I know, the blog title is a bit complex by design. I don’t have time to do this often, but when there is a blog post in cyberspace that garners a lot of comments, I’m as intrigued by the comments as I am the post. I thought I’d share a recent comment reading experience.
The blog post is by Dannah Gresh at Pure Freedom. She’s an author and speaker passionate about encouraging moms to help daughters pursue purity (especially if mom did not) and to open lines of communication when it comes to Christians and s*x. Her post is about the mainstream book that is capturing a lot of attention for its content, Fifty Shades of Grey.
There are over 250 comments on Dannah’s post on why she won’t be reading this book, and I find the remarks fascinating.
Dannah admitted she had not read the book and her post was why she would not be.
And the comments started coming.
The comments vary between those chastising her for judging Fifty Shades readers without reading the book. Those who feel the book is harmless reading. Wives taking issue with other commenters because their marriage is a struggle because of men involved in por*ography, and they agree with Dannah that the book is the same for women.
Do you know what I found the most curious? Christians who defended the book and their personal marital tastes. They felt the book was harmless, even when other commenters used Scripture to apply why the book should not be read. The Christian defenders of Fifty Shades of Grey went as far to say some of the acts in the book are ones they implement in their own marriage. That brought such a firestorm that Dannah’s husband Bob addressed it in a comment, and Dannah wrote a subsequent post explaining why the two–being a Christian and that act–can’t co exist.
My takeaway from the comments was that we are in the last days. The true defeated one is working overtime practicing the one weapon in his arsenal that continues to work: deception. From deception seems to come the by-product of Christian division. The comments in that post was obvious there is a lot of deception and division going on. To say the comments were spirited would be an understatement. As of this writing, there are 255 comments on that post.
There’s a lot to comment on with this post–the book, Dannah’s post, and the comments. I’ll ask this: have you ever been mesmerized by the comments on a post as much as the actual post?
*Disclaimer–the links provided are to a Christian author and her site, but the linked post content contains mature and graphic themes.
Christians Read 
Great post! We are most definitely in the last days. And yes, I will admit I often am sometimes more interested in the comments than the post when it’s something controversial.
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Thanks, Camy!
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As of this particular topic, I am not interested at all in the comments, I bet people are all over the place with their opinions but bottom line is that they’re just trying to justify themselves with what they think it’s right and not paying attention to what God says is right.
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You are right, I was fascinated with the reasons shared.
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Looks like we’re on the same wave length today :0) My Blog post for today…@ http://www.aheartinspired.blogspot.com
Why I Won’t Be Reading Fifty Shades Of Grey
For those of you who know me well, you know that I have always had strong judgements/opinions and glide on the border of being a prude. I stand by this depiction and wear it as a badge of honor. I will preface this by saying that in the recent years I have been blessed with a much less judgemental heart and attitude. And this, only by the Grace of the living God. Growing and learning each and every day I have come to trust and lean on the knowledge that He has the final say, which thankfully relieves me of the burden to condemn others. Not my job…, anymore. Yay!
So please, please, please know that I am NOT judging, nor condemning; this statement particularly applying to those of you who are in the throngs or Mr. Christian Grey himself. I only know of this book’s contents from a friend who is reading it. I personally have no desire to delve into the murky depths of this literature, for I am quite visual and tend to be more old school Catholic in terms of the guilt that would plague me and have me wanting to pluck my own eyes out for the images that would surely be burned into minds-eye and forever set me on the path to hell. Dramatic, I know…I tend to be very passionate, especially when I am on the defense.
{And yes, I am aware that the book is more than “that” and that the characters are endearing and the love story enchanting. Got it}
Don’t get me wrong, I love a hot steamy novel as much as the next girl, but something about this content has my insides turning uneasy. Like I mentioned above, its the images that get burned into our minds and hearts. We are called to guard our minds and our hearts. No doubt these images would be hard to shake. And to be honest, I do firmly believe the the world is going to pot, because of lustful desires. Sinking quicker and quicker and no-one even being aware that its happening right in our own backyards.
I have always, always, always been extremely offended by lust and explicit sex, be it visual or contextual, my spirit finds it putrefying. I know a lot of you will say you can separate reality from fantasy, and that’s a great concept, in theory. We are sexual beings, God created us that way. And sex is wonderfully glorious and divine, in the eyes of the Lord and in the context in which He designed it.
It takes a lot of strength and courage to swim in the other direction. A lot. Because as a human being, I’ll admit, I sometimes feel as though I’m ‘missing out on the fun’. But I hold on tight and with everything I’ve got to the truth that is whispered to my soul. It’s okay to not blend in…to maybe look like a stick in the mud.
I’ll spare you the sermon and just leave it at this. I have four kids. My desire for their adult journey is simple. To be solid in their faith. To be blessed richly in their marital unions. To follow biblical principals in their marriages. To not fall for the nonsense that is ‘This World’. To learn from mom’s mistakes and take heed. I wish, I wish, I wish I had this knowledge when I was married.
So with that, I bow out graciously and wish you happy reading.
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Wonderful post. I know you feel like you’re swimming upstream alone, but you aren’t. This mom is with you.
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Journalist Michael Buerk has some thoughts on the book at http://www.TheFifthColumn.co.uk:
here is transcript: It’s sad, but undeniably true, that our rubbish tells more about us than our art. Take the literary sensation of our times – you must have heard about it. It’s called Fifty Shades of Grey, a poorly written, passingly pornographic novel that has become the fastest selling book of all time. Its puerile plot and kinky sex has sold ten million paperbacks in America, a million E books on Amazon; Hollywood stars are fighting to appear in the movie. The author, a British woman going under the name of E.L. James, is a squillionaire having already outpaced J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown (an even worse writer), the Koran and the Bible.
It’s invented a literary genre, “Mummy Porn”. The women who buy it are predominantly in their 30s and 40s. An entire female generation seems swept up in a story of a young virgin submitting to lots – and lots – of sado-masochistic sex at the hands, and the instruments, indeed, of a post-modern Marquis de Sade.
Feminists are beside themselves trying to explain how this could happen; how women, the powerful, independent women of the 21st century, should be so fascinated by female powerlessness and subjugation. One suggestion – that the fantasy of submission is a welcome escape for women who are now taking care of everybody else (“the relentless responsibility of the modern woman’s life”, as Newsweek put it) lit the blue touchpaper of feminist sensibilities. Another – that woman have always loved porn ( or, in these non-judgemental times, “erotica”) and E books, Kindles and so on mean they can do so without others noticing, has also had short shrift.
There must be more to it, and, of course there is. Even I, a bewildered, elderly male whose notions of pornography involve strapping girls with beach balls, dimly discerns it.
Take the characters. The anti-hero, the whip wielder, is hardly Sir Jasper. He’s an Adonis, we’re told over and over again, who’s a piano prodigy and wine connoisseur who’s made his billions out of renewable energy , ha!,and is desperate to feed the Third World, right on! Sure, he knocks her about, but rubs in baby oil afterwards. New monster or what?
The tiresome Virgin (you don’t have to be a sadist to have the urge to slap her) is actually in control…negotiating the details of her degradation, even drawing up a contract to define their sexual terms of trade.
Her monster has it all. He’s solicitous, caring and only cruel because he is damaged. So he’s needy, as well as filthy rich. He’s a project and you just know the Virgin will change him into the tractable family man all the readers of the book are, apparently, trying to escape from. It’s tripe, but it skewers that particularly paradox more neatly than Shakespeare.
But what does it really tell us? That the threshold of what shocks and/or excites us has risen immeasurably in less than a generation. That the arguments over the middle ground of pornography are simplistic. Objectifying women? Doesn’t all fiction objectify people? Women are not necessarily victims, on or off the page.
Most of all, that women may be mistresses of the universe but their literary taste is no better than men’s.
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This is an interesting post. Another set of posts surrounding the book come from Jeannie Campbell, a therapist.
http://charactertherapist.blogspot.com/2012/06/therapists-take-on-fifty-shades-of-grey.html
http://charactertherapist.blogspot.com/2012/07/four-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-read-50.html
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we seem to have been in “the last days” for the last 2000 years you prat
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Real Drammatic and painful aspects in sexuality are not beeing beated or practise pervertion,but beeing betrayed, used, this make you suffer the whole life….I don’t know why but I’m suffering a lot cause the book “fifty shades” doesn’t represent this aspetcts of life but a cinderela who, even in a strange way, finds love…
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