The 50 Shades of Grey Phenomenon

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | July 16, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

Snerdley, have you read the novel 50 Shades of Grey? (interruption) Well, let me tell you something. You need to get it. (interruption) Yeah, because... See, Snerdley thinks that he is the Dr. Ruth of men. (interruption) I'm getting there. I'm being asked questions here. I'm getting to the answers that you all want. I'd never heard of it 'til yesterday. So I'm reading Page Six in the New York Post, and I see that movie rights have been negotiated for this book.

They describe a little bit of the book. It's a chick book, written by a woman. It's about... (interruption) Well, they had these kind of books in the seventies. The Sensuous Woman by "J." You remember that one? There were a couple of others back then. The Happy Hooker, this kind of thing. This one, apparently, tops all of those. It... (interruption) Well, it's graphic. Yeah, it's graphic. (interruption) Yeah. Yeah, I was compelled to buy the thing when I was reading about it. So I started reading a little bit last night.

Last night about 10:30 during a Breaking Bad commercial break, I turned to Kathryn and said, "Have you ever heard of this 50 Shades of Grey business?" She looked at me. (laughing) "Where did YOU hear about that!" She said, "Everybody's telling me to read it. All my friends are telling me to read it, and I'm not reading it because everybody else is," which is like me. Conventional wisdom goes one way; I go the other. Kathryn and I are both that way. Whatever the pack's doing, we do the opposite. So she hasn't read it.

I said, "You need to get it." Her friends are describing this in detail. It's typical. It's a woman writing her own fantasies in the form of a novel. (interruption) That's right, Snerdley. Snerdley is getting all excited in there. And I guarantee you what's gonna happen. Every guy that reads this book is gonna say, "Yeah, that's me! That's me." As she describes her fantasy, they'll say, "That's me." Every guy that reads it says, "Yep, yep, yep. I already got this down pat. That's me, that's me."

You're gonna do that, Snerdley, when you read it. "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's commonplace. Oh, yeah, I do that all the time."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, folks, before you go buy this book, stop and listen to me. You need to know some things, because I am not recommending it. It's totally up to you. But I want you to know that. I don't want to have anybody get the wrong idea about what this book is. This book is about S&M. This book is anti-feminist porn. There is not a feminist in this world who will love this book. This is a book about totally domineering men. Well, "a" totally domineering man. He calls himself "The Dominant."

The female object in the book is "The Submissive." She signs a nondisclosure agreement. She promises not to tell a soul about anything. There are rules. The best description of this book that I've seen is "mommy porn." It is aimed at bored housewives and mothers. The author of this book is making a million dollars a week on residuals. It came out in April. It's part of a trilogy and 50 Shades of Grey is first. But this is all about how women want to be submissive. It defies everything feminism supposedly teaches.

It says that being submissive is the ultimate empowerment.

It started out as a self-published book developed on a fan fiction website, but the website pulled it 'cause it was too dirty. So she put it on her own website. You can get it as an e-book, but I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea. It's not The Sensuous Woman. It's not a lighthearted romp. I don't want anybody getting the idea here that I misled you into buying this thing, 'cause it's... I mean, the fun for me is I would love to see Hillary Clinton reading this book, or I would love to see Molly Yard reading it.

It'd just send 'em into orbit.

But there's no romance.

It isn't a romance book.

It is not about love, nothing of the sort. So don't anybody get the wrong idea and go out and buy this thing thinking, "Well, you know, if Rush talked about it..." (laughing) Would it make The Oprah Book Club? Uhhh, the jury's still out on that question. If somebody could convince Oprah of the author's premise that submission is ultimate empowerment, then Oprah would go for it. That's what Oprah's all about is "empowerment." So it's possible. But I don't know that that's the case, and if you're using that to buy it, don't.

END TRANSCRIPT

[dragonblustar]

I don’t get the 50 shades thing or the Twilight series either.

[Marie]

Thank you for posting this. My friends were recommending this and I thought it was just a more graphic romance novel. Now I know that I WILL NOT be buying this book.

[Celerity]

The book is based on not just a story that was pulled from a website... it was a Twilight Fan Fiction. The names were changed for the 50 shades release.

Makes sense now, doesn’t it ?

Also, the book is meant to gauge control factors in the population. It seems that role-models are gone, and now it’s all about glorifying submission.

[Ronin]

I don’t think it will be on my reading list anytime soon.

[jakerobins]

I will be glad when the hype about this stupid book is over......It appears bored housewives aren’t the only people to be reading it either seems it’s a big hit with teen girls.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2172722/How-adults-novel-Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey-attracting-fan-base-TEENAGERS-read-parents-backs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[gop4lyf]

I work with mostly women and they talk about it in the break room quite often.

[zerosix]

More than porn it's truly trash - not at all well written (though how many "chick" books clan claim to be) but if other women (I am one) are into this stuff, I've left the planet and am now living in an alternative universe, thank you Lord!

No kidding, the women who dig this stuff are Obama voters for sure!

[Talisker]

I don’t get the 50 shades thing or the Twilight series either.

50 Shades is a Romney campaign effort, Twilight is a Hillary campaign effort.

In Twilight, not only are all men not to be considered by women, but even of-age teenage males can't actually be alive. In the Hillary School of Total Female Destruction, the only good man is a dead man, so the horny Hillary followers said, "fine, I'll read stories about screwing dead teenage boys and then you can't say I'm wrong."

50 Shades came out of Romney's war room where they were trying to figure out how to get the Hillary vote. They decided to combine sex fantasies with what they believe to be Mitt's main coloring attraction, and then flip the dynamic to the opposite of the Hillary commands - i.e. submission instead of domination - because they paid for an expensive shrink to tell them what to do.

Ya'll think I'm joking.

I'm not.

[Carry_Okie]

I would love to see Hillary Clinton reading this book,

It may be hard to swallow Rush, but I'd bet Hillary did plenty of submitting to land her Bubba.

[linn37]

Huh?

[MrEdd]

Even a lot of mommy porn afficianados are panning this one.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JF7E91JJVHAT/

[SueRae]

Thank you and thank Rush and Katherine from sparing me..I have friends who devour romance novels. Not for me...I’ve read some tolerable stuff they gave me, like Nora Roberts to pass the hours when I was taking care of my mother. This doesn’t sound like ‘it.’.

In fact the only really good ‘chick book’ series (if you want to call it that) that I have read were the “Clan of the Cave Bear” series by Jean Auel. They were outstanding.

[SamAdams76]

I work with mostly women and they talk about it in the break room quite often.

The irony is that if men in the workplace talked in a break room about a similar book that they read, and women overheard it, the phones in the HR department would melt down.

[kidd]

Michelle Obama is reading the 57 Shades of Grey

...or so I’ve heard.

[Izzy Dunne]

More than porn it's truly trash

True dat. My wife likes to know what all the fuss is about, so she read it.

She read me passages. It's so banal as to be pukeworthy, but the S&M angle is apparently exciting for many (not for her).

[Perdogg]

great one linear.

[Juana la Loca]

I have a friend who read the trilogy. She has become obsessed with it. She talks about Christian Grey like he really exists. She ran out and bought gray and blue contact lenses so she and her husband can role play as the characters from the book. She now wants a pair of silver ben-wa balls that apparently figure prominently in the book. And all I can think is why in the world would you find a mental case like this guy appealing in any way, shape or form and fantasize about a sexual relationship based on mutual degradation? Gross!

[R_Kangel]

.... I finally finished reading "50 shades of Grey" by Sherwin Williams......

To be honest ..... I don't understand what all the hype is about a bunch of paint brochures and swatches!!!!

[C19fan]

If there is any justice in the world some man should file a sexual harassment complaint against these women with the HR department so women can get a taste of their own medicine.