In the several months since the media first noticed the burgeoning popularity of now-bestselling novel and so-called “mommy porn” Fifty Shades of Grey, the book (featuring an S&M plotline) has been seized upon by the culturati to speculate about What It All Means about Americans’ sex lives.
We here at Daily Intel were curious, too, after having read so many think pieces on what is not exactly the world’s best-written book — but preferred to hear from actual Americans. So we tuned in to a call-in radio fan forum on the novel to hear them, per a press release, “share their personal reactions to and experiences with the book that millions of people around the world are downloading, reading and talking about.” The program aired this afternoon, hosted by SiriusXM “Stars” host Jennifer Hutt and SiriusXM “Book Radio” host Kim Alexander. Below, fifty of the most sociologically compelling moments from the show. Some lines quoted therein are the hosts; some belong to callers from across the country.
- “That’s what’s missing from Fifty Shades, a nickname for Christian’s penis.”
- “Moms, we want to be adored and ravaged.”
- “It’s given women the freedom to feel the feelings, to say it’s okay to be wet in the middle of the day.”
- “This is sort of like dirty Disney.”
- “What straight man has jasmine bubble bath in their house?”
- “I absolutely loved the books. My vagina is sore.”
- “I thought if anyone was gonna do the tying, it was gonna be me.”
- “This just unleashed your inner goddess.” “Yeah, I had that in me.”
- “I read it on my iPhone.”
- “He never denies me.”
- “I’ve been together with my husband since 1993 … Should I write a fan fiction for when she finds him in the red room with some brunette? I wonder how E.L. James would feel about that. What would Christian say to Ana when she walks in on him [with another woman]?”
- “It’s not conservative and here’s why — he puts her on The Birth Control.”
- “The sex is great in the book and that kind of depresses me.”
- “Christian takes care of Ana and quite frankly … when he does take care of her, when he, you know … it’s like, let’s get to the sex part.”
- “Actually, I like the vanilla sex part better than that.”
- “I’m not sayin’ that I wouldn’t explore that — to each his own, more power to everyone, but I’d have to really trust him to go there.”
- “The whole toy thing, that just grosses me out. He has enough money to throw that stuff away and buy new!”
- “I’ve got a whip sitting here on my lap.”
- “I want to know how many of you out there have tugable pubic hair.”
- “I’ve worked in a man’s world all my life, I’m a trucker … a lot of women, they don’t know, they don’t know what to do, they’ve never seen joyous sex, they’ve never read The Happy Hooker, none of that.”
- “Why does there have to be a fucking instruction manual in order to fuck me?” “Because I’m a MAN.”
- “You write up a story of what you want and print it off the computer and hand it to him. Read this, boy. … If a lady, a shy lady, let’s say, were to find a book that she liked, and wanted to experience it, say here, read this, get some ideas.”
- “When all of a sudden she’s like, lightin’ a cigarette and readin’ a magazine, I know I’ve done something wrong … “
- “I don’t want a sex room, I’d rather have an extra closet.”
- “If you like a page, circle it like you do with catalogs before Christmas and leave it in the bathroom.”
- “You look him in the eye and you go, spank me. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.”
- “It’s a very fun book. A lot of it’s very true! I’ve got a rich sex life, and a lot of guys like that.”
- “I like erotica. I like pure erotica. I’m gonna turn down my volume now and hope I can hear ya. I like The Story of O.” “Old school. Kickin’ it old school. She’s a little hard to hear. Let’s move on. ”
- “I think eating in front of someone is just as intimate as having sex.”
- “It’s a getaway for me. I’ll be honest, my husband doesn’t like it. He says it’s the same thing as him having a Playboy. I disagree with that.”
- “After a while I got really sick and tired of Christian’s moods. … It’s kind of made me go this women-independence thing. I wanted Ana to show her strength and she never did, not really.”
- “I’m a little worried that the popularity of this book is going to legitimize creepy stalkerish behavior.”
- “ … power of her pussy … ”
- “What did you think of that whole Mrs. Robinson relationship? Thumbs up? Thumbs down?” ‘Thumbs down.”
- “I haven’t read this book but I have found this program very interesting.”
- “I’m hard-pressed to find someone who wants to be a dom who doesn’t have some kind of phsychological something. Same thing with the guy version, whatever that is. A rapist?”
- “This book has taken the learning curve of dating someone to step ten already. If you know that someone else has read this book and they know that I’ve read it? You know right away that they like the book or don’t like the book, how conservative they are, how open to things. … It gives us a new permission to do the naughty things that so many conservative ideals in our lives have kept us from doing.”
- “By the way, I would never use sexual toys, that’s just nasty.”
- “I just thought the central theme was trust … It was fascinating to me how they really didn’t know how they felt about each other.”
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Previously: A Million Shades of Smut
The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Fifty Shades of Grey
