This post originally appeared on the Author’s Personal Blog…
A few years ago at a church sponsored event, I noticed several young ladies and women who had distanced themselves from the crowd. While most of the people stayed in a rather central location and talked, these women, ranging from age 15-40, had quietly moved to a more remote location just within view.
Why had these women separated from the group? To talk about Fifty Shades of Grey, the novel all of them had recently read.
Their conversation had started when they revealed to one another they read the book. When the conversation grew larger and they realized people could hear, they quietly moved away from people to discuss the intimate details of the book.
If you don’t know about Fifty Shades of Grey, it’s a trilogy of novels about a young girl who is seduced by a rich man and features explicit sexual encounters that include violence and domination. It is not for the feint of heart.
It is so explicit that the movie being released this week is a toned-down version of the book. Filmmakers realized a straight adaptation of the book would earn the movie an NC-17 rating, so they tamed the scenes to R-rated level.
And these Christian women, some of them still in the youth group and others parents of students in the youth group, had read and were now discussing the intimate details of the story. I couldn’t believe it.
This was a few years ago, just as the Fifty Shades phenomenon had begun. When I mentioned it to a few pastors, they didn’t even know what is was or even heard of the term “mommy porn.”
Mommy porn, as defined by urbandictionary.com is “a sub-genre of erotica that focuses on sexual fantasy and includes detailed descriptions about sex without using graphic words.” It got the moniker mommy porn because the genre became popular among women over 30 who could read the book on tablets without feeling the shame of people seeing what they were reading.
Make no mistake, though, mommy porn is just that. It’s porn for women. It’s not just a term. It’s rooted in physiological facts. Men are more tempted and attracted by images. For them, watching sex on television or seeing nude photos releases chemicals in the brain that equate to lust and attraction. Likewise, women are more tempted by words, senses and emotions. A book (or movie) like Fifty Shades of Grey impact a woman’s body the same way nude photos do to a man’s body.
Quite simply, Fifty Shades of Grey is pornography that is quickly gaining mainstream traction.
Said one anonymous woman in a New York Times article, “Women just feel like it’s O.K. to read it,” she said. “It’s taboo for women to admit that they watch pornography, but for some reason it’s O.K. to admit that they’re reading this book.”
So what’s the point of this blog? To make you aware. Trailers are all over TV right now. Articles and blogs are popping up. It’s going to get a lot more mainstream in the weeks, months and years ahead. But make no mistake, this is glorified porn. And it’s not OK.
Worse yet, it’s porn watched and read by women who now can think that violence and sex go hand-in-hand. It degrades women and teaches them something in opposition to the Bible’s depiction of sex and love.
So be aware and don’t get sucked in to the hype. Fifty Shades is not a romantic movie. It’s soft-core porn.