From a reader:

Fuck 50 Shades. Fuck rape culture. Fuck the grey area.

February 13, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Thursday night, with just a couple days leading up to Valentines, 50 Shades of Grey the movie had its first showings in NYC – and I was invited by Stop Patriarchy to be there in protest. Initially, I felt a part of me very reluctant to go protest a film or a book. Within a few minutes of arriving to the scene, I was already holding a big sign – Stop Romanticizing Female Enslavement, Start Fighting for Women’s Liberation – and I was shouting our chants – “Fuck 50 Shades!” and “Stand up against the degradation of women!”

I knew it was the correct choice, and so I was compelled to come through and correspond.

Firstly, I have to testify that I love Stop Patriarchy. They’re seriously - the shit. Whenever I can share solidarity with these revolutionary feminists, I get exposed to advanced thinking on how to fight back against the sexist values that saturate our society. In summing up the first night of protest actions, these are a few points that were brought up:  

1. This is black and white – if you can identify the misogyny that underlies a book like 50 Shades, then the “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” and the “live and let live” approach actually becomes a choice to tolerate a culture of rape.

2. The folks that join in these protest actions are sending a message and attracting like-minded forces so that this is the actual seeding of a movement.

One-third of all women have experienced rape or sexual assault. The U.S. porn industry pulls in $2.84 billion annually and worldwide approximately 1 of every 8 websites is a porn site. We are blitzed daily by marketing, music and film, promoting sexual objectification and degradation. There is a War on Women.  It will take a movement in the millions to revolt against and stop patriarchy.

3. BDSM – bondage discipline sadomasochism – is not just a personal matter or a private choice of sexual preference. If it were, it’d be “the wrong choice,” but rather it is really important to ask “What is the societal effect?”  None of us are making personal choices in some vacuum. We are situated in a culture and set of relations, norms, and indoctrinated values. In a liberating culture, where women are empowered as first class citizens, and where we all fight to uproot class distinctions, people would be much less likely to find torture erotic or to get off on abuse and humiliation. My comrade said she wouldn’t protest someone’s personal choice to practice BDSM, and rather, if needed she would fight along their side against state repression of personal choice. BUT if you make a movie celebrating rape culture, especially dressing it up as a love story, and you are ultimately having an abhorrent social effect – then yes, your bullshit movie needs to be called out and protested.  

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