Julie Burchill writes:
She continued: ‘We’ve all heard about those broads in relationships who mysteriously stop shagging their Significant Other, claiming they “haven’t got time for sex” and, “I’m too tired”.
‘How come they’re never too tired to get trashed on rosé wine with their mates on a Friday night, go to the garden centre early on a Saturday morning and spend every weekday on Mumsnet?’
She continued: ‘Maybe sex wouldn’t take so long and be so tiring if they didn’t demand the Ring Cycle equivalent of romance first?
Burchill fumbles here, though:
It takes a long time to heal from such strange and prolonged distortion of the self – hence the phenomenon of broads insisting they are “strong women” while buying books in which the sole point is the heroine being dominated by the hero.
50 Shades of Grey is the least confusing phenomenon of our time.
The best, most concise explanation I’ve found — although the female attraction to sexual submission obviously predates modern life:
As a woman, I’m here to tell you that: 1) many women like porn – particularly if it’s jiggered for the female taste (made a little prettier with a little more plot set-up; foreplay, so to speak); 2) women will buy lots of porn if it’s packaged, and sold, correctly; and 3) in particular, what women have always longed for, at least in fantasy, is the alpha male (actually he doesn’t even have to be that alpha, just attractive) who will pursue them and then sweep them off their delicate feet.
After nearly 50 years of the systematic bludgeoning of male aggressiveness in every form by feminism, women under the age of 50 have had very little contact in their actual lives with men who pursue, who grasp, who dominate. Still, many women have a vague, inchoate sense that this might be very pleasant.