Of Pornography and Word Choice: Fifty Shades Paraphrased! by H.P. Atilano

[Author's Note: This post was published on Facebook August 25, 2012, in response to the Fifty Shades craze.]


I teach Literary Criticism, so I can distinguish between the diction (word choice) of Jane Austen and Stephanie Meyer, the way a wine connoisseur can taste the subtle difference between Pinot Blanc and Pinot Grigio. So when some of my Lit Crit students and the grad school students in my Structure of English class, who’ve read E L James, asked me if this work of erotic fiction is pornographic or just gut-level erotic narrative, I did the most logical thing an English teacher would do, as suggested by my trusty common sense: look pornography up in the dictionary.


What is pornography? What constitutes pornographic materials?


Pornography, n. [Mid-19th century. Via French < Greek pornographos "writing about prostitutes" pornē "prostitute"] 1. Sexually explicit material: films, magazines, writings, photographs, or other materials that are sexually explicit and intended to cause sexual arousal; 2. Sexual images industry: the production or sale of sexually explicit films, magazines, or other materials. (Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.) So, the bottom-line question is: Were you sexually aroused by the 101 ways E L James vividly described orgasm in her Fifty Shades trilogy? Simply put, did you feel a tingling sensation running down your spine all the way to the soles of your feet and a slight rise in temperature in your facial area, extremities, and groin, as you visualized the sexual positions and “clenching” of the characters’ anatomies, as the author describes them in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination? Because if you’re not affected, there could only be two implications: (1) You DID NOT READ 98.8% of the books, OR (2) You NEED to see a SEX THERAPIST…soon! The next argument has to do with the second aspect of the definition: Authorial intent. Does the author “intend to cause sexual arousal”? Let me paraphrase: Is the author responsible for the male readers’ hard-on and the female readers’ frequent trips to the powder room? Of course, the author can always deny her true intent and invoke the Reader Response Theory to literary interpretation (i.e. “the meaning is in the reader”), but you simply cannot deny the unmistakable response of that very sensitive thing between your thighs! And she is definitely responsible for that, because she is the source of the stimulus! Enough said. So we’ve established the reading materials in question are pornographic. But we don’t stop here. As a literature teacher, I tend to question, “What makes this pornographic: the reader’s response (arousal) or the writer’s stimulus (text)?” As in the crime of murder, no murder weapon (and the desire to kill), no murderer. No murderer, no victim. So, what is a “pornographer’s” weapon? The same ammunition every writer uses to hit his targets: WORDS. We are dealing here with print materials only, but do bear in mind that words translate to images inside our heads as we read. In Developmental Reading, we call this “visualization.” And to the fertile mind and active imagination, things can go very graphic! To illustrate how word choice-- or, in literary jargon, diction-- spells the difference between art and smut, I will use a teeny bit of my insane imagination and ask the question I always ask when I’m bored to a comatose: “What if…?” Recently, I came across several You Tube videos of Hollywood celebrities reading Fifty Shades of Grey on open mic—Ellen DeGeneres, Kristen Stewart, Will Ferrell (hilarious to the max!), etc. I’ve also been listening to audio book versions, from throaty bedroom voice rendition to semi-constipated ones (what’s wrong with these people?) This seems to be the latest craze, so I’ll jump into the clichéd bandwagon but I’ll give it a twist--- I’ll have certain personalities paraphrase Fifty Shades excerpts to suit their “conscience” and their audience. Imagine this: What if Jane Austen-- 18th century English spinster-author of Victorian classics like Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc.-- did an audio book reading of Fifty Shades? How would she paraphrase it for Queen Victoria, the most morally astute, most conservative queen of England? What if English poet John Donne, who wrote the “divine sonnets,” did a reading for his morally-sensitive audience? What if Hans Christian Andersen, the fairy tale icon, would read excerpts for very young audience? What if a medical doctor paraphrased it because he couldn’t risk blushing before his audience? For reference purposes, here is the excerpt to be paraphrased, lifted verbatim with a few omissions, from the book: “His kiss is demanding, his tongue and lips coaxing mine. I moan and my tongue tentatively meets his. He puts his arms around me and hauls me against his body, squeezing me tightly…his hand flexes over my backside and squeezes gently. He holds me against his hips, and I feel his erection, which he languidly pushes into me. I moan once more into his mouth…he gently cups my breast…my breasts swell, and my nipples harden under his steady gaze. ‘I am going to f^*k you now, Ms. Steele,’ he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex…” (E L James, Fifty Shades of Grey, Chapter 7)


So, here goes…(Bear in mind these are paraphrased…and entirely my error!)



Reader No. 1: Miss Jane Austen, English novelist


[Curtsying before the Queen…] “His lips remind me of the birds and the bees and the butterflies. Oh, how so divine! I sing the song of the nightingale and, oh Blessed Mary Ever Virgin, he sings with me! He offered me his hand and I take it in my gloved hand and he pressed it ever so gently. And so help me Lord, he comes near me, about three feet near, and I can see he is a gentleman because he stands erect, oh dear! I sing once more…he gently touches my heart…my heart swells…’I shall show you the birds and the bees and the butterflies now, Ms. Steele,’ he whispers as he positions his key at the keyhole of my heart…”


Reader No. 2: Sir John Donne, English poet

“His kiss is a religious experience, a portal to some unknown depths of my soul. Our souls intertwine and we sing the glorious hymn of a thousand angels. He rests his arms around my being and he and I were one. As the vine clings to the tree, he holds me against his being, and I feel his manhood, as hard as the rocks of Gibraltar. I hear the birds sing as he gently caresses my bosom. My cup runneth over! ‘I will take you now on a spiritual journey of the Seven Seas, Ms. Steele,’ he utters as he raises the sail of his sailing ship waiting by the shore of my sea…”

Reader No. 3: Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy Tale compiler

“A long, long time ago, in a kingdom far, far away, Mr. Tongue and Mr. Lips went on a journey into a cave, where moans can be heard as one enters it. And so it happens that Mr. Tongue and Mr. Lips were met by the Moaning Lady and they played for a little while, before they decided to go South where there is a river where they could quench their thirst. The Moaning Lady knows she could not stop these two, because she knows how hard their heads are. Their friend, Dick, suddenly arrives, looking rigid and too excited, and he said to the Moaning Lady, ‘I am going to enter your cave now, my Lady,’ as he positions himself at the entrance of her cave…”


And finally, Reader No. 4: The Doctor


“His tongue is invading my oral cavity like gingivitis. My vocal chords vibrate to make noises that resemble the sound of the rubber pump of a sphygmomanometer. His upper extremities flex over my posterior and squeezed my muscle there. He holds me against his pelvic area and I feel his phallus, rigid due to muscular constriction as adrenaline makes his heart pump more blood into the genital area. He gently cups my mammary glands which swell due to overstimulation, and my areolas contract as my nerve endings there are stimulated, too. ‘I am going to perforate your hymen now, Ms. Steele,’ he whispers as he positions the cusp of his phallus at 6 o’ clock of my urethra…”


Now, you be Reader No. 5. (Paraphrase, paraphrase, paraphrase!)#