Fifty Shades of Grey: Sorry, sisters, there's nothing liberating about mummy porn

Fifty Shades of Grey: Sorry, sisters, there's nothing liberating about mummy porn

By Jan Moir

PUBLISHED: 19:55 EST, 21 June 2012 | UPDATED: 07:43 EST, 22 June 2012

Fifty Shades of Grey has become the fastest selling novel of all time, but Jan Moir is not impressed

The mummy porn sensation Fifty Shades Of Grey has become the fastest-selling novel of  all time.

Beating even Harry Potter at the height of his magic powers, it is a phenomenon around the world, the summer blockbuster of 2012, the ubiquitous beach read. It is one of those rare books that even people who don’t read books will read. Tamara Ecclestone tweeted that she was in bed reading Fifty Shades with a cup of tea, which says it all.

Still, it is incredible. I mean the sales volume, not the book itself, which is a bit like The Bondage Adventures Of Bridget Jones, as imagined by a teenage Jilly Cooper before she discovered the calming effects of ponies and gin.

The novel’s heroine is a shapely American student called Anastasia Steele, whose spoken response to any given situation, life- changing or otherwise, is a very  unliterary ‘Holy s***.’

There are moments when Anastasia makes Adrian Mole seem like Aristotle, b ut the clunking prose doesn’t bother the millions of fans who lap up the adventures of this modern-day Cinderella.

‘Mr Grey will see you know, Miss Steele. Do go through,’ says a secretary, in an early scene. Anastasia promptly falls headlong into his office.

‘Double c**p â€" me and my two left feet,’ she thinks.

Mr Grey extends a ‘long-fingered hand’ to pick her up. He’s got grey eyes, sometimes even ‘scorching’ grey eyes, a grey suit and a grey stare. He is Mr Grey, gottit? He is a handsome billionaire â€" aren’t they all? â€" with ‘expensive and absorbing hobbies’ and a voice which is ‘warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel’.

Well. We all know where this is headed, don’t we? And no, Mr Whippy is not planning on taking her down to the ice cream parlour any time soon. 

By page 79, Christian and Anastasia are kissing in the lift and she notes that he is ‘so freaking hot!’ Jane Austen, eat your heart out.

Tamara Ecclestone, pictured, tweeted that she was reading Fifty Shades of Grey in bed with a cup of tea

By page 111 they are in bed together and she ‘bears the delicious brunt of his deft fingers’. Later she signs a contract to exercise, diet and be his ‘shaved and waxed’ submissive partner. Girls, it is as if feminism never happened! And before too long Anastasia is in his Red Room of Pain, a sado-masochistic lair where carefully choreographed punishments and humiliations are carried out on a regular basis.

So far, so bad. For had this book been written by a man for men, it would have been derided and dismissed as thrill-seeking, anti-female, pornographic, sexist smut. Yet as it has been written for women by a woman, it has somehow been transmogrified into important literature, a vital step forward in female sexual emancipation and a kind of sex bible for the post-feminist age.

Stop it, I’m blushing 50 Shades Of Pink. Not about the sex scenes, but by the thought that any woman could be inspired by the enslaved Anastasia, who at one point thinks to herself: ‘Truly I am a marionette and he is the master puppeteer.’

Oh, the shame. How has this happened? Is this sudden and widespread female thirst for bondage and sado-masochistic sexual fantasy a sign that, tired of the struggle for equality, women want to take refuge in being bossed around in the bedroom by a man?

The welcome diversion of a little light thrashing before the tiresome business of making important decisions, smashing the glass ceiling or cooking dinner for the family?

The sexual politics of Fifty Shades Of Grey might be highly dubious in parts but I would suggest that ultimately, the kinky bedroom action is not really the main attraction.

In fact, the repetitive sex scenes become a bit of a bore. In chapter after chapter, I came to dread  yet another sighting of the word ‘elongated’. Several readers have admitted to skipping over the sexy bits in their rush to discover what befalls Anastasia in the end. And there, if you don’t mind me saying, is the rub.

MICHAEL GOVE: A TORY TO BELIEVE IN AT LAST

Just when I think  the end is nigh and  the Tories will be annihilated at the next General Election, up pops Michael Gove to put a bit of lead in the Conservatives’ pencil.

His plans to reintroduce O-levels and academic rigour into our education system are excellent. He has been roundly derided by the trendy Left â€" especially those who don’t have children who have been processed through the useless and depressing GCSE system â€" but something has to be done to stop the rot.

And he has done it. A Tory to believe in, at last.

For underneath the spankings and the bondage of Fifty Shades lurks a very conventional romantic narrative. Anastasia is a strong and self-contained young woman who still has inner doubts about herself and her attractiveness. She is a vehicle for the insecurities of millions of women, a conduit for the atavistic desire for a dominant male, not to mention the modern longing for a very rich one to take all the worry away.

For Christian has billions. He buys her fine French lingerie and a  laptop, flies her around in his helicopter, lays on the finest things that money can buy. He is a tortured knight in shining armour, one who even scoops up Anastasia in his strong arms when she faints.

Holy s***, as she might say herself, let us be frank. There is no moral imperative or feminist agenda here. It’s just an old-fashioned fairytale with added spanks. It is Pretty Woman and 9½ Weeks for a new generation.

And yes, it is pretty awful, but when di d that ever matter?

RISE OF THE ROPEY ROLE MODELS:

Poor Kim Kardashian. All she has ever done is diet, wear make-up and buy her boyfriend Kanye West a Lamborghini. Now she is being held up as the scourge of the Western world. Not fair! Dr Helen Wright, the head of an exclusive girls’ boarding school in Wiltshire, has singled out the reality show star as the world’s worst role model.  

The teacher despairs that millions of youngsters aspire to nothing more than to be like the pouting beauty, and I take her point. Why do young women so admire Kimmy? She has never done or said anything of interest; she merely wanders around looking like a velveteen blow-up sex-doll who has mislaid her front door keys. I suppose it’s a living, but still. The teacher also accused Kim, right, of making her fortune from ‘meanness, scandal and boundary-less living’. That sounds a bit more interesting, even if Kim’s only knowledge of a boundary is that bit on her face where her blusher stops and her highlighter begins.

Kardashian-worship is almost as depressing as Cheryl-adoration. The greedy, talent-free  Geordie midget was back in Newcastle this week, appearing in front of thousands of her home-town fans. No, not performing. Don’t be silly. Cheryl was autographing  copies of her new album for the crazed kids to buy. What is the secret of Kim’s and  Cheryl’s success? Is the terrible truth that millions of little girls like them just because they are pretty?

Oh dear, oh dear. Dr Wright is right. Role models really are getting ropier.

I am utterly disgusted at the way the victims of the Farepak scandal have been treated and continue to be treated.

Some bankers make people like comedian Jimmy Carr look like philanthropists

Back in 2006, more than 150,000 customers had saved up, paying regular instalments into a scheme to provide a Christmas hamper for their family. Many were elderly, most were low-waged. When the Farepak firm famously collapsed, they were left on average £400 out of pocket and offered just 15p in the pound by way of recompense. Victims of the Farepak scandal have never been given a fair deal. Now embarrassing emails from senior bankers at HBOS, which is now owned by Lloyds Banking Group, showed they referred to the cash from Farepak’s vulnerable customers as ‘Doris money’.

HBOS turned down the option of placing the money in a trust, which meant that when the firm collapsed into administration, the cash was used towards repaying the bank’s £31million loan rather than refunded to those who’d scrimped and saved in the hope of giving their families a happy Christmas.

Once again, it shows the contempt that bankers have for ordinary people. They may have disparaged it as ‘Doris money’ â€" how contemptible â€" but they were quick enough to take it when they needed it. They make tax-dodgers like Jimmy Carr look like  philanthropists. When is their turn in the dock going to come? Not quickly enough.

Cheltenham Ladies’ College has issued skirt length guidelines. Royal Ascot has issued a new dress code for the Royal Enclosure. It seems incredible that any of this is necessary, but we all know the reality. Give a girl an inch and she’ll be chopping it off her hem before you can say crop-top.

From High Street to school dance to race course, porn star chic is increasingly popular, as is the attitude that dressing up for an occasion actually means dressing down and wearing as little as possible.

I am all for decorum, but hasn’t Ascot gone a little insane this year? Women guards patrolling the  paddocks on the look-out for bare shoulders and  spaghetti straps? Confiscating fascinators and handing out  woollen wraps to flesh-baring  offenders? There is a whiff of Prisoner Cell Block H about it.

And, of course, like anything else in British public life, the new Ascot strictures are all about class, not dress. They won’t rest u ntil everyone looks like the Duchess of Cambridge. However, you can give a girl a  pashmina and a talking-to, but it won’t rub off her tattoos or make her fashion trash-ion choices look classy.

I’m more offended by cheap pashminas than any tattoo, such as those on Ascot racegoer Joanna Southgate, right. These scarves are hideous things which make women look like cat baskets. So my advice is crash the pash and get the tatts out for the lads. You might never marry a prince or be invited back, but at least you won’t look like a pastel receptacle for kittens.

What on earth does Zara the Chav look like in her Olympic kit? I hate to say it, but without the professional ministrations of the grooming teams usually supplied by her commercial sponsors, she looks like a right mess. Like a Kwik Fit fitter on a tea break. Five sugars, please, luv.

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