Body heat overwhelmed the Barnes and Noble, which was jam-packed by fans eagerly awaiting the overnight sensation to sign their books. Most of the audience was young, in their twenties and thirties like my husband and I. We were in the front row.
“Check it out!” I heard one guy say to his friend from two rows back as he lifted a whip, flaunting it like it was a badge of honor. Everyone around him laughed at the inside joke for fans of this book trilogy.
One of the security guards approached him and confiscated the weapon.
Fifteen minutes later, the person of the night arrived and proudly took her place to sign copies of her trilogy. A trilogy box set that was in our hands.
Fifty Shades of Grey.
Now, you may wonder how it was that someone who now has two daughters and is an active anti-trafficking preventionist could fall for these books. As with most things, it’s complicated!
They say a baby changes everything and it’s true. Pre-baby life was actually messier and more dramatic for my husband and I than post-baby life. Just in a different way. Working in a bookstore feeds one’s mind with an array of pop culture influences. When something is widely accepted and not preached against―Christian circles hadn’t quite tackled “Fifty Shades” yet―it is easy for one to be curious.
Ironically, it was partly my hardcore conservative background that was attracted to Christian Grey. Each political party is guilty of using the extremes of the other to promote their own agenda. With all the right-wing uproar over weak-labeled men, the idea of a dominant man and a more submissive female seemed quite attractive.
As for the third attraction: erotica. During this time, I was aware and had waded into the anti-trafficking current but was not yet immersed. So, I didn’t yet know that erotica was a built-in trigger for trauma that dates back to my eleven year old self when another child friend introduced me to cyber sex. This world became my porn and ironically, I loathed pornographic images and any sort of film nudity. But this poison known as erotica infiltrated me for well over a decade. Thus, Fifty Shades of Grey became a trigger.
Again and again.
This world began to affect more areas than just casual reading with my husband. While erotica daily played out in my mind, Fifty Shades proved to be influential in other regards. Models on magazines seemed enhanced and seduced me. The film hype and Hollywood’s romanticization of this dangerous world seemed glamorous; despite our better judgement, my husband and I watched the first film together.
We hadn’t even made it to book three before I began perusing more erotica content that makes Fifty Shades look like…well, Twilight. Content which included rape, orgies, sexual torture, degradation of women, trafficking of teen girls, and sadism to name a few.
Some people need a process. Others need to quit cold turkey. Guess which one I am?
Almost unimaginable! The plus sign was so teeny. But that positive pregnancy test had a BIG impact. Even bigger when the word PINK was scrawled on our ultrasound. Having a daughter opens one up to unimaginable protectiveness and thoughts as to how someone will treat her even before she is even born. Questions like: would I want my daughter treated this way? can turn a young mom into a raving, manic momma bear ready to protect her baby’s honor and self worth. No mother in her right mind would conceivably want her daughter mixed up in anything like Fifty Shades. Nor anyone like Christian Grey.
Psychological trauma may not seem like a big deal, but let me assure you that it is. No one can see the damage. It is internal. It is a daily mental struggle. Imagine your mind like the sky and your thoughts like clouds. They should all be white, puffy healthy clouds. But instead, there are patches of thunderclouds…in much more than fifty shades of gray. My pregnancy and daughter’s birth stopped the storm, but to a certain degree, my thoughts will always have some gray. And certain triggers can prompt the storm clouds to trickle, drizzle, or full-out rain. Childhood trauma doesn’t ever go away and there will be more struggles. Healing does not happen overnight; it’s a lifelong journey.
The dangerous world of Fifty Shades―the main character of Christian Grey―and BDSM proponents do not emphasize treating women with honor and dignity nor treating their bodies with care and love. They do not stress protecting the hearts of our little girls when the culture influences them to become curious and about things like BDSM. It does not hold our boys to a higher standard of honoring and uplifting women.
In this pornographic culture with countless Christian Greys lurking around each corner, we cannot afford to be silent on this. Our sons and daughters demand it!