Last week watching the Super Bowl, I was subjected to the Fifty Shades of Grey trailer for the first, and I hope only, time.  I couldn’t help laughing.  That was what people have been waiting for? Seriously? What crap. How can people not see how stupid this whole thing is? Three years ago I chose to forgo the whole craze.  For some silly reason, pornographic Twilight fan-fiction just didn’t appeal to me.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Twilight plenty.  Cheesy teen-romance with decently funny secondary characters?  I’ll take it.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with guilty pleasures.  No one advocates for a life of Shaker-like austerity, or at least, I don’t.  But on first reading about Fifty Shade of Grey I couldn’t help but think about my mother telling me about when Deep Throat was released.  She told me about how many people she knew bragged about seeing the popular pornographic film.  It was a way for middle class suburbanites to assert their sexual sophistication by participating in an activity that was previously the realm of dingy theaters and men in trench coats.  So the act of rebellion was … following the crowd.  All over again, people were desperate to show just how enlightened and experimental they were by doing just exactly what everyone else was doing.  No thanks.  I’m not worried about liberal women who write for The Atlantic calling me a prude.  My sense of self is not dependent on the high opinion of people I have never met. Honestly, I can’t wait for the reviews of this movie to come out this week.  I can’t wait for people to be shocked when this movie is BAD.  People are going to pretend to be surprised that the dialogue will be cliched and derivative, the acting wooden and campy, and that the plot will be well…the plot it has.  Through intense delusion, people have attempted to elevate masturbational material into literature worthy of cultural attention, and now they have to live with that decision.  It means making a lot of excuses for a terrible movie version of a terrible book.  It means continuing to lie to yourself about the value of something.  To be spared the embarrassment of admitting that they were conned into proclaiming their admiration for low-brow smut, people will have to double-down on their self-indulgent ignorance.  It will be amazing the moment someone says “the movie was bad because it wasn’t true to the book!” I am curious about what happens after.  Since I don’t live under a rock, I read when Charlie Hunam was originally cast as Christian Grey.  I was so sad for him.  I was so sad to see his career ruined.  This is it for Jamie Dornan.  There is no way for him to go back and not have been in this movie.  Same goes for Dakota Johnson.  She should read Ruth Wilson’s recent comments following season one of The Affair about the disparity of female and male orgasms in television and on film.  And, wait, this book is part of a series, so does that mean we are going to be subjected to two more of these shitty movies?  Do the rest of us, who don’t care, have to live with this for years to come? I’m happy to let those who advocate for abuse victims and who warn about the societal dangers of pornography to make the serious arguments against this movie.  I agree with them 100%.  A few weeks ago mass hysteria demanded that UVA be razed to the ground and all fraternity members be rounded up and summarily shot over a story that seems to have been invented whole cloth.  Now here we are with another massive media campaign on our hands, this time telling women that being manipulated and abused is what they really want and should be celebrated as a “lifestyle.” For women and men who buy the lies that physical pain is an expression of emotional devotion, that wealth and social position are an excuse for manipulation and abuse, and that pornography aids in fully formed sexual development, you have my deepest sympathies.  Fifty Shades of Grey, and its like, has painful and long-term consequences for those who don’t recognize it for the set of lies it is. But the first step is for people to admit just how asinine it it. (3 Years, 4 Months, and 18 Days Sober)