I am dismayed by the article that appeared on the BBC website today, describing how your charity plans to burn copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.
I am not planning to read Fifty Shades of Grey, and I agree that the character of Edward Grey is a stalker and potentially abusive. (Also, it is a very badly written book.)
However, Edward Grey is not abusive because he is into BDSM. He is abusive because he is a stalker who denies Anastasia's autonomy and consistently ignores her boundaries.
The book does not describe BDSM as it is practised by the majority of the BDSM community. BDSM practitioners generally abide by the ethos of "safe, sane and consensual".
There may be abusers who try to hide in the BDSM community, but they are no more numerous than abusers who engage in vanilla sex.
BDSM is not abuse. Please do not conflate the two.
May I refer you to a couple of articles and books which may help to clarify the difference for you:
- "A kink in the process" by Su Connan, in Therapy Today
- "Fifty Shades of Grr" by Adele Haze
- "The SM feminist" by Clarisse Thorn
Furthermore, book-burning is what fundamentalists do. It is profoundly against democracy and the free dissemination of ideas. I do not like Fifty Shades of Grey because it is a gross distortion of BDSM, but at least it has enabled a conversation in the public square about what BDSM is actually about.
