Yes, folks, I went to see Fifty Shades of Grey…by myself…wearing an overcoat (it’s cold here in Boulder!). I sat off to the side by myself with a tub of popcorn on my lap. It was creepy, but this is what I do for you people.
I wish the movie had been creepy. Actually, I wish the movie had been anything at all, besides empty and boring. It read like a two-hour fashion commercial where the characters were modeled rather than transmitted. But, alas, this isn’t a movie review. If you want to know just how bad Fifty Shades of Grey is you can go to Rotten Tomatoes and see 198 reviews averaging a 25 out of 100 rating.
Far more interesting is the subject of the movie: BDSM. BD stands for bondage and discipline, and SM stands for sadism and masochism. Fifty Shades of Grey is mainstreaming these practices into the bloodstream of our culture. The movie itself made close to $250 million in less than a week and is expected to exceed $600 million when all is said and done. The Fifty Shades trilogy of books is a huge phenomenon in the publishing industry as well, selling over 100 million copies worldwide. For perspective, the last big publishing blockbuster was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which sold a mere twenty million copies.
Why the success of Fifty Shades? Because we’re ready. We’re comfortable with gay everything at this point and send nothing but blessings to Bruce Jenner. But God is too good to let us rest, so … meet the kink community!
Don’t you love the name? The kink community! These are the folks who tie other people up, hang them from the ceiling and flog them with a whip. Who bring back the master-slave thing, complete with boot-licking. Who burn, brand, force-feed and sexually penetrate each other with objects including their fists, as we learned in a strangely blasé scene in the movie. [Spoiler alert: regarding anal and vaginal fisting he was pro and she was con.]
It sounds like an expose of the secret police in some third world country. But, no, it’s the kink community!
In this week’s podcast I bring an integral lens to the emergence of kink into the popular culture. I look at how BDSM allows us to bring primitive energies — including juicy polarities such as predator / prey, and dominance / submission — back online as art and play. And how “experiences of extremis” break us out of our contracted identities into a larger sense of self that is more connected, fluid and fulfilling.
Kink is a tonic for the denatured nature of modern and postmodern life. Think about it: when do any of us get to express our pure red energies? When do I get to slap anybody around? Who trembles when I walk into the room? Who begs me for anything? Who in my life is just there to serve my every carnal desire? Nobody, that’s who.
And from the submissive polarity: when do I ever get to just really give myself up to another person, to submit utterly? When do I get to lose myself? When do I ever consciously experience pain, humiliation and surrender–these things that I’ve been exhausting my life force trying to avoid?
Click here to hear a full conversation between Robin and Jeff.
The rise of BDSM in our culture feels like it is right on schedule, not just as sheer experience, but as a therapeutic vehicle for healing into more energy and power. I’m no aficionado of kink, and have never been particularly attracted. But I must say I’m interested, as are a lot of people these days, apparently. In the podcast I explore the fascination, the challenges, and the character of the emerging kink community. I’m joined for the last half by my long-time friend in the integral scene, Robin Reinach, who is a wise and seasoned explorer of this new territory.
Who knows? In the sacred world to come we may be busy beating the crap out of each other. Devouring each other. And the lion will lay down with the lamb.
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Color me an old-fashioned prude, but there is absolutely nothing in this subject that remotely interests me. I don’t deny that baser instincts exist, but it seems to me that it’s a serious detour/ distraction from healthy development to consciously, continually indulge them i.e the porn industry is happy to oblige. We don’t need to become alcoholics to learn how much we gain in sobriety.
The only word I can think of, Jeff, is “EW”. Think I’ll skip the show this one time. Where does healthy discernment to not “go there” enter the discussion?
I agree. Not everything that comes out is progressive and an example of positive change. There are regressive and unhealthy forces too. And I feel that wanting to be hurt through whips, etc, is unhealthy. A confident, integrated person should not want to be physically injured (or injure anyone else). The lower, animalistic levels of consciousness can be explored in a way that doesn’t involve pain.
I would say that a second tier integrated human needs to have their juice (pre-amber), their morals (amber, “don’t hurt others”), self-confidence and sensitivity working together. FSoG is not showing them integrated. It’s showing a regression to pre-moral and pre-feminist abuse. I don’t see it as a positive force.
Your birds eye view nailed it
Jeff,
Thanks so much for covering this topic! Just last week I was trying to explain to a friend the spiritual and healing possibilities of BDSM and this reinforces that. I also have been troubled by the knee-jerk feminist critiques I’ve seen on social media since the release of the 50 Shades movie .(I couldn’t bring myself to read the books or see the movie because
of their low quality). I’ve seen choosing to submit as such an act of power myself, though I realize some people practice this stuff in unconscious, abusive ways.
I wanted to mention some fun BDSM/fantasy genre books, not high literary works, but engrossing and entertaining. Jacqueline Carey wrote several books (the first six, Kushiel’s Legacy, are good, while the Naamah trilogy following that was a major letdown) set in an alt-Europe, a world with many religions and cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushiel's_Legacy The heroine was marked from birth by a sort of demigod/fallen angel (the one who oversees punishment, karmic retribution) to be the ultimate sub. She grows up in a culture (a sort of Renaissance-era alt-France) where sex is highly encouraged (the primary god, a Krishna-like character, proclaimed for all, “Love as thou wilt”) and freely practiced like an art. She ends up having an extremely important role politically and spiritually. There is a character in the latter three books who is a born dom who initially resists his inner nature but comes to inhabit consciously and fully.
Thanks for your wide-spanning look into all aspects of culture!
Maharasa
Jeff, when I’m feeling “primal urges”, BDSM is the last thing on my mind. My wife and I just get down and dirty. When I’m feeling subtle energies arising, I gravitate to BDSM. It is an artful expression, a sacred ritual, a devotional tribute. It is music, a rhapsody that uses the medium of Eros. There are many levels of skill and ability to express and evoke subtle energies. I never met a woman that didn’t love it.
For the women out there that equate being S or D as sexual exploitation by men, remember this: sexual expression by women (freedom) was repressed by traditional misogynistic men who thought of women as chattel. Prudish was invented by men. Wake up, liberate yourselves.
–Gene
So fascinating. Many thoughts here. A basic ontology seems in order. What exactly is it? Why do some people gravitate towards kink and some do not? Does it have a clear link to physical or emotional abuse?
I’ve gotten a lot out of Jack Morin’s book The Erotic Mind, particularly decoding my own erotic script.
A LL look too: Just because a desire is there, what is the best thing to do? Do you act on it? How do you choose which?
Good questions.