The trilogy has sparked a national debate on multiple fronts regarding sexuality, including commentary from the BDSM community and others.
Dr. Warren Shepell, a psychologist and founder and president of Warren Shepell Consultants Corp., which provided Employee Assistance Program services to more than 2,000 companies and where he counseled couples for more than 25 years before he sold the company in 2005, says plenty of the cultural focus inspired from the book is misplaced.
“Much of the commentary I’ve read seems to assume a sexually static role for men, that ‘men will be men’ and there’s really little hope for change, but men are not static; they can experience more than just a basic, primitive satisfaction,” says Shepell, who also writes under the pen name J.F. Kelly.
Shepell outlines some of the ways in which he feels Mr. Grey misses the boat sexually.
• BDSM is not the pinnacle of sexual adventure. “For all the bells and whistles involved in BDSM, including various fetishes, whips, chains or demands, I don’t think it’s all that interesting,” he says. “For one, it is role playing, rather than two people expressing their souls through a loving act. And, it’s pretty black and white, with one playing the boss and the other as the submissive. In the long run, it can be damaging, hurtful, and degrading, but what makes it interesting to people, I think, is that BDSM is unusual and that it caters to past scripts of control and domination learned early on in life.”
• Mr. Grey is emotionally unavailable. Contracts for sex, gifts given from afar and a general take-it-or-leave-it attitude illustrate a man who is willing to serve his own needs, and only his needs.
“A psychologist could have a heck of a multiple-choice option from which to diagnose Mr. Grey – perhaps narcissistic personality disorder, among many others,” Shepell says.
• He is sexually uncompromising. While some young, immature and insecure people who are hungry for love may fall for a man who manipulates and one-sidedly dominate them, most prefer lovemaking with romance, appreciation, respect and caring with plenty of foreplay, satisfaction and afterglow.
