‘50 Shades of Grey’ Is the Subject of a Course at American University
Sex educator and American University adjunct professor Stef Woods didn’t see “mommy porn” when she first heard buzz about the E.L. James erotic romance bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey at a doctor’s office, where the receptionists, nurse, and doctor were all reading the book. She saw a potential class topic. Having taught college classes on activism and social media and sexuality and social media, Woods found the combination of number of books sold, media hype, and issues related to female sexuality, fan fiction, and social media compelling enough to successfully propose “Contemporary American Culture: The 50 Shades Trilogy,” which she will teach to 25 students starting in January.
“It never crossed my mind to use another book for a case study,” she wrote on her blog, City Girl. The class already has a waiting list, and is filled mostly with senior honors students (22 or 23 of whom, according to Woods, are female). “No other contemporary text on sexuality has transformed American culture the way that this series has,” Woods told student newspaper The Eagle, where, in the comments, she offered an anonymous student commenter the opportunity to sit in on the class.
Read the entire article at The Daily Beast.
I certainly hope this university doesn’t charge some obscene tuition fee to take a course in a book that is still maintaining interest (or perhaps curiosity) but when its metaphorical fifteen minutes expire will slide back into obscurity. I am amazed that an adjunct who probably is being paid $3K to teach this course would garner this amount of media attention.
Question: “No other contemporary text on sexuality has transformed American culture the way that this series has[.]” Really? I suppose if you are defining contemporary as referring to the last five or six years that might be the case, but contemporary as a literary term takes us back to at least World War II. Is Stef Woods suggesting that the liberation coming out of the 1960s and the hedonism of the 1980s and the spread of AIDS was not as socially significant as the response to these three books?
And let’s face it, the books are not well written and are designed to appeal to our naughty bits as much as to our intellects … more so, probably. A sociologically significant study might better phrase the course objective to be, What is wrong with sexuality today that has women bothering to read such trash? Mommy porn is not knew; this one just doesn’t have Fabio on the cover.
And another problem: I hear this is soft-core porn … what a waste of time. When are we going to get some decently written hard-core porn?
A Celebration of Reading 
Yes I am worried for the future of the human race. The book is disturbing enough. Human beings are animals and sexual desires come with the territory. I get it. But when is enouh enough. I mean are we so far gone that we have nothing better to do than discuss book porn in classes.
We take porn and its existence for granted. Uttering it as a recurring joke on tv shows and whatnot. But, the thibg is, porn is mind mapped to illegal flesh trade and its entertainment. It’s rarely an ideal career for any women. We clearly don’t need any more inspiration on that front.
Transformed American culture? To what exactly? Not for the greater good I imagine. Even if this is just a book, it’s disturbing that women can stomach it without being sick.
It has asshat characters and sissy characters. One told me the remainder of the story after I chucked the damn book out. Short version of course. I don’t sympathise with that asshole character in the book at all and if that girl existed in real life, I would ship her off to Iraq for being so damn dumb. We wouldn’t want anyone we know acting that way. To each his own and whatever but I still find it disturbing.
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This is sad. I mean I am a woman and I couldn’t even stomach the premise of the book. Yech.. This is not to be disguised as erotic. It is porn. I barfed as soon as I realized this wasn’t a short fluffy nonsensical read. Yes, we are sexual beings and whatnot. But seriously, porn is an oft recurring joke and we have all taken for granted, that it exists. But we forget, that it’s flesh trade as entertainment and that demand drives it. It is hardly an ideal career for those involved. And women are nothing but objects. While, this is just a book and I might be driving off course, it is a sick book with asshat characters that, for me, creates a mind map to porn to illegal flesh trade annnnnd really bad story telling. To think that a man like that exists and that a women actually submits to his charms and that there are people who can stomach it, makes me worried for the future of the human race.
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