Fifty Shades of Tribute - Sasha Cameron

In previous posts I have mused on why I have ended up writing FSOG FanFic.  I have also mused on the dilemmas and delights of living a double life as both Sasha and Dr J.  What I haven’t quite got to musing about is what is happening in my life alongside this addiction to all things FSOG.  Part of my resistance to writing this particular blog post is to do with the highly personal.  I am not sure that I am ready for y’all to become some kind of voyeuristic sexperts sitting on the sideline of my life, coaching me through every move the Sex Guru.   Nor do I particularly want to wind up like the poor teacher in North Ohio being punished in my work for writing FanFic of an erotic nature or for writing about FanFic.

However, I am encouraged by some of the research that goes on in and around the FanFic world and the ways in which we are learning about ourselves through this deep connection with erotic literature.  That is not to say that Twilight is erotic – as Stephen Snyder MD reminds us in the documentary Into the Twilight Haze – there are three books of foreplay in the Twilight before we get to the deed.  That is a hell of a lot of sexual tension.

Into the Twilight Haze: a documentary about the allure of Twilight (and how it can help your love, sex and relationships) created by Dr Niloo Dardashti is my latest find in terms of research around the impact of these novels.

She is currently turning her attentions on FSOG and I can see the reason why this would be necessary.  If Twilight can be considered as a serial foreplay novel based on the nostalgia of chivalry (with a whole heap of stalker tendency thrown in) then FSOG could be seen as a polar opposite with a heavy reliance on sexploits and dominance (throw in stalking and powerplays).  And for each of those lovely, informed and literate people (terms used loosely) who have found the negative, mundane or the ridiculous of FSOG (Becca, Jason, Dave – you know who you are) – there are millions of (mostly) women who have totally fallen under the FSOG spell, including yours truly.

So if the books are so badly written (yes, although the same could be said of a range of bestsellers – Dan Brown, you know who you are) and have such negative themes that set feminism back a hundred years or so, why are they responsible for making women feel empowered in the bedroom (and in their fiction writing if the number of FSOG related fanfics, blogs, digital curation sites are to be believed)?

The women and sexperts in the documentary speak about how these books have tapped into a desire for women to ‘have everything’.  Apparently we are realistic enough to know that we can’t have everything (really? bugger!), but that doesn’t stop us from wanting.  We want (desire) romance, chivalry, dominance, complete focus on our desires, open communication, honesty, emotional security and trust all wrapped up in a hot bod preferably.  Of course, if we got all of that we would be exhausted and intimidated (which explains some of Bella and Ana’s characteristics and insecurities).  For those women who are feeling the benefits though, there are things that we are now requesting/demanding of our partners that we may not have been confident enough to request/demand before.  There are possibly more women sharing their fantasies in the bedroom and out of it. Claiming their right, not so much to have those fantasies fulfilled, but to simply have fantasies in the first place.

So where does SEXpo come into all of this?  SuperGeek fulfilled one of my fantasies by taking me to my first SEXpo a couple of weeks ago.  And while I was pleasantly surprised by what I encountered there, I think that sitting at the back of my mind ever since is this memory of how attentive and wonderful he was during the whole experience.  He was watching me a great deal – I think checking my discomfort levels on some occasions but also to see what interested me and what turned me on.

It wasn’t overly sexual in that sense but more a case of asking ‘is that something you have always wanted or might want for us’?  We did buy a few things and he would have been happy to buy a few more if I had wanted.  He was quite okay to stand and discuss sex toys with the vendors, asking pertinent questions about the benefits of different materials and features.

He sat through the seminar on BDSM with me – not that we want to go beyond anything more than sensory deprivation – but as a FSOG fan I was interested to hear someone who lives the lifestyle speak about it with some authority. 

He discussed the construction of lingerie, specifically corsets, with me, telling me what colours and styles he liked to see on me.  He sat through, and critiqued with me, the aerial hoop act that then became a feature of Creating Kate.


In short, we seem to be at a point where we have the most open communication about sex that we have ever had in our twenty plus years of marriage.

There were other things that SG did that were more directly related to my desire to read and write erotica.  Like trying to read FSOG even though the writing caused him physical pain.  However, he has dipped back in to some of the scenes to understand what Christian brings to the bedroom or simply because I highlighted the best bits on his kindle.

Then there was a long haul flight spent reading the first draft of Investing Elliot before I posted it to FanFic.net.  This is becoming a pattern for us since he has had to read drafts of academic papers and even my PhD thesis while sitting trapped on planes.  Hence his fear of flying.  He thought the PhD was a riveting read compared to IE but again this may just be a genre issue.

Of course, the benefits have gone the other way.  We recently had to replace his car and for reasons I cannot quite understand he had gone to a car show and fallen for (a relative term) the Skoda Superb.  A Skoda for God’s sake!!  Who falls for a Skoda!! I dutifully spend a weekend trekking around car yards looking at a range of cars, trying to talk him into another Ford Falcon because I didn’t think I could suffer the humiliation of owning a Skoda or the drive across town to go to the only dealership in Melbourne.  My tune soon changed when the nice man showed us the engine.  Now I don’t know much about car engines beyond the understanding that if you open the hood and one isn’t present then the car probably isn’t much good to you except as emergency housing.  But when the nice young man pointed to the badges lined up on the engine – Skoda, VW, Audi – my heart did a wee flip.  Christian and Edward both drove Audis.  While the body might say Skoda, the engine will say Audi and that was enough for me.  We are now the proud owners of an Audi/Skoda Superb.  And that is kind of a nice metaphor for SuperGeek himself.  All of this sexpertise that we have been gaining through, talking, playing, having new experiences, being open and honest about our fantasies  – oh, and the reading and writing of erotica/romance – have made him (and me) a lot braver in the bedroom.  My man might be a Skoda on the outside but on the inside he is all Audi.

Skoda Superb II (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Audi Driving Experience (Photo credit: Autoblog Uruguay)