Forget The Sex, What 50 Shades Of Grey Is REALLY About

We went to see 50 Shades of Grey. I really wish this movie was about sex … but it's not. Bummer!

There are many commentaries out describing 50 Shades as a movie about abuse … but it's not (at least not the kind of abuse everyone is referring to).

First let's get it straight about abuse. This movie IS very much about abuse, but NOT the kind of abuse everyone is gabbing about …

People are going on and on saying this movie is a story about a man abusing a woman.

I completely disagree with that.

I could talk about this for 3 hours, but honestly the word "abuse" is really thrown around these days and people use it to mean whatever the hell they want. Too many people use the word "abuse" to create sensationalism and make trite observations ... I don't do sensationalism, and I definitely don't do trite. So I'm not going to participate in that garbage talk.

In my professional opinion, there was zero abuse between the adult male and female characters in this film. He hit her. She consented to it and then decided that it was not acceptable. In my professional assessment, that is not "abuse." It's not awesome … but it's not abuse. Everyone has shitty experiences in life, of varying degrees.

The term "abuse" really lacks parameters these days. Too many people have a definition of abuse that includes "someone not treating you the way you want to be treated." That's not abuse.

So while 50 Shades is not at all about abuse between the male and female characters, it is, ironically, very much a story about a man's journey from the abuse he suffered as a child and his coping with that trauma.

(Spoiler alert … if you haven’t seen the movie and plan to, maybe don’t read this)

In the movie 50 Shades of Grey, we see the story of a boy who was physically abused and traumatized before the age of four, in the presence of his mother.

It's very understandable that a 4-year-old who seeks safety from a woman who lets him experience pain, would create an association with pain and love at a very young age. At the age of 15 an older, mother-figure female repeated this pattern with him of providing pain and "love/connection," and combined it with sexual pleasure & release, making it an addiction for this boy.

As most people do, he continued using his coping mechanisms to meet his six human needs through the vehicles that he has been conditioned to through life, and eventually he repeated these patterns to meet his needs, as the one delivering the pain as he got older.

Now about the sex … I wish 50 Shades of Grey was about sex and consentual S&M between lovers. But it's not at all about that. That is very sad to me, because 50 Shades of Grey is marketed as eroticism, when it is NOT.

I believe that people today are so STARVING for main street acceptable erotica that they are flocking to this movie to fulfill their needs for that kind of energy and surge of sexual sensation.

There is plenty of beautiful, healthy eroticism available today! And it has NOTHING to do with abuse, coping, and being trapped in the blue print of a child violently hurt under the age of four.

S&M, erotica and bondage can all be a wonderful and healthy part of a consentual sexual relationship between two adults who want those experiences. It's not for everyone. Neither is pistachio ice cream … but it's somebody's favorite flavor!

And if your flavor of that experience includes being tied up, S&M, erotica or dressing up like Wilma and Fred Flintstone ... go for it and have fun! Everything is awesome between two consentual partners taking their passion to new heights.

I wish that was what this movie was about.

But unfortunately, it was about a boy who hasn't recovered from some pretty serious trauma and is living out the blue print and coping mechanisms that he created at a very young age during some traumatic moments in his life. (Our blueprint is how we have wired ourselves, the software that runs our show.)

Women everywhere flocked to the movies in the hopes of having a nice (wet) surge of pleasure from watching a masculine man take his woman over and over and over again into levels of extreme pleasure….unfortunately, there were some key mistakes made that left women unsatisfied and a bit dry…I'll discuss those mistakes in next week's article!

Now, I only saw the movie … I have not read the books (and I'm not going to), so my entire perspective is 100% solely based on the movie 50 Shades of Grey.

As a strategic interventionist, I found the movie very fascinating. (Blueprints, vehicles, pattern interrupts, masculine/feminine energy, six human needs, coping strategies…all kinds of cool stuff going on)

As a passion expert … this was not a movie about sex, so that was a disappointment.

Fortunately, I didn't stay disappointed long … Paul took me home and … well, you know … he more than made up for the sexually ecstatic experience I was longing for!