Fifty Shades – You Deserve a Better Story

One of the few conversations I ever had with Christian theologian and ethicist Allen Verhey was about consent. He had come to sit on one of the benches just behind Duke Chapel and smoke his pipe and I was on a nearby bench sitting in the sun, waiting for class, and reading his book, Remembering Jesus. I had been thrown off balance a bit by his chapter on sexual ethics and so when he asked what I thought of his book I said as much. In that chapter he suggests that consent is hardly an adequate ethic. I told him that consent seemed like a great ethic to me. Dr. Verhey’s response – “Consent simply keeps it from being assault. That is not a good; and it is certainly not the good to which we are called.” Consent, in other words, is a minimalist ethic – it is the bottom beyond which we should not go, but it is hardly a worthy goal.

I have neither read nor watched Fifty Shades of Grey. Nor do I have any interest in doing so. But I have followed the controversy surrounding the story and have been asked by university students what I think about it. This is a hard question. I have spent several years researching and writing about the effects of trauma, especially domestic violence and sexual assault, on the development of identity. I am very sensitive to victim-blaming or shaming. I do not want to blame my students for the curiosity about Fifty Shades. Nor do I want to shame them if they have found it enjoyable.

But the strongest defenses of Fifty Shades all refer to Anastacia’s growing sense of who she is in and through her relationship with Christian Grey. Many people are quick to point out that she consents to the relationship and some even suggest she is empowered to learn what she does and does not want in a sexual relationship. The problem with this, however, is that Anastasia’s greatest moment of self-assertion is her proclamation that she does not like being beaten. That’s it; that’s her moment of great power.

The stories that we read and the movies that we watch serve as something of an ethical/moral apprenticeship. Through our empathy with the lead characters we practice (albeit imaginatively) working out all sorts of moral dilemmas. And like any other form of apprenticeship – whether it is learning to play an instrument or a sport – we are shaped by these narratives as we internalize the plots.

At its best Fifty Shades is a story that explores the absolute depth beyond which a relationship should never go. While at its worst it romanticizes domestic violence and eroticses rape. So when asked by students what I think, I cannot help but answer that they – both male and female – are worthy of so much more. They deserve a story that seeks the positive goods of community and shalom rather than a story that reinforces the culture narrative that seeks to normalize violence.