50 Shades

So, I finally started reading 50 Shades of Grey.  (MaxEarnest specifically told me it was OK.) And my first response was, 'that's it?'  I'm several chapters in, without so much as a kiss.  I remember the first time I read "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty" I was shocked that she had sex on, maybe, the third page of the book, or something.  Sex, I might add, without consent, or even consciousness. But somehow, the more I entered both the world of that book and the world of kink as it is currently envisioned  the less I saw of romance, and the less I felt entitled to romance.  Who needs romance when there's hot kinky sex?

I think the Beauty books shaped a lot of how I viewed eroticism.  I rebelled against the Story of O.  The version I read had her choose to be killed, which was so fucked up.  In a way, I found the Story of O to be anti-kink. A warning.  You will be used up and discarded and want to die.  But the Beauty books were hot and ended happily.  

But, assuming that 50 Shades gets hot at some point (it has to get hot at some point, right?  so far, he's bought rope and cable ties at the hardware store--I assume this is a harbinger of kink, but if I hadn't read about the book, I really wouldn't have kept up with it--I can't tell you what page I'm on because I borrowed and e-version from the library), maybe it would be good to imagine eroticism that doesn't involve sex on the third page.