The three-volume saga of the British Erica James has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. The film adaptation of the book has become one of the most anticipated premieres of the year. Why is this magical tale of love and … sadomasochism so attractive to us? Psychoanalyst Alain Eril tells.
Psychologies: Millions of sales worldwide, millions of viewers watched the adaptation. Why such a hype around “Fifty Shades of Grey”?
Alain Eril: The book combines two separate worlds that do not intersect in normal life. The story of Christian Gray and Anastasia Steele, first of all, is a meeting of a man and a woman according to all the canons of romance, to which a share of transgression is added, an intersection with the world of sadomasochism, which in normal life is very far from the world of feelings. We are fascinated primarily by the magical tale of love: what will happen between them? Will they live together happily ever after, will they have a lot of children? And at the same time, curiosity about the story fuels a purely sexual interest: what are they doing? How far will they go? The forbidden taste, the scandalousness associated with the concept of sadomasochism – although it is presented in a very mild form in the book, if we recall the classics of erotic literature on this topic – also attracts neophytes, those who are not familiar with the genre at all. The love story in the usual sense is designed to calm them down and, as it were, give permission to read.
This book, without hesitation, was read in transport, it was talked about everywhere. Now the same thing is happening with the film. Sexuality, sexual desire – no longer such a taboo as before?
A. E.: Since the sexual revolution, the way we think and talk about sexuality has changed. Now we talk about sex very easily. Sexual manifestations have long been used in advertising and cinema. In the halls of cinemas, a sharp turn occurred with the release of the film “Emmanuelle” (dir. Just Jaquin). For the first time, a story about sexual adventures was offered to the general public not as an X film, which is semi-legally played in nondescript private cinemas, but as a movie worthy of a mass audience. I attribute the success of the film “Fifty Shades of Grey” to the same desire to see the forbidden-scandalous on the screen and experience the thrill. At the same time, the intimate life of most of us has not changed much over the years. We no longer made love or practice perverted sexual techniques. In the same way, reading or watching Fifty Shades of Grey, in my opinion, does not make readers and viewers adept at sadomasochism.
The book and film are said to present a rather mild version of sadomasochism, far from reality. Is it so?
A. E.: Yes, this is a false image of sadomasochism, very toned down and very far from what actually happens between “pain lovers”. In sadomasochism, the other person is seen as an object, an object. It does not belong to reality, it is just a body, flesh that is being used. Anyone who wants to see the real face of sadomasochism will never go to see this kind of film. It’s just using his paraphernalia to spice up the story.
Can such books and films break the halo of taboo around sadomasochism?
A. E.: “Last Tango in Paris”, “Emmanuelle”, “Empire of the Senses”, “The Story of O” – there have been many films in the history of cinema where certain scenes show sexual pathology. Sometimes sexual perversion is sweetened, as in the case of Fifty Shades of Grey. These books and films ask us important questions and allow us to clarify our position: am I for or against, do I like it or not. In addition, they provide an opportunity to slightly expand your horizons in sex, to find out how these practices look in reality.
Why do behaviors that are considered perverse attract us?
A. E.: When it comes to sex, we are always drawn to the forbidden, the things we don’t do ourselves but assume others do. Curiosity is inherent in human nature – the child that lives in each of us wants to know what the parents are doing without him in their room. The desire to peek through the keyhole when we talk about sex is not a pathology. It is he who explains the hype around films and books that tell and show what happens to others.
By the way, about the excitement. After the release of the saga and the film, sales of handcuffs, whips and other “sadomaso” entourage jumped …
A. E.: Yes, but look what kind of handcuffs and whips are sold – corduroy, fake … This is the mildest version of sadomasochism that I was talking about. These are not real handcuffs, which are really used by “pain lovers” – those that cause severe pain, cut the hands. Besides, just because people buy all this stuff doesn’t mean they’ll use it. Many of my patients bought all three volumes of the saga, but read only one and half more with sin in half. From a certain point, these books cause fatigue and boredom. But they allow you to know yourself more deeply: identifying with the heroine, the reader asks himself if he could do the same. Would you like?
Alain Héril, psychoanalyst: “From the point of view of psychoanalysis, sadomasochism is a sexual pathology”
Sadomasochism is a set of sexual practices where the humiliated (masochist) feels the need to be humiliated, to suffer physically and morally. Thus, pain replaces pleasure and joy in the usual sense. The sadist, for his part, can only experience pleasure by inflicting pain on others and imposing his personal sexual preference as a law and rule of conduct for everyone. In sadomasochism, physical pain occupies a dominant place, it is caused with the help of whips, handcuffs, sharp objects. But it is worth noting that mental suffering for “lovers of pain” is just as important as physical. From the point of view of psychoanalysis, sadomasochism is a pathological relationship where the concept of a subject is definitely absent – instead, both parties act as objects, not subjects in a pair.