Erotic fiction is by all means nothing new in terms of literature. Some of the earliest manuscripts of erotica date back to ancient Greece and Rome. The fact is, in the modern age, these books make sex more accessible and acceptable for women to read. The notion of women enjoying sex has always been a social stigma – whereas men can happily and limitlessly talk about it, watch their naughty movies, look at their saucy photos online and tell their greatest stories, it has never really been socially acceptable for women to do the same. Through the medium of these global fantasy fiction franchises, the Fifty Shades Trilogy has provided the sexual liberation for women to stand up and say ‘You know what, I actually enjoy sex too!’ Interestingly, it has not gone unnoticed that there has been quite a negative backlash to the books, but from the male gender. Yesterday I saw a comment online from one man saying “All these women just reading Fifty Shades for the sex is pathetic. Have they not heard of the internet?”
On a personal note, although there were some aspects I didn’t enjoy, I found the trilogy quite intriguing, engaging and interesting. The books were a joy to read and undoubtedly well crafted. I did find the sex scenes a little too prolific however – after reading three whole books of sex between the two main characters I found I lost interest in their sex lives, and ended up skipping through some of the later scenes. I was more interested in the other kinds of pulse-raisers such as the dramatic stand-offs with the jealous and vengeful ex-boss Jack Hyde. Overall I’d give the trilogy 4/5 stars; the only main criticisms were the similarities to Twilight and the excess of sex scenes in the later books. If more care had been taken in actually developing the storyline in between the sexual encounters, instead of spending precious pages inventing new ways for them to just have sex, then in my opinion, these books would have been a five-star read.