Letter of the Day

With sexy selfies and advice about all matters sexual significant on social media, it is not surprising that Fifty Shades of Grey is the highest-selling novel of the past twenty years. (“Sexy books right on the money”, HS, Sept 19)

However, having read the novel, I was disturbed by realising more than a million readers, mostly female, enjoyed the books, also buying its sequels.

Certainly, it is a positive that sex for women is more in the public spotlight than in previous decades, but the original novel portrays a subordinate and subservient female hoping for love from a very depraved and sadistic male. The end of the book is particularly sickening, not to mention painful for the female character, without any pleasure, even subsumed.

The fact there is even a sequel, let alone two, neither of which I was at all interested in reading, with the characters till together, is indeed troubling.

I can only ponder what many women’s experience and understanding of sexual pleasure is, as the sexual narrative seems bereft of any mutual rapport and respect. The female character seems psychologically perturbed too; if women relate to her, what does that say about the female psyche in the 21st century?