What Does Fifty Shades Get Wrong?
Fifty Shades of Gray became very popular because it was one of the first movies that addressed what a lot of people saw as BDSM. They saw the movie and became excited by it in a way that captured minds around the world. Despite the faciniation it managed to generate, there are plenty of things that the movie got wrong about the BDSM world.
Some say that it got certain parts, dangerously wrong. Let's take a look at some of the things that Fifty Shades got wrong.
Consent is Consent
One of the things that Fifty Shades of Gray makes very dangerous is that it implies that you can have a BDSM contract that FORCES you to do whatever the other person wants and stay with them no matter what. This is untrue.
True BDSM is about consent and while you can push each other's limits, both parties always have the ability to say no. Without the ability to say no, anything can happen. Not only that, the ability to say no is your legal right. Otherwise all the other person is doing is committing rape.
Safety Is Above All Else
In the movie, you see a lot of scenes of BDSM where safety isn't put first. Sometimes safety isn't even considered. This goes against all BDSM practices. RACK is Risk Aware Consensual Kink and it means that you accept that risk is there but it is impossible to completely minimize the risk. You notice that once again, consent is there? In a RACK scene you at least discuss safety first, no part of the movie addresses this to the level that it should.
Beginners to the BDSM world should not be starting with RACK scenes. Instead, beginners should limit themselves to SCC scenes, scenes that are as safe as the BDSM can be. SCC stands for Safe, Sane, and Consensual.
Safewords Are A Must
We just talked about safety above but safewords are so important that they deserve their own section here. Most people know that a safeword is the word that you use during a sexual encounter that tells your partner that you have had enough. These words are very serious. In Fifty Shades of Gray though, they treat safewords like they are optional.
In BDSM safewords are not option and you must always listen to them. To prevent the need to stop a scene altogether, there is also the option to use a word to step it down. One might call it a caution or yellow word that tells the partner they have gone just a bit too far or moved just a bit too quickly. No matter who you are, if you are engaged in BDSM setup a safeword.
Aftercare Is A Thing
BDSM scenes have a lot of parts that go into the scene. For most people the more exciting parts are the setup and the scene itself. What happens after is just as important. Fifty Shades of Gray does not thoroughly address what happens after a BDSM scene. There are two parts to aftercare: the physical part and the talking it through part.
After every BDSM scene is complete you need to take the time to talk through everything that happened. You want to learn how it affected both partners, what was good, and what wasn't. This will help you to learn what you can do better next time. Improving things for one partner can end up improving it for both.
There is also the physical aftercare where things are cleaned up and the setup is dismantled. While not necessarily as important, learning what goes into the physical cleanup can teach you about the roles you play.
While the discussion part of aftercare is the most important, taking care of both sections is important. Leaving something out can lead to major problems. Especially if there was something that happened during the scene that upset a partner. It is possible to be traumatized by sex that started out consensually.
BDSM is a fun world that many people around the world love to explore and enjoy. However, movies like Fifty Shades of Gray that fictionalize the BDSM world can be dangerous. Reading through this article you can see just a few of the points that make Fity Shades dangerous to anyone that might consider trying BDSM.