Fifty Shades of Twilight

'He's naked, except for those soft ripped jeans, top button casually undone.' I am fairly certain that means he's not naked. Sure if he was only wearing socks you could argue that he's naked except, etc.... But trousers? Really? That means he's at least half covered, a significant hindrance to being naked.

That was a single sentence I read of the fastest selling paperback book of all time, Fifty Shades of Grey, over the shoulder of someone on the train this morning. Fifty Shades of Grey, or Fifty Shades as its colloquially known, is one of those books that I have never shown an interest in, will never show an interest in, and (redundantly) have no interest in.

However I do know, roughly, what it is, which is why I find it so disturbing to be sat on a train- especially the underground which is almost a perfect metaphor for the primary contents of this book -while every woman sat around me is reading it like its normal.

For anyone who is not aware; Fifty Shades of Grey isn't, as some people have described it to me, a 'romance novel' it's... well- well it's porn. Its written porn; erotic fiction, 'Erotica'. I'm sure there's romance in there somewhere, buried deep- there’s certainly a lot of dirty puns I could have used here but I'm going to be the bigger man and let it slide -beneath all of the porn, but it really is just porn.

Am I the only one here who finds it uncomfortable to sit next to someone when they're enjoying porn? I mean you wouldn't like it if I just sat there next to you with naked women on my iPhone, would you? But you think its ok to- I have a pretty good imagination, I don’t need a picture for it to be just as graphic.

Ugh, it's weird, right?

I almost want to ask people about it. It would be kind of fun to lean over to someone who's idly reading it and ask; 'Hey, Fifty Shades of Grey? I've heard a lot of people are reading that. It beat out harry potter as the fastest selling paper back of all time, didn't it? What's it about?' It would be especially fun to do while there were school kids within ear shot, but I'd have to wait till the end of summer for them to reappear after their summer holidays.

But that brings me nicely to another thought I wanted to put out there to the people reading Fifty Shades in public; you're not in a little bubble of solitude. Just because the tube is one of those places that if you make eye contact with me or try to make conversation I'll pretend I didn't notice-or walk to the other end of the carriage as if you're a bad smell in extreme cases -doesn't mean that nobody can comprehend the existence of you or your book. People can read over your shoulder, and not all of you are tall enough to be sure that the people reading with you are all old enough- those kids giggling behind you probably aren't telling jokes, they probably just read some ludicrously hard-core line over your shoulder. Though whether it's because of the erotic meaning behind the words or they understand how poorly written it really is; I guess we'll never know, but you get my point.

Also; I don't know if you're aware but Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James was originally a twilight fan fiction named Snow Queen Ice Dragon, she just changed the character names, it even subtly says so in the legal section of the book, hence the post's title.

But in all seriousness; stop reading porn while sat next to me on the tube, have a little self-restraint, or at least shame.
YoUtUbE vIdEo
- James