50 Shades of abuse? A new study says that the S&M-packed relationship between 50 Shades of Grey characters Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey perpetuates emotional and sexual abuse of women.
Amy Bonomi, author of the study and Michigan State University Professor, said that the work of fiction is a “gross glamorization of violence against women.” The means of seduction that the protagonist employs are consistent with definitions of intimate partner violence.
Clinical Psychologist Wendy Walsh said she agrees with Professor Bonomi’s assertion that the series glamorizes violence against women. She said that plenty of women mistakenly think they are adopting sexual freedom, but are really embracing the worst aspects of some male behavior.
Walsh encouraged education about the true nature of S&M. Bonomi emphasized that the fictional relationship in 50 Shades of Grey “violates every notion of what we know about consensual BDSM relationships… in consensual BDSM relationships, negotiations are egalitarian. They’re worked out. They’re not done in a pressured situation. All of those things are violated in Fifty Shades of Grey.”
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