It’s not exactly news that sex is all over our TV shows, ads, books, and movies; but that doesn’t have to be a problem. What is problematic is portraying an abusive relationship as the romantic ideal, or to show the “assault them until they love you” method (ie. rape and assault) and say that’s consensual sex.
When the 50 Shades of Grey trailer came out, most of my friends sent me the link with reactions that ranged from amused to disgusted. Watching the relationship in the trailer left me uncomfortable, so I checked out the book to pinpoint the source of my unease. Thankfully, I didn’t need to read far to find it: hiding behind this ‘love story’ and ‘inner goddesses’ and other such ridiculousness is an abusive relationship.
There are hundreds of prominent examples, from Star Wars to pretty much every James Bond movie made, to Game of Thrones.
In the Oathkeeper episode of Game of Thrones, Jaime rapes his twin sister/ lover Cersei, a sharp change from the consensual sex portrayed in the book. (Here’s the clip, in case you missed it.) Disturbing relationship dynamics aside, it was a troubling scene. It became even more troubling when the director and writers of the show insisted it depicted consensual sex.
The camera cuts away with Cersei still protesting, “No, stop, it’s not right!” It’s odd that writers would be confused about the definition of such a simple word, but in the English language, “no” denotes the opposite of consent. No consent is rape. And yet the influential men who bring us these ‘love stories’, like David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alex Graves continue to argue about what shouldn’t be arguable, blurring society’s already foggy definition of rape even more.
How have we been tricked into thinking that abuse is a romantic ideal?
50 Shades of Grey did the same thing to abusive relationships. It took a terrible issue faced by too many women in modern society and masked it under an idealized romance that denies the presence of a problem. I’m not talking about the violent sex, though. I’m talking about the clear patterns of emotional abuse that run throughout the story.
Anastasia is frightened of Christian in a way that is never normal or healthy for a relationship. She modifies her actions to avoid making him angry, a behavior typical of someone trapped in an abusive relationship. And the abuse in Christian’s behavior is quite clear: he stalks her, isolates her, and intimidates her. He tracks her whereabouts and restricts how she socializes. But instead of addressing these issues and condemning the abuse, 50 Shades holds up their relationship as an enviable ideal.
Here are a few symptoms of abuse in its various forms (note: this is a very brief list and doesn’t include all signs):
- Apathetic to your feelings / withholding care or attention as punishment
- Constantly betrays your boundaries, like sharing your secrets with others
- They make you feel guilty about wanting to see loved ones
- Thinks you are incapable of most things / they know what is best for you
- They accuse you of untrue things and try to force you into admitting to them
- Embarrasses you on purpose / demeans you in front of other people
- Tries to control you / everything you do, and is eager to point out your flaws
- Hitting / biting / slapping / unwanted physical contact
- Unwanted sexual contact / rape
- Threats of bodily harm or general threats to your person
- Manipulation / making things feel like they are all your fault
All of this sounds like something we’d want to obviously avoid. Yet, these things crop up in tons of media forms — and it’s having a real effect on us. A study showed that women who have read at least one of the 50 Shades trilogy were more likely to get into an emotionally abusive relationship. If that’s not proof that the media impacts our understanding of these issues, I don’t know what is.
What’s worse is that we, as women, are getting manipulated by what we see and read. Women are internalizing these patriarchal ‘ideals’ and this distorted perception of what is ‘sexy’, and self-objectifying. If you get turned on mostly by knowing that you’re turning a man on, instead of the man turning you on, or you focus on the man’s pleasure and arousal more than your own, or you strongly prefer to be dominated rather than loved during sex, then you’ve been affected by this.
A recent US governmental study by the library of medicine explains that self-objectification is “the process whereby individuals who are subjected to such objectification come to internalize the perspective of the outsider. Because objectification is often a gendered process (with women subject to the male gaze), self-objectification occurs more often in women than in men.
Women are internalizing these patriarchal ‘ideals’ and this distorted perception of what is ‘sexy’.
When self-objectification occurs, an individual focuses attention on how her body appears to others rather than on how her body feels and on how she can, using that body, perform actions in the world. The theory predicts several consequences of self-objectification, including body shame, anxiety, eating disorders, depression, and sexual dysfunction.”
Porn doesn’t help the situation (more about that here).
Our shows, books, and movies perpetuate the ridiculous idea that a woman shouting ‘NO!’ isn’t rape and a girl afraid of her partner isn’t abuse. It’s wrong. More than that, it’s dangerous. Sure, it’s just fiction, but the awful link our media draws between love, sex, and violence spills into real life. That means fewer women feeling able to report their assault, less support for survivors, more victim-blaming, and a less educated society. How can we tackle these issues if we don’t acknowledge rape and abuse when we see it?
If you’re still not convinced, check out this article from the male perspective, with tons of examples from popular movies and TV.
Find a way to play your part in this conversation, because the repercussions are simply too awful for the conversation to be limited any longer. Take action, even if it’s something as small as seeing The Last Five Years on Valentine’s Day instead of 50 Shades of Grey. Given the studies showing it increases your chances of being in an abusive relationship, it’s for the best.
It really concerns me that our romance now is someone buying you a drink at the bar, or actually staying after sex to cuddle. But that’s what is shown on TV and that’s how people act. What happened to holding doors open, having dinner together without TV or phones, writing each other notes in the morning as a reminder of love? I believe it’s time to stand up for real, healthy love.
I met him my sophomore year in college. Tall, dark, handsome, popular, talented, articulate, and immensely charming, I formed a crush on him almost instantly. But, I knew to my marrow that someone like me could never be with someone like him. I didn’t move in his celestial spheres; I wasn’t worthy of his time or attention. I knew myself to be beneath him. So, when in my junior year he began paying attention to me, I was more than flattered. I was grateful. I couldn’t believe that he wanted me, nerdy, dowdy, me.
That gratitude propelled me into three years of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. He broke our engagement three months before the wedding; his only explanation was that he couldn’t trust me to be “properly submissive.” I had been willful, defiant, had disobeyed him in recent months, and because of that he would not bestow upon me the title of “wife.” In the religious subculture we came from, I had committed a grave sin when I told him he couldn’t treat me badly anymore, and in the view of most of my friends and leaders, I deserved to get dumped. I hope someone can learn from my story. It was certainly a hard lesson for me!
This idea that cheating, deceiving, abuse, etc is okay because this person ultimately is your true love, gives an unhealthy message to girls and even boys everywhere. It seems like every time I turn on the TV there now there is some type of relationship like this, and the more it is seen the more okay it becomes in society. Men see this and think this is how they can treat women. Women see this and think this is how they can treat men. It’s not a one way street people.
What you idolize and what you help promote, leads to young people having a misconstructed perception of a relationship too.
The most enjoyable thing about works of fiction is… well… they’re fictional. The characters presented are not actual persons; the sufferings and triumphs they experience are not real pain and joy. Reading a book is not the same as being witness to the events it portrays. If it were, then the reader might be under some moral obligation to intervene, to alleviate suffering, or at the very least to try to react “rightly” to the situation in front of them. But since the situation is not real, all bets are off.
What happened to idolizing couples like Monica & Chandler? What happened to people loving the idea of a healthy and fulfilling relationship? When did we start looking up to the likes of Chuck & Blair, in which Blair canonically says that Chuck makes her feel like a weak little girl. Why are they one of the most popular couples? I genuinely don’t get it.
Maybe the reason our generation sucks at relationships (or so I’ve heard), is because we idolize couples that feel the need to be consumed by each other, that have a love/hate, angsty relationship where they’re together today, and not the next.
Most of the BDSM in 50 Shades is consensual except for the fact that he knows far more about what he’s doing than she does and does not adequately check in with her. He does coerce her into participating. Outside of the BDSM, he stalks her, watches her movements without her knowledge or permission, claims ownership over her, controls where she goes and who she talks to, gets inappropriately angry with her, controls her eating and her birth control. These are all very abusive behaviors.
I love pop culture, but I’m honestly getting tired of the romanticization of couples that should not be romanticized.
We need to teach both young girls and young boys alike that they are worthy of respect and kindness from his or her partner. We also need to teach them if they want to be in a relationship, they need to show respect and kindness to their partner.