The E.L. James phenomenon has taken everyone by surprise. There is scarcely a book-seller out there who would have predicted the appetite the erotic novel 50 Shades Of Grey has uncovered for what had once been considered an unmentionable kind of kinky sex.

The writer, real name Erica Leonard, certainly had no inkling that she would hit pay-dirt in such an extraordinary way. The first book in what is now a best-selling trilogy – including the sequels 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed – was originally published as an e-book. In the classic manner of freak hits, it took off on some kind of word of mouth buzz, quickly racking up hundreds of thousands of sales. The decision to go into print with it was inevitable. But even then no one sitting behind a desk in a publishing house had any sense of what would happen.
The book was snapped up by Arrow – an imprint of Random House – who paid an advance in excess of £1 million. It is big money, by any standards, but that no one trumped it is a measure of the apprehension which must have niggled at the back of every publisher’s mind: what if this is the kind of thing that people will only buy online? What if the market has already been saturated?
Well sod that, if you were the underbidder.
Truth is that they could have multiplied that advance by ten and been on safe ground. 50 Shades Of Grey has become the fastest selling book in history. It has outstripped the Harry Potter series, which made a mega multi-millionaire out of J.K. Rowling, as well as The Da Vinci Code and Stig Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. It has sold over 20 million copies – and rising (rapidly). It is being translated into dozens of languages.
And it is mostly women who are buying it.
In addition, the movie rights have been sold for $5 million. The release of which will of course propel the book to even dizzier heights.
While it can be described as a popular romance in the Mills & Boon tradition, the USP of the book is that it deals in a very open and essentially positive way with S&M sex between two consenting adults. The majority in the God-fearing, Christian ‘west’ might have been assumed to disapprove of this kind of thing – and especially so in Ireland, where over 80% of the population say that they are Catholic. But apparently not. In the UK, sales have already run into millions. In Ireland they have kept pace, with close to a hundred thousand copies being handed across the counter in perfectly respectable bookshops. The only possible conclusion to be drawn is that there is a huge appetite out there for what had once been regarded as a thoroughly forbidden pleasure. Which, no matter how mundane the prose might be, or clichéd the story, has to be a wonderfully encouraging thought.
It is an interesting backdrop against which to publish an issue of Hot Press that explores issues of sex and sexuality. A lot has changed in Ireland over the past 30-odd years. Along the way, we fought hard for what is often now described in disparaging terms as ‘the liberal agenda’. We campaigned for contraceptive rights – which were only properly granted to Irish people in the ‘90s. We fought for the decriminalisation of gay sex. We argued for the right to choose. We distributed information in relation to AIDS and stood four square with those who were HIV positive on their right to fair and equal treatment.
We ran Dermod Moore’s never less than thought-provoking Bootboy column as a context for ventilating a myriad issues surrounding homosexuality. More recently, in Anne Sexton’s column we have explored every form of sexual diversity in a straightforward, breezy, no-nonsense style. And in general, over the years, we have given a platform – and hopefully a voice – to those who refuse to accept the long-time culturally dominant assumption, that sex and sexuality are best expressed only in the context of a long term, monogamous and preferably marital relationship between members of the opposite sex.
A lot has indeed changed in Ireland and for the better. But that is not to say that we have arrived at the end of the journey. On the contrary: in so many ways we are still in the grip of a powerful conservatism, but one the roots of which are far deeper and more difficult to uproot.
The campaign for gay marriage is ongoing. So too is the battle for legislation to enable terminations to be carried out in Ireland under terms that are – or would be – set out clearly in law. These are very immediate issues which directly affect the lives of thousands of people. There is no room for complacency until those issues have been adequately addressed.
But there is something even more fundamental that needs to be considered also in relation to sexuality and it is this. We need to ask on what foundation our collective understanding of sex is based? Why are some manifestations of sex – for example gay sex – still so widely viewed as being negative or wrong? Why has there been such widespread disapproval of the idea that sex is something that we can – and ideally should be able to – enjoy to the greatest extent possible with anyone and everyone who shares a similar need or desire at a given moment in time? Why is there a view that sexual sharing equals ‘promiscuity’ equals sinfulness equals something to be condemned?
Here is the alternative view. There is nothing wrong with sex outside marriage. There is nothing wrong with sex with multiple partners. There is nothing wrong with one night stands. There is nothing wrong with threesomes, or foursomes or whatever other sexual permutations free and consenting people want to engage in together or separately.
There are other ways in which the conservative consensus needs to be demolished. The idea that a once-off sexual encounter is inevitably devoid of love and respect is nonsense. On the contrary, sexual trysts can be outstanding expressions of generous and untrammeled love entered into without any expectation of anything other than the mutual adventure that happens on the occasion in question.
The idea that sex can only be truly fulfilling in the context of a long term loving relationship is also completely wrong. Consenting adults who are driven by a combination of respect and desire can have the most wonderful, brilliant and fulfilling sex, without it having any implication whatsoever in relation to their past or future lives. And, of course, sex in a long term loving relationship can itself be mind-blowingly good, powerful, positive and life-affirming – all the moreso where people are open, experimental, mutually accommodating and bounteous in their approach.
I have never understood the philosophical basis for the narrowness, the closed-ness, of the conventional view of sex. Though it may help, you don’t have to be a fan of Walt Whitman, D.H. Lawrence, Jean Genet, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Anaïs Nin, James Brown, Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell, Prince, Catherine Millet, Millie Jackson, P.J. Harvey, Peaches or Azealia Banks to realise that the world is teeming with a wonderful cornucopia of sexual diversity. It just is. So what is the problem if people freely engage with it, enjoy it, celebrate it? What is the problem with having a sense of adventure? What is the problem giving and receiving pleasure?
Of course there are immutable touchstones. Adult is the first. Consent is the second. Safety is the third. Responsibility is the fourth. Generosity is the fifth. Decency is the sixth. Indecency is the seventh. Care is the eighth. Openness is the ninth. And love, of course, for your fellow human beings and especially for the person you are with, is the tenth. But all of these things can be shared between any two people anywhere in the world at any time if they hit it off.
Each to their own. Everyone should be entirely free to order their lives as they see fit. You want to remain celibate? Fine. But I am with those who believe that it is time for a new dispensation. Sex is surely life’s greatest pleasure, ideally to be enjoyed as wildly as possible by everyone. It would be just a little bit mad if a pedestrian book by a 50-something first time novelist were to become the trigger to that broader kind of understanding. But stranger things have happened.
Watch this space. We’ll be coming back to all of this..