Erotica has become mainstream. And that scares me.
Today I’d like to share with you about a great book I read recently: Pulling Back the Shades: Erotica, Intimacy and the Longings of a Woman’s Heart by Dannah Gresh and Juli Slattery.
They’re talking about how the book series Fifty Shades of Grey and other erotica can wreck your sex drive, your marriage, and your spiritual life. And they’re so right. We can’t ignore this stuff.
I write a lot about pornography on this blog: I write about the effects of porn, how to deal with a husband’s addiction to porn, and more. But while porn is a major problem for men (and increasingly for women, since 30% of porn users are women), that does not mean that women are immune from these types of struggles. They just take different forms–and erotica is one of the main forms.
And so I’d like to share with you some quotes from the book, and some of my own thoughts. They write:
We believe that the release of the Fifty Shades of Grey series was a transforming moment that fueled the erotica craze, normalizing its use. The series has done for women and erotica what the advent of the Internet did for men and porn.
Fifty Shades of Grey made erotica become mainstream–and acceptable.
My family and I were on a cruise shortly after the craze, and my girls were gobsmacked by how many women were reading it on their Kindles on the pool deck–with their husbands sitting beside them, where everyone could see. It’s socially acceptable now, because it’s seen as empowering! It just boosts a woman’s libido, and what can be the harm in that?
Well, Dannah and Juli show how it boosts that libido in a very significant way, by appealing to a woman’s five major longings:
- To escape reality
- To be cherished by a man
- To be protected by a strong man
- To rescue a man
- To be sexually alive
Think about how a book that’s about a strong, rich, multibillionaire who is troubled getting a young, naive girl involved in bondage will answer each of those 5 needs. The woman reading it escapes reality. She enters a story where this man who has everything is nonetheless obsessed and enthralled with this normal girl. He showers her with gifts, yet at the same time he is very strong–he totally dominates her. But he has these demons that only she can get rid of for him by her love. And in the midst of all that she has amazing sex (and as you read them you get aroused, too.
Erotica feeds right into our essential desires, but it does it in a counterfeit way.
“Erotica strategically and masterfully pulls you in by exploiting what your heart secretly longs for.”
Then Juli Slattery says this:
Having read the Fifty Shades trilogy, I will say with great confidence that these books are not merely fiction—a story that could be true but is not—but are actually fantasy— something that could not possibly be true.
Sure, they may meet our needs, but it’s completely not true. If you look at the plot, it can’t possibly be true. And that makes it a fantasy. The Narnia series is a fantasy–it breaks the laws of physics and nature by creating an alternate world you can travel to. Lord of the Rings is fantasy because it breaks other laws of nature to create a magical world that can’t exist. But those fantasy worlds are good ones, because they do not break moral laws. The erotic novels, on the other hand, actually change the laws–moral and relational laws. That’s why it’s called shades of grey–there aren’t black and white anymore. And the author says so explicitly in the book.
Breaking down moral rules is part of what she sets out to do in Fifty Shades of Grey.
Her main character is even called Christian. And look at what passes for love–dominating, humiliating, being abusive and making someone else complete you.
They do a wonderful job of explaining the black spiritual undertones to the books, but then they show why it is that even with these undertones we gravitate towards them.
Think about this, though: having to call someone Master–it’s a spiritual thing. And Jesus came to proclaim freedom! But they show how the BDSM lifestyle can appeal to women who are desperate to have a man act more like a man. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t enhance intimacy. It replaces it with adventure and danger, which does heighten sexual response because it releases certain hormones which make us feel more alive. But it isn’t intimacy. And the more that sexual response is paired with this kind of thing, the less your sexual response will even work when you’re trying to “make love”–when you’re trying to be intimate.
They share many stories of girls and women who have read the books and have gotten caught up in erotica. Some of you have shared those stories with me, too. I’ve had several women write about how they grew up in very conservative households, and they started with the Beverly Lewis Amish books. They devoured all those from the church library when they were 12 and 13, so then they moved on to the Karen Kingsbury and other romances there. When they had read all the romances, they went to the public library and looked for secular romances. And soon they were reading Nora Roberts and books with explicit sex scenes.
And before you know it they were seeking out erotica online–even as teens in a conservative Christian home.
Now they’re adults and they can’t stop. They count the moments until they can take some time to themselves and read an erotic novel. And they can’t have sx with their husbands without picturing some scene from the novel. It’s invaded everything.
But that kind of “boosting your libido” is fake.
The authors write,
Erotica like Fifty Shades of Grey is aimed at awakening your physical sexual desire without any connection to emotional, relational, or spiritual reality. Even if the main characters are “in love,” you are not! Whatever emotional and sexual response these novels create in you, they are disconnected from your love relationships and your longing to know and honor God.
It’s not that adventure in bed is wrong–and they do a good job of what’s okay and what’s not okay in the bedroom, and came to EXACTLY the same conclusions I did in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex on EVERYTHING, so I’m glad about that! Adventure is good, and discovery and exploration is good. But when it’s combined with something that isn’t about intimacy but is about humiliation or degradation, there are some serious problems.
Their conclusion:
While erotica might originally heighten sexual feelings, over the long haul it erodes something much more important—intimacy.
I know many of you are struggling with addictions or temptations towards erotica.
I know for many of us it IS a huge temptation. And that is not wrong. We’re all tempted towards something. But if you continue to read this kind of erotica, it will impact your sex life with your husband in a very negative way. You’ll be living your sex life through fantasy, and that is basically the same as cheating. How would you feel if your husband had to picture porn to get aroused? If you have to picture a scene from a book, you’re doing that, too.
It changes what we respond to. It changes how our bodies work. It makes us dissatisfied in our marriages and with our husbands. And it just plain is dangerous.
Pulling Back the Shades is a great book. It’s not only about Fifty Shades of Grey–it’s about the whole erotic, BDSM phenomenon that is sweeping through our culture. And I’d encourage you to read it, even if you’re not struggling with this, because we need to understand what’s going on so we can talk to our friends, our sisters, and our daughters about it.

I could not agree with this post more!! I struggle a lot, because so many of my friends have read Fifty Shades and rave about it! I am smack dab in the middle of 30 something life, when women/wives start to get bored and wonder what happen to all the excitement from their 20’s with the man they were dating. These women are then looking for excitement someplace they shouldn’t be. The whole thing makes me sick. But if I share my opinion about how destructive this is and how a wife reading this book is no different than a husband getting on the computer and using porn, I get called a prude and told that it isn’t damaging that its helping marriages. 🙁 I pray a lot for them!
Do some men encourage their wives to read things like “50 Shades” with the expectation that their wives’s libidos will pick up? I don’t know any men who have read that book, but I’ve heard lots of men enthuse over the premise… as if they could be the billionaire playboy.
Yes, I think that’s quite common. Sad.
Just linked to this post here.
I loved this book! I finished it in a day on a men’s camping trip, with all the guys asking me questions about it while I was reading it. I found it fascinating to have the insight into female sexuality.
There are very real casualties to this “harmless” form of entertainment. As an RN in the Women’s Health field, I have seen direct correlations between sexual trends and their effects on women and young girls. When the media surrounding Bill Clinton’s affair broke the social barrier of oral sex, OB-GYNs began seeing an increase in oral sexually transmitted infections. The mainstream acceptance of violent sex- especially perpetrated on young girls will, I fear, have disastrous ramifications for our daughters.
The film version of this book is set to premier in my town on February 14 of 2015 and I have been praying for its total and complete shut down. Will you join me?
I still struggle with the effects of an erotica addiction I struggled through in my teens and 20’s. (Just like you say, I started with Christian romance and moved on to secular from the library, and then to ebooks on Amazon. Then I got married in my 30’s and discovered that my ideas about sex were completely warped.)
My question though is about how to raise my daughter to avoid this trap. I don’t want to outlaw all romantic books and movies (Actually my parents tried that, even with Christian ones. I just went behind their backs.) but I want to keep her from being drawn into the garbage I got into. Having been raised in a very loving, but very strict home, I struggle to find the right way to raise my own kids!
That’s a great question, Marty! Maybe I should make that a post of itself. I think the only way we can do it is to keep talking to our kids–all the time. Tell them about our struggles. Tell them why it’s best to stay away from this stuff. But I’ll think of more and try to turn it into a post!
thanks, the post is helpful
I am both saddened and angry with Jay Dee’s comment. To “love” reading about a young women being degraded, and tortured is apalling to me. Once again we see how women are viewed as objects and are here for men’s pleasure. He only helps perpetuate the lie that so many men believe and gravitate to porn. Shame on you!
Jay Dee was ambiguous, but I’m virtually certain that he was referring to “Pulling Back the Shades” and not “50 Shades of Grey”.
I have had a hard time understanding the 50 Shades of Grey book. I didn’t read it, because I’m not into romance novels. I just know that my mom always told me it was wrong to read about sexually explicit acts, just as it was to watch them. I’ve always stayed away from stuff like that. However, I know it is a huge problem for women. I had a guy friend ask me one day what I thought the women equivalent to porn was, and I told him that romance novels were. I think that the more sexually explicit these books become and the more they embrace violent sex, the more women will watch porn. I want a woman to feel empowered in her sex life, but in a healthy way with her husband. Thanks for writing about this topic. I don’t think I would know how to do it justice.
Thanks for this great post! I work for Authentic Intimacy, the ministry of Dr Juli Slattery. We are so passionate about this book & God’s Truth on Intimacy. You can listen to more about Pulling Back the Shades on our podacst- http://www.authenticintimacy.com/java-with-juli/exposing-fifty-shades-of-grey/