There is a lot in the press and in social media about the launch of the film version of "Fifty Shades of Grey" to coincide with Valentine's Day, and the sudden realisation that this is actually the story of a blatently abusive relationship. What has puzzled me - who has never even looked at, let alone read, any of the books - is why now. Why is it only when the story is translated into film that people begin to see what it is? This puzzles me. How is reading so different from viewing? Or is it maybe something about the privacy of one's own head compared to the voyeurisitc viewing of a cinema audience? Are we perhaps more discomiftted in community than in private? Or do our minds operate an internal censorship facilitiy?
Books with abusive and violent relationships are hardly new - the Bible has plenty of them! Not as intricately described for sure, but rape, murder, daughters handed over to violent men, and so on.
I suppose it is in part the timing - not Valetine's Day, that's just commerical - the fact that there is growing awareness of the need to recognise and address gender-based violence that makes this so disturbing, not leaast as it is written by a woman.
Perhaps, not having read or seen it, I have no right to express a view, but it seems plenty of level-headed, non-prudish women have been disturbed by it. And I am still puzzled why it is the film version that has triggered this and not the written word...