'Fifty Shades Of Grey': Is This The Future Of Female Pleasure?

Fifty Shades of Grey has gotten plenty of people talking about female pleasure. It's also been a boon for business.

Sales of the book are expected to surpass 20 million this week. Now hotels are capitalizing on the fantasy with special Fifty Shades of Grey vacation packages. Virgin Atlantic is also jumping on the BDSM bandwagon, announcing Monday that it will be offering Fifty as an audio book on its flights.

This follows the recent sales explosion of vibrators in drugstores and Walmart (and presumed explosion of the use of sex toys) all over the U.S. Is consumer demand from women who are unfulfilled in the bedroom fueling the mainstreaming of female pleasure and erotica? Or has Fifty Shades of Grey made women feel more comfortable expressing and fulfilling their sexual fantasies?

We want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or email [e-mail]. Then check back here at 5pm ET for a live discussion with Janet Varney.

Comments

[NobleTry]

06:17 PM on 07/12/2012

And women wonder why men don't take them seriously.

[GeneQueen]

03:54 PM on 07/12/2012

As much as I enjoyed these books, her description of Christian's bedroom skills showed he truly has no staying power, when it comes to the main event, as it were. After he's done using all his tools, gadgets, gizmos and apparatus, he's done in, what, 60 seconds? I don't care how much money he has, if that's all he has to offer, I'd pass. Just sayin'.

[wsdave]

12:41 PM on 07/12/2012

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for folks exploring their BDSM side (after they look it up on Wiki to see what it means), but "50 Shades" is to BDSM what the Wiki entry on the "Mona Lisa" is to art.

[wsdave]

12:35 PM on 07/12/2012

"Has 'Fifty Shades' Shown Us The Future Of Female Pleasure?"

I certainly hope not, and so does my wife: She ALREADY has a better times than anything the book offers.

[the81kid]

12:22 PM on 07/12/2012

Doesn't it just mean that people will buy anything they read in the media?

[RealistBC]

07:15 AM on 07/14/2012

FOX is proof of that.

[steph hugnis]

09:41 AM on 07/16/2012

faved. I never get how people belie everything on faux news

[steph hugnis]

09:41 AM on 07/16/2012

faved

[Midnight Son]

11:37 AM on 07/12/2012

"Virgin Atlantic is also jumping on the BDSM bandwagon, announcing Monday that it will be offering Fifty as an audio book on its flights."

I truly hope they hired Gilbert Gotfried to do it. That skit needed to be longer.

[robertaruth]

06:31 PM on 07/12/2012

Oh, I love that idea. Gilbert Gotfried. Imagine.

Your comment opens the door to so many possibilities -- one more hilarious than the last. Too bad Franklin Pangborn is dead, he would have been great. Cartman. George W. Bush. Fred Flintstone. Christopher Walken. And of course -- Sofia Vergara.

[Midnight Son]

09:21 PM on 07/12/2012

Wasn't my idea.  Check this out. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K1RcKJVbHA

[Sprinks678]

07:50 AM on 07/12/2012

This book was first written as Twilight fan fiction. The author simply replaced Bella, Edward and the rest of the gang's names. I read the first few pages of the first book and it's really badly written.

[DessLoch]

11:10 PM on 07/11/2012

The future? Maybe for the frigid this little cookbook opens up their world but that says more about some women than it does about all women.

[Carmen Madonna Campos]

10:34 PM on 07/11/2012

NO! NO! NO!
This summer i invited 15 women to read 50 Shades and my personal favorite, Skye O'Malley.
The vote was unanimous. SKYE O'MALLEY by Bertrice Small beat 50 every single time!

[Milrepa]

10:01 PM on 07/11/2012

"If 10,000 people do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing"

[ecotopian]

08:13 PM on 07/11/2012

The pleasure I get when I have sex with my husband is just fine. Why do I need anything else? We don't do anything special. We have figured out over the years what feels good and how to attain it. If you think that this book will help, you need to put it down and think about yourself. You have to figure yourself out first, then start exploring. After that, it only gets better ;-)

[BCorn24]

08:01 PM on 07/11/2012

God. If this is what being a woman is all about, then I don't consider myself of a "woman."

[CedarGoslin]

07:39 PM on 07/11/2012

I'm all for buying vibrators, but this book is disgusting. I've read and written better sex scenes, the writing is atrocious and every page of this book is an insult to women. http://takingbackfeminism.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/fifty-shades-of-wrong-part-one/

[jf12]

04:24 PM on 07/11/2012

I think a lot of women like to be told what to do, what to read, what to buy. As long it's not by their own husband.

[RealistBC]

07:52 PM on 07/11/2012

Women don't allow fantasy to interfere with reality.

[Carmen Madonna Campos]

10:35 PM on 07/11/2012

um, no.

[shainalitala]

02:52 PM on 07/11/2012

I don't think this book is revolutionary in the least. It seemed like your garden variety badly written erotica that somehow was marketed in a more creative way than other books.

[PB33333]

03:56 PM on 07/11/2012

Just because the book is poorly written doesn't mean that the cultural impact should be downplayed. There's something to the plot that many have found engaging in spite of the monotonous and weak writing style. Maybe the broad appeal came from the "garden variety" pulp fiction quality of it. And because many have been engaged/intrigued by the book and it has become mainstream, its allowed many to actually conceptualize BDSM beyond "that weird stuff creepy people do."

[MarieNat]

08:52 PM on 07/11/2012

I agree with you, and with shainaitala as well. I'm intrigued by the idea that this story resonates with so many women because of something else happening in the collective female psyche. I don't think it's just that BDSM is mainstreamed (there's very little actual BDSM in the book, to be honest) I think it speaks to something larger and more significant about how women may want to be related to, what they may crave and fear in relationships. I sure hope some uber-liberal college is studying this because everything has significance. Even the popularity of badly written erotica.

[MarieNat]

08:53 PM on 07/11/2012

Agree. But what's revolutionary isn't that it was literary genius; it was more that it's tapped into something for women of all walks of life. It would be fascinating to figure out what about it speaks to so many. And I don't think it's just the sex - there are naughty books everywhere if you're looking for them.