was talking about.
No one who knows me would call me a prude. I’ve been accused of being the opposite.
I am open minded. I embrace most relationships.
Have I watched porn? Yes. I don’t know many people, especially young people, who haven’t. If you are a parent and you haven’t seen what your children probably have on the computer, you might want to give it a look. Obviously, that’s up to you.
But I found 50 Shades Of Grey disturbing.
Somewhere near the end Christian whips Ana. Whips.
Harness, hook, hood, flogger, diaper, spreader, body bag. These are the tools of real BDSM. These are some of the tools in Christian’s “playroom”.
I never read the book but I suspect in the privacy of your mind it was erotic and fun. I mean that.
I didn’t expect to be as unnerved as I was by BDSM on the big screen, with people munching on popcorn and giggling all around me while watching a “chick flick”.
Are we sending our kids the message that BDSM is something we can expect in a hit movie at the local mall on a Saturday night, and perhaps in relationships? Did we warn them that there are lots of sick minds out there and that BDSM might involve real risks like being beatings, internal injuries and worse?
I do not endorse or condemn BDSM. I understand the complicated pyschological relationship of domination, submission, torture and sexuality. But I doubt that anyone who takes part in BDSM considers it child’s play.
That’s why I’m having a hard time with 50 Shades of Grey. It’s BDSM, light?
You expressed it very truthfully & concisely, Jane. As for me, I didn’t like the movie…. for the same reason I couldn’t finish the first book. I have all 3 books, but wasted the money. It was like 7th grade reading level with an attempt to spice it up with some porn sensationalism. It simply didn’t work in either format, book / movie. It insults your intelligence to read / watch such drivel. Sex is between 2 consenting adults & private. This movie crosses that line & not in a good way. There’s no chemistry between the actors, the “biting your lip” thing was so overdone, the way the “dominant” Mr. Grey bent the rules for this “sweet little girl” Anastasia was not realistic & the “meet the parents” was lame. It was offensive for all the wrong reasons. That’s just my review of it. Hopefully we’ll hear from others who liked it?!?
Wow, well said Jeanne.
Wow! That’s a pretty gutsy subject matter for early Monday morning. You must have gotten up really early LOL. Obviously, 50 Shades has crossed your line. In a time when the “do anything you want as long as it doesn’t hurt me” attitude prevails, it’s nice to see someone drawing some personal boundaries, regardless of where the lines are located. Thanks for sharing.
My pleasure Hooper thanks for the thoughtful comment.
Read my story if you wonder why I don’t condone violence on women, especially the ones we love. SM or over wise. When one has been to war, that person no longer likes to play war games. I emerged making 3 promises: Never hit my wife, drink alcohol or get divorced. Sadly, 2 out of 3, I failed initially, but after “My Wilderness Years,” I got all three correct. When I go to the zoo and the sign says “DO NOT Feed The Animals” I don’t tarry by the Lion’s cage just hoping he will eat out of my hand.
So, I add jokingly, “Read at your own peril.”
JUST ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS
By age eight I had assumed the responsibility as family facilitator. I was the one who chose to set up with my father on the nights he had bouts with alcohol and various other activities. The qualifications were a willingness to accompany him, humor him, and be a constant source of sports and hunting trivia. Anything that would catch his attention and divert it away from the destruction he seemed to bring on himself and property of others. My dad was an anti-social personality and it was a chore to move him from a destructive mood to a more passive mood until the liberal doses of alcohol he consumed were less likely to produce an incident.
His mother had died when he was about six or seven years old. He was raised as the youngest of four brothers and it was a tough part of the country. His brothers had mostly moved on by the time his dad married his step-mother. She had several kids his age and required that he sell newspapers everyday and bring the money home to her. She gave much of it to her kids who were not required to work. If he got home after 9:00 p.m. the door was locked. He would climb into a barrel on the porch that was for dirty rags to stay warm. By 15 he was gone from there. He started working in the coal mines at sixteen.
My Mother was barely sixteen when they were married. She had long ago realized that when those storm clouds gathered it was better to take an early exit from that arena and retire to bed. My sister was willing but that was because she was combative and that played right into the role my father sought in his alcohol damaged mind. It was potentially a destructive combination. It was somewhat like striking a match to check on a can of gasoline. She would soon learn when to abort early; when he was drunk and combative.
Sharon was conscientious and studious. She often laid her school books out at the dinner table after everything was cleared and cleaned up after dinner. My mother was often caught between a rock and a hard place with trying to figure out in what mood Mr. Bailey might come home. Should she keep dinner on the stove or preserve it by saving it to the refrigerator and warm it up when he appeared.
If he did not like what he found he would flip the dinner table upside down and send the food and dishes flying. It also sent studious young daughters scurrying and books flying. It made everyone a nervous wreck. It often sent my mother to bed and my sister to visiting neighbors….preferably the ones far away.
One time she decided it would be a good time to visit the Senters family who lived a block down the street and then a couple of blocks up the road going toward the coal mine. She scurried along and passed the Setser’s house ten doors down and Mrs. Opal Setser was sitting outside on her porch as it was common to do in the summer.
My sister exchanged pleasantries and pressed on to her friend’s home but no one was there. She returned to the Setser’s and made small talk with Opal. Sharon asked if she might join her and wait out the storm clouds that were gathering at the other end of the street at our house. After some period of time Opal walked out into her yard and said, “Why your dad is down there playing ball with your brother in the street.” Sharon took that to mean the worst was over at our house.
My dad and I were passing a baseball.
By age 10-12 y.o. I had perfected the quick quip that disarmed my dad, most of the time. He loved sports and I learned I could disarm him, so to speak, with questions about boxing, baseball, football or basketball. I had knowledge of all and knew my hunting dogs and guns. I kept pace with the latest scores and activities that I knew would interest him. Many years later I learned we were filling roles like many families. The oldest is driven by school work and leadership. The youngest is often the one who learns to joke and how to control the environment with quips and incidental information. It was a survival mechanism that many younger children developed to function in a world much larger than themselves. I picked up that mantle.
One evening he appeared when I was about age ten and it was after supper. My Mother had saved supper and warmed it up for him. He didn’t like the fare so he turned the table upside-down, sending food
flying all over the kitchen floor. He was deliriously drunk and making no sense. My sister grabbed her school books and put them away. My mother was in the eye of the storm and alone with him in the kitchen.
I, later in life, learned that he had previously beaten her so severely as to render her head so sore that she could not comb or brush it for days without crying from the pain she felt in her hair. It was not one of my father’s more glowing traits. This evening I went into our bedroom and retrieved the single shot 12 gage shotgun and grabbed some shells from the closet. I was heading for the kitchen, possibly to confront him, when my sister asked me not to do that.
Eventually, he sat down in the living room and was talking crazy stuff. He was saying he had made some bets or been gambling and lost but could not payoff. Someone was coming to get him. He wanted me to go and get his 12 gage shotgun which he did not realize I had previously had possession of that night with the idea of protecting the family. Everyone had made it to safety for the moment and it was just
the two of us. I needed to keep him talking and away from booze until some of his alcohol processed through his body and he went to sleep or sobered up some. That’s a tall order in retrospect but desperate times often call for desperate actions on the part of the least likely people.
We talked rabbit hunting and squirrel hunting and which of our dogs was better for each and why. I asked if Jim Brown would ever make it in pro football and his answer was Jim Brown would make it anywhere he wanted to. He was a man among boys in his chosen field. At that time his chosen field was lugging a football at Syracuse University. He later played for the Cleveland Browns professional football team and is now in the Football Hall of Fame. It was anything to keep his mind from considering disastrous acts.
I got the shotgun and he wanted some shells. He loaded and unloaded the weapon. He would cock it and look at the door as if expecting someone to come through there at any moment. It was getting late and past normal people’s bedtime but this was a special occasion.
There was movement on the porch and I went to the door. We had a solid door and a screen door. I opened one and left the other closed. Outside was a man I recognized that lived a block and a half away. He was Dallas Peters and the rumor was he was much like my father. My dad was 5’9” and weighed 150 lbs as long as he worked in the coal mines. Mr. Peters was 5’7” and weighed no more than about 135 lbs.
He was as drunk as my dad had been earlier or still was. He opened the screen door and started in the door. From behind me my father was approaching the scene. I felt the shotgun barrel just nudge me to the side and slightly out of the way or as it were, the line of fire. I looked around as my dad pulled the trigger of the 12 gage shotgun. I heard the click of a dry fire weapon. That was one of the cardinal sins of a gun owner such as my father. I was taught never to do that because it could damage the firing pin. My father had intended to shoot and possibly kill Dallas Peters upon him entering our home uninvited. In some states that wouldn’t even be a breach of the law. In Texas, if someone enters your property after dark and you feel the safety of family is threatened it is lawful to shoot them. The police might ask some questions but it is usually, “No Bill.”
My dad dropped the shotgun and I grabbed it and took it back to the bedroom and stowed it between the mattress and box springs on the bed. The bed might prove to be a little bit lumpy but by the time he went to sleep it would be past disaster time. I hurried back to the front room and the door.
My dad had charged out the door as Mr. Peters entered or attempted to do so. They were exchanging punches like a couple of lightweights and then started wrestling and gouging and rolling around on our front porch. We had a double porch swing to the right as one looked out the door. The swing was attached to the ceiling of the front porch by two chains and they went over that and into my mother’s flower garden under the kitchen window. I saw my dad seemingly getting the best of Mr. Peters as they spilled out into the yard, landing on the corner of the edge of the porch. I was sure someone was going to die this night.
We did not have a telephone but our neighbor, Pete Moore, did. I headed there to call the police. There was no dispatcher. When we called the police, I learned, we called the home of one, Officer Stilson
Thurman. He was the only County Police Officer in our area and it took at least a riot to change that. We weren’t there, yet. It was not immediately apparent that the Moore family was watching or listening to Friday Night Fights at the Bailey’s but they did get to the door in a hurry. We must have been the most entertaining action in town. We didn’t even know to be embarrassed. I just thought that was the way life was supposed to be.
Stilson answered the phone at home and I said, “Someone is going to get killed. There is a big fight down in the Flat Top Camp.” Well, now, that didn’t excite him in the least. I mean it was past his bedtime and all that. His daughter Diane was in my class at school. I didn’t think I should play that card. It might be better to be anonymous. He asked, ‘Who’s fighting?” I said, “Luke Bailey and Dallas Peters.” He said, “I’ll get over that way tomorrow, sometime.” It was pretty easy to see where we were on the pecking order of life. We just didn’t count all that much. I just figured right then, don’t bother those boys anymore.
Just let events unfold and massage the details to fit the scenario of the latest, best survivor. The irascible Mr. Bailey would have many more of those little shindigs before he was through.
I returned to the scene and found they were through fighting and Dallas Peters was holding his arm in a peculiar way as if protecting his ribs. He was having a labored problem of breathing. He lived a block and a half away but no one was offering him a ride, besides it was only partially uphill. My dad had the usual complement of bruises and abrasions. The next time I saw Mr. Peters he had tape wrapped around his rib cage and had a broken rib. I’m not sure he ever missed any time from his job as an underground coal miner.
It was just “One of Those Nights.” There was a bunch of them in our community and family. My dad slept a peaceful sleep once he exorcised the demons from his soul. I recovered the old 12 gage shotgun and broke it down into three easy pieces and separated them.
I never did figure when my dad had unloaded that shotgun and he didn’t know either.
I was able to ‘Control’ him for a few years. Eventually, I matured enough to step into harm’s way between when he accosted my mother.
He took the liberty to move my nose around on my face a time or two with that wicked left hook of his that just came up from the floor and cold cocked anyone challenging his motives or actions. He was always first to fight and last to flight whether it be in a bar, with a bunch of coal miners on the job, or with his family at home. The man was an original and I miss him to this day….warts and all. Gosh where there ever emotional warts? But, he could mine coal.
Tom, thank you so much for sharing your poignant story. I’m happy for you that you were finally able to “step away” from the responsibility of trying to control someone else. All my best, Jane