Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades of Grey, the first novel in the Fifty Shades trilogy, is an erotic romance novel by E. L. James, published in 2011. The story began as fanfiction for the vampire romance novel Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. In August 2009, James posted it on fanfiction.com as Master of the Universe under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon. After reworking the story as original fiction, James published the newly named Fifty Shades of Grey through the Writer’s Coffee Shop, an independent online Australian publisher, in May 2011. After word-of-mouth recommendations increased interest in the story, Vintage Books published a revised edition in April 2012.

Since then, the book has sold over 150 million copies worldwide, topping best-sellers lists, especially in the United States and the UK. The book has been translated into 52 languages. In 2015, Focus Features, Michael De Luca Productions, and Trigger Street Productions produced the film adaptation. Fifty Shades of Grey is considered an example of viral marketing, and it renewed interest in erotic literature among readers and publishers. Fifty Shades of Grey is the first in the Fifty Shades series, which includes this novel, Fifty Shades Darker, and the final installment, Fifty Shades Freed.

In the first novel, Anastasia “Ana” Steele is a 21-year-old English Literature major at the University of Washington, Vancouver. The story begins as Ana travels to Seattle, Washington, to interview 27-year-old Christian Grey, the mysterious CEO of Grey Industries, for the school newspaper. Ana finds Christian attractive but also intimidating and arrogant. As the first novel progresses, they explore BDSM, an umbrella term for sexual activities that feature bondage/discipline, domination/submission, and sadism/masochism. Ana learns that one of Christian’s mother’s friends, Elena Lincoln, seduced him at age 15. He reveals that he was in a dominant/submissive relationship with her in which he was the submissive.

Christian insists on a contract outlining his and Ana’s relationship and sets parameters for BDSM. Ana knows that if she refuses to have a BDSM relationship, she will not have any relationship with Christian. The pair discusses the contract terms and Ana’s hard and soft limits. She wants a romantic relationship with him, which he refuses. Eventually, Ana gives in, agreeing to try to be his “sub,” or sexual submissive. Ana wants to understand why he will not let her show affection how she wants to and why he needs to control everything she does. Ana remains uncertain about staying in a relationship based on control and power when she wants genuine intimacy and closeness. Ana tells Christian she wants to know how bad the physical pain can get, and Christian hits her with his belt six times. She understands she can never be who he needs, and he will never be who she needs.

The Fifty Shades series elicits a galvanized response from audiences. The fact that each of the three books in the series earned the top three spots on the US list of top-grossing novels for the entire decade of 2010-2020 (Aviles, Gwen. “Fifty Shades of Grey was the bestselling book of the decade.” NBC News, 20 Dec. 2019) speaks to its wild popularity with audiences, yet critics are quick to identify its problematic gender roles and lack of concern about consent, as well as its sensationalized portrayal of a BDSM relationship. Some see the novel as damaging to feminist causes and prosocial norms, while others feel that denigrating the novel is nothing more than an attempt to silence certain desires (Downing, Lisa. “Safewording! Kinkphobia and gender normativity in Fifty Shades of Grey.” Psychology & Sexuality, vol. 4, issue 1, 2013, pp. 92-102). Fifty Shades Darker brings these two galvanized responses closer together as the two main characters attempt to form a more mutual relationship rather than one strictly defined by BDSM parameters.