We have seen how American culture has descended to the worship of Honey Boo Boo, discussed how violent video games can sensitize us to the consequences of violence and shuddered at the thought of some of the classics of literature being re-written to include sex scenes that never were which nicely brings me to 50 shades of YUK.
Yes, THAT book — so called “mommy porn” — is already being linked to the deaths of real people. There have been several cases in the USA which have been called the “50 shades of grey killing” — or tales of the “real life 50 shades of grey killer/stalker” — but I am not able to establish the provenance for those stories and suspect it is a label applied by the press.
There is, however, one case in Sweden where the 50 Shades of Grey link is little more established.
There have always been accidents in the BDSM world – I have witnessed a few, they have been quickly spotted and appropriately dealt with. There have always been rotten apples in the BDSM world, where the cunning have used the dominant /submissive dynamic to hide their domineering and abusive behaviour.
Then there is another high risk group – the downright stupid who cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality and who think because they have read something in a book or seen something on a film or on television – that they too can do this without consequence.
The real BDSM community collectively cringed – and still are at the number of people who are now exploring BDSM with their entire base point being this book. This is the new wave of BDSM – one without mentoring, one without classes, one without much base in reality, one with no responsibility and one which will bring more accidents and deaths.
I hope I am wrong – I hope that the BDSM community comes together and steps up their classes, their mentoring, and their responsibility to themselves and the community before too much damage is done to their cause.
As a footnote, I used to teach safe, sound BDSM and provide BDSM counselling – there were already enough problems with the fantasy/reality gap before THAT book was launched on us.