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

[Buckeye McFrog]

When you head off down the S&M road we are now talking about actually harming people. Sorry, no thanks. I’d actually be forced to side with the Feminazis on that one.

[Erik Latranyi]

There are many women who like “bad boys”.

There is a reason prominent convicted murderers get multiple solicitations while serving a life sentence.

Some are women with “daddy issues” stemming from our single parent, divorced culture. They want a man who is their father and master.

The popularity of this book is all easily explained and understood as appealing to a subculture and something subconscious in many women, even if they do not openly admit it or realize it.

Unfortunately, the popularity of the book will expand and extend this subculture to the conscious level. Expect S&M clubs and domination to rise from the shadows (where it exists today) to something that MUST be accepted (so we will be told).

[Vermont Lt]

I tried to read it. The story was so insipid that I couldn’t get past the half way point.

My wife, who writes for a living, could not get passed ten pages.

Our good friend, who is an author—like she gets paid a lot to write—said she couldn’t get past page three.

I think all of us like sex. But, reading poorly written porn is simply absurd. If I wanted that, I could have read Penthouse forum. At least that has pictures.

[zerosix]

Amen to your wife's comments/thoughts.

Somehow I don't think that women who've ever been abused by husbands, boyfriends, etc. would find the "submission" tying up, spanking, dog collars, etc. "romantic or fanciful turn-ons."

[Talisker]

Huh?

You're right, Twilight could work for Obama too, not just Hillary.

Thanks for pointing that out.

[x]

But there's no romance.

It isn't a romance book.

It is not about love, nothing of the sort

______________

Next you'll be telling me there aren't any vampires in it.

What is this world coming to, anyway?

[x]

Ya'll think I'm joking.

You wish that. Twilight -- written by a Mormon and nobody is having sex.

Romney's a fan.

[goodnesswins]

I’ll betcha the “feminazi’s” are the main readers of this stuff...

[Yaelle]

Yeah, sure, I have friends telling me to read it. But the two turn offs I have heard about it are that it’s poorly written (I have low tolerance for that) and that it’s about s&m and I am just very not interested. Nothing I have heard from these swooning friends makes me want to get it. To each their own.

[exDemMom]

Oh, that review is priceless!

I never heard of this book until I clicked on this thread title, and I’ll probably forget I heard of it soon after I post this reply.

I like fantasy books. The Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind are quite good.

[thulldud]

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.

And shortly thereafter, no men would be still employed there.

[RikaStrom]

Thank you for that review link.

I had no idea, until this thread, that this great over-hyped series of.. belch, was originally Twilight FanFic. Now I have a perfectly good reason, aside from the fact this trilogy is disturbing on many levels, that I can’t imagine that FanFic S&M about Twilight is entertaining.

The review was entertaining though, good thing I hadn’t taken a sip of my drink before reading. :-)

[Chickensoup]

NOOOOOOOOO, not Clan of the Cave Bear!

Anyhow. A conservative man I know recommended the Grey series to me. We have traded the names of a few conservitive political books.

So when I looked this up on Amazon I was thinking that perhaps it was a series on the Civil War.

It wasn’t.

Now why would this conservitive old geezer tell this blushing conservative grass-widdow to read this series?

[morphing libertarian]

One shade for each state.