50 Shades of...... reactions.

The parking lot was packed out with not one spot left even though we were thirty minutes early. Women were everywhere. Cops were parked out front. Signs of Valentine's Day permeated the air: Nervous laughter from uncomfortable would-be couples. Groups of single people making the best out of what might otherwise have been a lonely Friday night. Red ribbons and streamers hanging from the ceiling in the wine bar, where they served deliciously red mixed drinks. The bathrooms line was filled with women sizing each other up with smirks on their faces, wondering who was on the right team. There wasn't a protester in sight, but the atmosphere suggested that no one would have been surprised to find themselves accosted for the name of the film on the ticket stub in their hand.
It was Friday the 13th, and here in Fayetteville, NC, the air inside the brand new Patriot Carmike Cinema complex was electric..... the mood was one of smoke, and fire.
The movie theater employee who addressed the crowd asked animatedly: "Are you guys excited to see 50 Shades of Grey??"
And the crowd cheered, albeit nervously, as they packed in close to make room for stragglers. She promised a full theater and I wondered at how much the experience of going to the movies had changed in just a few short years.
The mass popularity and consequential polarization of women over this book and film series felt somehow like a momentous event in American culture.
For the first time in my mind's saturated-in-French-culture memory, Americans were talking about sex. Out loud.
And not just any sex..... they were talking about BDSM.
In Europe, we often say that Americans are the most gluttonous of cultures precisely because people here are notorious for holding puritanical beliefs externally that force them to keep secrets and act out.
Puritanicalism creates a culture that is hypocritical at best and flat out schizophrenic at worst. Ask your European friends..... they'll tell you Americans usually make the rest of the world shake their head in wonder. BDSM is typically portrayed as an "extreme"type of sexual expression, and so it seems perfectly natural to the rest of the world for Americans to open the public dialogue about sex and relationships via a book and film about bondage and domination.
I've been chastized repeatedly for even bothering to see the film and review it, so as not to add to the voices out there discussing it. The way I see it, the more we talk about this stuff, the better.
Also, I rarely see my newsfeed so opinionated and polarized over a book.
If memory serves the last time I think it was over Twilight, and Twilight has a lot to do with why I'm writing this review in the first place.
You see, when Twilight came out, I jumped on the boycott bandwagon. Without knowing anything about it, I poopooed it til the cows came home. Only to read it, years later, and realize that I had been so, so wrong. Twilight was amazing. It was surprisingly well written and beautiful, with powerful themes that reflect the virtues we hope to highlight to our children.
Twilight remains an epic example of a creative display of Truth and Beauty and I regret very much the time I lost ignoring it in popular culture.
I normally review movies and books with paranormal themes, though, and 50 Shades is not one of them. But I needed to do this, because I didn't want to miss the chance to comment on popular culture for the sake of my sisters who sit and who wonder. And though I didn't feel about 50 Shades even remotely as good as I did about Twilight, I think it bears noting that I didn't walk out shocked, horrified, full of unbridled lust, or ready to fling reason to the wind, either.
I walked out thoughtful.
So there I sat, lights dimming all around me with a dear, like-minded friend, ready to experience 50 Shades and come to my own conclusions. If I've learned nothing else in the past three months, it's been that I will never again let people draw conclusions for me. Let me always think. Let me always reason. Let me always be open, and listen.

Before I can address the film itself, I have to address the reasons people are criticizing it.
First... the graphic sex itself.
Let's be real: this was no where near as naughty as people claimed it was going to be. Certainly no worse than, say, Vikings, or Game of Thrones, or HBO's Rome.
So if people are boycotting it on the premise that it's pornographic, but still watching other TV shows, to you, I roll my eyes. Truly. I'm not saying there wasn't any graphic sex or nudity. I am saying that it was no more shocking than most popular American TV shows these days. There will always be those who find nudity shocking, and more power to them. Many persons in my community intentionally shield themselves from it and this is not a comment about them, in fact I admire their commitment to purity. However, it is my duty to point out that if you are making facebook posts about how evil the graphic sex in 50 Shades is while sitting on your couch watching Game of Thrones.... well.... you're wrong.

Next: the elements of "abusive behavior" / bondage and domination.
Again, let's be real for a moment. BDSM is not abuse in any way shape or form. In fact, I'm not sure if my readers realize this, but for every Christian rabidly posting on social media about boycotting 50 Shades, there is a person openly involved in the BDSM community who is also posting boycott requests. Why? Because for people who aren't familiar with BDSM, for people with both feet firmly planted in the land of vanilla sex, 50 Shades may give a misleading portrayal of what BDSM actually is. It contains all of the elements without a proper explanation, leaving the elements open to interpretation. And so to fairly portray BDSM, here, I think, is important.

BDSM is about two (yes, or sometimes more) people consenting from their own free will to explore fantasies and desires (both sexual and nonsexual) with each other in a safe and sane way.

BDSM typically involves building platonic relationships first, deciding carefully on the pursuit of a sexual relationship, building trust and communication for long periods of time in said potentially sexual relationship, often goes so far as to include a contract which clearly communicates the rights and responsibilities of each party within that relationship before any sexual contact occurs, and furthermore, said relationships are oftened hoped to last for life. The practices of BDSM include breaking down physical and psychological barriers, paying careful and loving attention towards each partner's wants, needs, and fears, and many persons claim to find it both healing and enjoyable, which is why many persons go so far as to identify with BDSM and seek to build community and a lifestyle around it. Again, BDSM is about sex, but only insofar as sex is a part of human relationships. Many people practice BDSM without having sex at all, and many others incorporate BDSM sexuality into their ordinary lifestyles, recognizing in it some spark of something they find healing or helpful in relationships.
Let me be very clear: I say this not to normalize BDSM but to give you a truer depiction of what it is and means to those who practice it than what your imagination or popular culture might be portraying it as.
The problem with 50 Shades is that instead of seeing BDSM through the eyes of the people who practice it, the viewer here is seeing it through the eyes of a woman who not only isn't familiar with the dynamics and culture of BDSM, but is also a virgin, so inexperienced with sex in a general sense and also with relationships. She also isn't seeking a spouse or long term relationship, but an experience, and not even with any foresight, just.... as it comes.

And to the public, this creates a situation that leaves BDSM open to interpretation, when in fact it is a particular set of norms that -- though it means different things to different people -- cannot be changed. BDSM can not ever be abuse, because it is the opposite of abuse, in a way. It is a loving, caring, committed exploration of one's own psyche and that of one's sexual partner, often of one's spouse.
Dominants and submissives walking among you who are involved in the official community of BDSM are typically seeking to be part of caring, trusting, loving, carefully handled, and committed relationships. Which isn't to say that abuse doesn't happen or that there isn't a lot of immorality happening that is glorified when BDSM is glorified--- there are abusive men masquerading as Dominants around every corner within the BDSM community because it makes their own desires very easy to achieve. But if we are going to talk about a thing, we need to address it for what it actually IS, not what people assume it is. I ask for the same courtesy, for example, when people discuss a religion, not going to "Anti-Catholic" websites to learn about Catholicism but to learn about it from officially sanctioned Catholic websites. Same rules apply here.

Further, Catholics, of all people, should have a clear understanding of the dynamics because we practice obedience, silence, submission, chastity, corporal mortification, fasting, and other types of actions in common which hold spiritual significance because of the changes they effect in us and in our community. I'm obviously not comparing Catholicism and BDSM here, but I am saying that we have practices in common in some areas and that we can at least acknowledge that fact in our attempt to understanding what is happening on the screen when a movie attempts to depict BDSM for popular culture.

OK, so those two things being said, what about the film itself? The film itself is your average "finding oneself" love story. It was as gripping as any romantic drama might be... if you enjoy those, you'll enjoy it, and if you don't, you won't. It wasn't particularly gripping and I found Anastasia's character especially annoying. She was frumpy, disorganized, made poor decisions, and clearly needed someone to help her get control of herself. At the same time, she was portrayed as the reasonable one, whereas Christian, who was successful, productive, had his life together and was clear on what he wanted and who he was (read: actualized) was portrayed as a mess-- possibly even a dangerous abuser.
The film presents a duality in which the characters (and therefore viewers)  are forced to choose between BDSM and actual love, something that I'm not sure I agree is a choice people are forced to make. When a wife tells her husband how she enjoys being touched, and her husband respectfully attempts to give her that while maintaining whatever boundaries she has set into place, they are basically involved in BDSM. Kinky people might disagree with me here, but I'm just saying....that's really the bottom line, and you don't have to be in one camp or the other to be "legit."
Labels are silly.

For some people, like Christian, it obviously went deeper than that, and the Church addresses that in various ways which I'll leave to the viewer to discern because I'm sure everyone walked away with a different sense of what Christian was going through based on their own life experiences. A person who has experienced heavy abuse will react one way to Christian's story, whereas a person who has never been abused but suffers from jealousy or confidence issues will react a different way.

Ultimately, sexuality is a personal, unique, and intimate thing, and the only real guidance the Church can give is to hope that we are operating within a context of marriage between a man and a woman, exercising our free will and caution, and open to life.
I was upset about Christian's nonchalant rule-making about birth control. He wanted Anna to eat well, exercise, and sleep enough, but he had no qualms about poisoning the very body he claimed to love with birth control pills. This was also a sign of his actual objectification--- essentially he was saying to her: "I want all of you, every inch, except your fertility and everything that makes you an actual woman." Ick. That was the only real objectification I saw present in the film, though, ironically. The rest was actual affection and desire to know her. But the birth control?.... Yeah. It was ugly and sad.

I walked into the film under the impression that people were going to see it with the intent of having a naughty Valentine's date that would culminate in couples trying new bedroom antics, basically, but realized once the credits starting rolling  and I started spying on reactions that the majority of female viewers felt especially empowered and uninterested in bondage and domination in the end. Sure, there were those in there who saw it because of an interest in bondage and domination, but they were by far in the minority, which is probably a good thing.
Honestly, it sounded like most of the women in the theater were going to go home and have a bowl of ice cream and congratulate each other on being awesome, strong women while periodically interjecting with comments objectifying Christian Grey, likely while poopooing him for objectifying Anastasia's character.

If you've read the "Five Fat Lies" article on the same topic, I did want to point out that I vehemently disagreed with two of his points. Violence CAN be sexy. It's sexy if it turns someone on, and is consentual and that's really the bottom line. No one person gets to say to another: "Hey, THIS is sexy. That isn't." That's not how sexuality works. Our sexuality is built up of our experiences, our psychological makeup, and our inner workings, and we are as unique as snowflakes in that regard, and you won't have to give up your Catholic card to believe that. Further, I would argue that "sexual brokenness"actually CAN be sexy as well, for the same reasons. In particular when it is being healed, and especially in the context of a loving, monogamous, committed relationship like marriage.  These things will be especially healing and possibly pleasurable when coupled with the grace that comes from making frequent and regular use of the sacrament of healing: reconciliation.
And I mean, again..... let's be honest. Catholics flog themselves and wear cilices and hair shirts and impose silence for the same reasons in many ways. To understand ourselves and to hear God's voice through all our mess. What in the world makes a couple consensually, safely, and sanely doing it to each other such a horrific or awkward thing? Am I really the only one who finds that kind of ridiculous?

Now, this is not a movie for everyone, and likely, a small number of people only should see it.
Some may find it shocking and should steer clear. Others will find it enticing and it may lead them astray. In all honesty, some may find it boring.
But for those who feel it speaks to them one way or another, I hope that they will leave with one thing in mind: that our sexuality comprises a large part of our identity and sense of self, and that we must understand ourselves and our spouses, if we are married. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but the people doing it, and it doesn't have to be kinky, it doesn't have to be "ordinary," it doesn't have to be anything but real. We must FACE our true selves. Only then will we hear God clearly, and make progress. Progress means drawing closer to God and to each other,  and becoming the people he intended us to be. What that looks like will be as unique as each person on the journey, so put away your boycotts, and learn to speak honestly about your experiences, to pray and study hard, and to communicate your sexual feelings with your spouse. I can only hope that that is the conclusion most people will draw from the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey, even though the film itself clearly didn't convey that message accurately.
Fire can destroy us or purify us. It can rush through us and burn everything in it's path, or it can clear the way and make room for new growth. Don't play with fire, but don't be caught without it, either. Just be..... cautious. Fire is fire.