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Post by DraconRa on Mar 6, 2015 22:18:09 GMT
I need to talk about this somewhere, and this is the only place that comes in my mind...
In a German writers forum, off all places, there is a discussion about those books.
And as if that's not bad enough, a young, clever student just wrote:
"You want to know what's the beauty of this book?
It shows, how much love can accomplish, how strong love is."
I am physically shaking, freezing in terror.
And I know, nothing I say or do, will change her mind. And I tried. I feel like Don Quijote, fighting windmills.
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ella
Junior Member
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Post by ella on Mar 6, 2015 23:10:27 GMT
I think the notion of "love will overcome all" is pretty common, 50 Shades or not, and it bothers me too. Either they will learn that real relationships are work and play, fun and boredom, laughter and tears...or they will never figure it out and will always feel disappointed because their significant relationship is not like it is in the books/movies/TV.
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Post by glasschmetterling on Mar 7, 2015 9:06:15 GMT
Honestly? People being disappointed by their real life relationships because they're not as grad and romantic as the stuff in the movies is the LEAST problem I see coming from that "love conquers all" bullshit. What scares me more is women buying into that "my love is responsible for his well-being" thing, because that is a quick and fool-proof road to self-destruction. Trigger warning for abusive relationships, self-destructing behaviour and suicide ahead. I'd love to put it in a spoiler tag or something, but don't know how (please tell me if that is possible). I've made the font smaller and whited it out, so you have to highlight the text to read it. Thanks for the idea annie When I was fifteen, I met a guy I was very much impressed with, with his coolness and his savvyness and his fashionably cynical outlook on life. I thought he was awesome, and I fell in love with him, and I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world when we got together. Unfortunately, he was not a good guy, and the type of teenage boy who had to assure himself of his status by having others (read: his girlfriend) constantly fussing over him. At first, I was fine with that, because I adored him and my world revolved around him... very much like Ana is with Christian. But of course, it wasn't enough. That was when the emotional abuse started. He claimed to have borderline personality disorder and therefore wasn't responsible for what he did, and I bought into it at first (much like Ana and those countless Fifty Shades fans out there claim Christian isn't responsible for what he's doing). In retrospect, I don't know if he really was mentally ill (I never heard him mention therapy or a therapist) or just claimed that to get attention, pity and an easy out of his responsibility.
It went on for about six months and I lost count of the times he called me on Friday or Saturday, blind drunk, telling me that now he's going to kill himself, and then turned off his phone and didn't resurface until Monday evening. Of course it was my fault, because I didn't love him enough, and I wasn't enough for him, etc. pp.
It went to the point where my teachers (plural!) noticed something was wrong with me, and asked me if I was fine, if I had problems at home, and if there was anything they could do to help me. And my dad forbade me from seeing him. We're not talking about the "Don't you ever dare look at a boy, and certainly not in my house!"-type of dad here. But the "You know, if you want to try drugs, please stick to the natural stuff and not some pills you don't know what's in, and be careful where you get it and what's in it"-type of dad who let me cross half of Europe alone to meet some friends because he trusted me and my judgement implicitly. The guy who wasn't mad at me when I first got drunk, but woke me at around eleven, then laughed good-naturedly when I retched, told me I couldn't take pain medication because it'd mess with the residual blood alcohol left (sensible advice if I ever heard it), handed me a big glass of water and then defended me when my grandparents tried to shame me for getting drunk (I was about fifteen and a half at the time - mind, legal drinking age in Austria is 16).
Even that didn't tell me that something was seriously messed up with my relationship, but my dad was an asshole (of course, the then-boyfriend encouraged me to think that). It was only when I was a mental trainwreck waiting to happen (with funny things like self-harming and suicidal thoughts), that I managed to break away from him. I only could because some mutual friends recognized my situation, and told me that I wasn't responsible for him killing or not killing himself, that my health always goes first and that they'll be there for him and take care of him. I walked away and never looked back, because I knew if I contacted him again and found out that he's dead, I'd always blame myself. He called me about half a year later, trying to make my jealous by telling me that he had a girlfriend. I replied that I was happy that he had found someone, and he then revealed that he had lied. We never talked again afterwards.
My situation was bad enough, but wasn't as bad as some other women's who've been in abusive relationships (we were teenagers, with a naturally higher break-up rate, we were living some distance apart so he couldn't harass me at home, he didn't abuse me physically, we were not financially connected, etc.) Getting out is hard enough as it is, because this whole "woman are responsible for loving men into being better" is part of our stupid cultural baggage, and makes a toxic mix with that ideal of the selfless woman sacrificing everything for the man she loves. I really really really don't want to know how my situation would've changed had 50 Shades of Grey been added into the mix, had I read it, recognized my situation, and seen Ana's reactions that were so much like me own. I don't. Because that thought scares me to no end...
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Post by sortilegio on Mar 7, 2015 9:40:05 GMT
glasschmetterling: That was beautifully written. My heart aches for you. Reading you story makes me even more pissed off in regards of 50 Shades of Grey. The thought that somebody could read this and assume that, if they only wait things out and do more they could save someone, scares me to no end. I have never been in an abusive relationship. I hope that I would recognize the signs should I get into one. But the constant message that "love conquers all" could really mess something like that up. I mean there is a certain level of truth to it. Love can conquer a lot. But it has to be healthy love from both of sides. One example are soldiers that have been hurt or even disfigured in war and their wives and girlfriends help them work through that. That is beautiful and wonderful and I love reading about that. That is "love conquers all". But this unhealthy bullshit in 50 Shades and a lot of other stories, has nothing to do with love. As annoying as I find her, I can believe that Ana loves Christian. But that is only one sided. To have a "love conquers all" story, there must be love. Not unhealthy, manipulative obsession. To be honest, I don't really know how to express my feelings. I get the want for those kind of stories because I love them too. I adore them. But on the same time, I CAN see the difference between that and the written live time movie of the week. Whatever. glasschmetterling. Your story really touched me and I wish you the best and greatest and most wonderful things in the world.
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annie
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Post by annie on Mar 7, 2015 12:52:32 GMT
I believed the exact same thing at 18 and I doubt anyone could have convinced me differently. I'd had a lifetime of conditioning telling me that women are supposed to nurture and take care of their partner and are responsible for his emotional well being. And that "all you need is love." If it's hard, you're not being loving enough.
Glass (mind if I call you Glass?), your story is so familiar to me in so many ways. (I'll follow your lead on the triggery stuff. That's really weird that ther doesn't seem to be an option for Spoilering text. I wonder if that can be changed? Edit: I'm making the triggery text a lighter color than the main text to hide it more since the font size just doesn't seem to separate it out for me. Let me know if it's too hard to read, stands out too much, or something.) Trigger Warning: physically, sexually and emotionally abusive relationship, though I'm going try to avoid much detail.
I was 17 when I met my ex, and he was 28. I was always the shy, awkward, arty kid in the back of the class and mostly invisible. It was such a boost to think that this cool (your description of "fashionably cynical" is very apt here too.), smart, tattooed older guy was in to me. There was a lot of the "he's a bad boy on the surface, but is so sweet and smart underneath" dynamic going on. I didn't find out until after we'd had many dates and I'd believed I'd fallen in love with him that he told me he was "technically married." According to him they were getting a divorce as soon as they could scrounge up the money, and they only lived together because they couldn't afford to break the lease yet. They barely talked, he slept on the pull-out sofa in the living room, they hardly even saw each other, she went out of town a lot, and so on. Yeah, I'm sure y'all can see where that's going from a mile away, but at the time I bought every single word. I remember being very disappointed when he told me, but thought that I could heal his heart break from his marriage failing. I'm not sure the 2nd part was a conscious thought or rationalization, but it was certainly there.
I hate this phrase, but he basically groomed me. I was so young and naïve that he was able to mold me like clay in to the perfect little obedient, devoted mistress. There was a lot of coercion and wearing me down that I didn't see until long after. There was emotional, sexual and physical abuse, but he had the act down well enough that I forgave him quickly, or he convinced me it was my fault, so I'd end up begging forgiveness for my own abuse. Eventually he didn't have to convince me of anything. I immediately thought that whatever he was dishing out was my own fault. I was supposed to be able to love the pain out of him and make him happy. I was supposed to be loving enough that he didn't want to hit me and I was supposed to be "open" enough that he wouldn't have to force things on me. If something made him happy, or feel better or whatever, then I needed to do what ever it took to get that done, because that's what loving a man is for a woman; keeping him content.
It took a terribly, terribly long time to realize that what I was telling myself and expecting of myself, and what he was expecting of me, wasn't love and devotion, but absolute and complete submission to his every want and whim, expressed or not, and with my consent or not. At the time I thought love and that level of submission were one-and-the-same and I didn't even realize I thought that.
Honestly, the only reason I was able to get out was because he and his wife had no plans of separating at all. It took me more than two damn years to finally be able to read that writing on the wall and come to terms with the fact that he had in fact been lying to me and messing my feelings and my thoughts just so he could use to me to get what he wasn't getting from his wife. I shudder to think what might have happened if he had left his wife, or if she had left him.
It's not just 50 Shades that perpetuates the "love can conquer all" message. It's not even the only thing out there that perpetuates the idea that you're not good enough, not worthy of love or happiness, if you can't love him enough to fix him. It's everywhere. It attacks from all sides. I know that once I stopped to think about it, I sure as heck got that message from all sides. From my mother, from movies and tv, from church and so on. The messages that women are responsible for the well-being of those they love far outweighed the messages that relationships should be equal, that you're allowed to take care of you, that people really won't change unless they want to, etc.
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Post by rhiannon on Mar 7, 2015 18:06:56 GMT
One thing I am curious about is if the German translation improved the writing of 50 Shades of Grey? Because there is an Austrian woman I know who totally does not seem like the kind of person who could stand to read more than a few paragraphs of something so badly written and yet she likes the books? So I did wonder if the translator improved it...
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Post by DraconRa on Mar 7, 2015 18:32:59 GMT
One thing I am curious about is if the German translation improved the writing of 50 Shades of Grey? Because there is an Austrian woman I know who totally does not seem like the kind of person who could stand to read more than a few paragraphs of something so badly written and yet she likes the books? So I did wonder if the translator improved it... I guess so. I did wonder about that myself, I should borrow a copy and check it out.
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Post by wonderbink on Mar 7, 2015 19:25:47 GMT
I'm not sure even the best translation could make the "inner goddess" any less ridiculous.
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Post by DraconRa on Mar 7, 2015 20:53:02 GMT
I'm not sure even the best translation could make the "inner goddess" any less ridiculous. That is true. But I think they changed "down there" with more explicic language. I'm pretty sure anything else would end in laughter. Or maybe I expect to much of my fellow germans, I should really look into this.
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Post by glasschmetterling on Mar 8, 2015 10:21:54 GMT
sortilegio: Thank you, and thank you for your wishes! And I do agree with you - loving someone, and knowing that someone loves you, can do incredible things to you and help you get through things you couldn't get through any other way. I love those stories, too. My fiancé and I have worked through and are working through a lot of issues, and I think I couldn't have done half of what I've done with his support and help, and he feels the same about my support and help. But you need more than love to do that, you need trust and respect and communication. Lots of communication, in fact. Ana and Christian have nothing of that, except - maybe - love (I'm not at all sure Christian loves Ana, and even though Ana is vocal in claiming she loves him, she might very well be going down the only route of justifying her desire she's been taught, claiming that she loves him, instead of just saying "Well, he's hot, I want him, and that's totally okay!"). And unfortunately, many readers don't realize that, because the narrator is just so goddamnd busy telling all and sundry that everything is fine and they're so much in love and Christian is so good to her and everything has got so much better... completely ignoring the facts laid out in front of us. 50 Shades is a bunch of conflicting messages, and not all readers are trained to pick apart conflicting messages (and even those who are, in theory, trained to do, don't always choose to apply those techniques, as evidenced in countless history classes I've sat in, wanting to scream with anger). Also, what I only realized after making that post... part of the reason women are so susceptible to this idea of "I have to fix him, even though I'm suffering" is this toxic idea promoted by our society (and especially our economy) that you have to work, you have to do your best, you have to pull your load, even if it's destroying you. I grew up with that work ethic, seeing how my grandparents worked and worked and worked, and my dad, too, and even though I can see the fallout of that particular bucket of shit now, it's still hard to get rid of that thought and put your own health, safety and happiness first. Combine that with the all too common notion that women's duties are "caring for people", and you have the mess. annie: Thank you for sharing your story, both here and in Jenny's blog! And I don't mind at all if you call me Glass, or GS Also, I've taken up on your idea of changing the colour and whited the text, so you have to highlight it to read it. I realize it might be a bit uncomfortable for readers on mobile devices (my tablet drives me crazy, either by highlighting stuff I don't want to highlight, or not highlighting what I want to highlight), but it's the best I've got for now. And I also think a spoiler tag would be a great idea. Jenny, please can we have a spoiler tag? *pussnbootseyes* And I totally agree with you that this idea is out there, like, everywhere. My dad was always so supportive of me, he did a great job in letting me know that he'll always love me no matter what I do or who I am with, and that he'll always support me so I can achieve my dreams, and he tried to teach me how important it is to take care of myself (mostly because he realized his upbringing is to this day limiting his ability to do so). Even at school (and I was at a Catholic school run by Benedictines from age 10 to 18), they weren't teaching us all that misogynistic bullshit, but tried to tell us that we're all of equal worth no matter our gender, our religion, our race or our nationality, and that please, by all means, we should go out and question the way we're told to act and think and talk. And yet it wasn't enough to protect me, because those ideas that women are there to please men, that they should take care of men, and that they have responsibility for them, are so common and widespread and pervasive, especially in fiction (because no matter what people say, fiction does its part to define our reality and normality). And that's really really really sad. rhiannon: I can tell you that, at least, for me, 50 Shades is even WORSE in German. WAAAAAAAAY worse. My first run-in with the actual books was at a get-together of fanfiction writers (with sleepovers! Yes, we're so cool we do sleepovers!). One of us was reading the books because her mother had loved them, and she wanted to find out what the fuss was all about. So what would any board of serious literates writing serious books (because one of us passed us off as exactly that despite the silliness going on all around her, which may or may not included some of us wearing Burger King crowns, to a sweet elderly couple we met at a day trip on the Danube) do? Right. Tell her to go through the books, and read the smut scenes in as serious a voice as possible, to about a dozen grown women in varying states of inebriation, while said "we're serious literates" friend (who's short, about forty, with short salt and pepper hair, and about as boyish as they get - just to give you a picture) acted out everything the inner goddess did in the books, complete with snatched glasses and other props. Obviously, hilarity ensued, heightened by the fact that about eighty per cent of us also write smut, and that we'd all written BETTER smut than the 50 Shades stuff. Consens was: "Why did anyone even read that when it was free?", quickly followed by: "This is prime MSTing material!" As for the non-smut-parts, the quality of the writing sticks out as a sore thumb in German. I mean, granted, it also does so in English. But (as you may or may not have surmised from my writing, lol), German naturally lends itself to muuuuuuch longer, muuuuuuuuch more complicated sentences than English (a fact that makes me cry when writing essays for Uni). As a rule of thumb, German writing has longer sentences, with more complex structures. 50 Shades prose reads like a 12-year-old's in that context. Especially as the translation is very literal, which makes it sound like a 12-year-old who wrote in English and then ran the book through Google Translate. Amazon has a free German preview online, if you speak German and want to cringe, check it out (even if your German is crap, check it out, because it's so damned literal you can read it if you've stared at the first lines of 50 Shades of Grey in wonder for as long as I have). Also, for additional fun with localization: 50 Shades of Grey is called Shades of Grey: Geheimes Verlangen (Secret Desire) in German. At least the German publisher picked up on how goddamned stupid that title sounds.
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Post by blowpop on Mar 8, 2015 18:19:46 GMT
glasschmetterling annie my heart goes out to the both of you. Truly it does. And I have to agree. Society itself grooms AFAB people into nurturers whether they want to be or not no matter how abusive the relationship is. And it's utterly disgusting. Trigger Warning: Abuse of the mental, physical, emotional kind, paedophilia undertones(text is merely lighter)So, I was 21/22 and he was 24/25. I can't really fully say if the relationship started the December before I turned 22 or if it started after I turned 22 in January because things were that chaotic. I can tell you I met him in December 2006 and completely broke things off December of 2011. And my entire friendship and relationship (once it started) was emotional and mental abuse. I've always had low self esteem and he ate that up. I remember goading him to wrestle with me once in 2007. He wound up picking me up and throwing me onto the floor. Dragging me across the floor by my hair. Dragging me by my hair into the kitchen and threatening to burn my hair off (to which I challenged him with "go ahead and do it" and he didn't). He slammed me into the cement outside and dragged me so I wound up with a huge scratch on the back of my neck from it (I don't know how our wrestling wound up out on the front lawn/sidewalk but it did). I've only just realised that he took it way too far and got way too much enjoyment out of it. He furthered my belief that every time he yelled at me it was all my fault.He cheated on me repeatedly. And threw it in my face. But at that point he had manipulated me so much that I really believed I was in love with him. And told me that it was all my fault. I'm also into BDSM and he took that as he could handcuff me to his computer chair (in a really uncomfortable and unsafe position with metal handcuffs) and take my flogger and beat the shit out of my back. Because he knew I was a pain slut (my own definition not his). I didn't have a safe word or anything and was crying. I was repeatedly hit over my kidneys and am very surprised I wasn't peeing blood. Afterwards he uncuffed me and went to spend the day with his family and took my car keys (including my spare and the apartment key) so I couldn't leave and left me for the entire day to deal on my own. Not only that it was also Christmas that day. That was the only other time he physically hurt me. Every other time was gaslighting, manipulating, and everything else you can do to someone emotionally and mentally. It took me til he went away to jail in Idaho for soliciting a minor over the internet for sex with intent to get them drunk (police stings, gotta love em) and me working Halloween Haunt that year to realise HOW bad he was for me and to have the courage and support system to break things off with him. My parents tried to make me see it but I was so far in his clutches that anyone close to me was just jealous and trying to break us up. Basically, 50 shades of grey was my life up to and including the paedophilia undertones without the marriage and kids and him being rich. And he was such a good little mormon boy that he even got me to convert.I'm now in therapy to work out all the issues and shit he left me. It's a very slow uphill climb that doesn't help that he's out of jail right now. But slowly, I'm getting better.
So, DraconRa, I understand perfectly how smart people can still not see the abuse and stuff in these books. I lived it. Unfortunately, I don't think that most people can understand/see it unless they have gone through abuse in their lives. Sadly. And even then some of them are so conditioned they see nothing wrong with them. It sucks, but part of it has to do with society's attitudes towards AFAB people and how they're suppose to act.
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ella
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Post by ella on Mar 27, 2015 10:19:40 GMT
I came across a woman who said the movie made her mad because it "looked" like abuse, and how it wasn't written that way in the book. I asked her what she thought of how it was in the book that Chedward stalked Ana's work and showed up uninvited at her apartment, and she said it was because he was in love with her. That Ana needed Chedward to discover herself, and Chedward needed Ana to see that he was a "good person." I wanted to ask what she thought of the last scene where he beats her out of anger with a belt, but I was scared of how she's answer that.
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Post by DraconRa on Apr 14, 2015 19:39:33 GMT
*facepalm* so, my sister read the books and found them sooo romantic! No, he never does anything against her will and you have to see his past to understand him....
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Post by merlinslaugh on Apr 15, 2015 3:05:27 GMT
So I've been reading this thread at roughly the same time as having a discussion on a forum on Amazon I contribute to and the similarities got me thinking. While this thread is talking about the way in which readers have virilently defended 50, I've seen very similar attitudes in a discussion of Outlander (*SPOILERS TW*); particularly the scene where Jamie whips Clare with his belt as 'punishment' for her disobedience. During that discussion, most of the contributors found it necessary to defend Jamie and his actions. The old chestnut of 'historical accuracy' was used (although I tend to think 'magic stones guys' demolishes that one) amoungst others. What became apparent, and I wonder wether this isn't equally applicable to 50, is the way in which, once a reader has committed to a book, fallen in love with a character, part of that love seems to require defending every and all action they take. It's not something I've ever truly understood, given that I've always taken the view that it's perfectly doable to love a character whilst being aware of the problematic-as-all-get-out crap they may pull. Yet it seems that for a lot of readers those two positions can't coexist and they feel moved to defend, at times indefensible, behaviours. I'm not entirely sure why that is. Is it because connecting to a character is a highly intimate, emotional thing that motivates readers to filter out the bad stuff? Or is it as simple as 'I loved this ergo you question it, you're questioning me'? Thoughts?
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xebi
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Post by xebi on Apr 15, 2015 7:40:41 GMT
I have a friend who is obsessed with a certain singer now deceased, a certain TV show and a certain sports team. Every time he sees anything on the internet remotely criticising one of his Holy Trinity, however respectfully or constructively, he throws a tantrum, shares the piece on Facebook and goes into a rant about how some people have to be nasty all the time. I've never figured out why he takes it so personally, either. People are kind of weird.
Oh yeah, and his girlfriend is the exact same. I remember one FB post from her about how some woman at work had teased her (gently and in a friendly way, it sounded) for being so into Disney stuff at her age and rather than shrugging and going "if you have a problem with my hobbies and interests then it's you who has the problem" she'd spent the entire afternoon sobbing at her desk. Not because she'd been teased but because someone had in her eyes insulted her precious Disney.
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