Silver City, NM – Friday, February 20, The Center of Gender Equity held an event called “50 Shades of Gender” the event was to discuss the false aspects of the popular movie and book “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James, which thousands of adults and even teens have gone to watch.
Guest speakers attending the discussion talked about how “Fifty Shades of Grey” promotes abuse more than sexual pleasure. The guest speakers were individuals who have participated in BDSM, an act of role play, dominance, submission, and use of restraining mechanisms. The speakers gave facts about how BDSM has rules, such as safety is always first, people participating should not do these acts when they don’t know what they are doing and also have bandage scissors and keys to the handcuffs if the individual is done playing. Most importantly no means no, and stop means stop, if a person does not wished to participate they shouldn’t have to and if a person is done playing the dominant person should stop.
According to the speakers, who wanted to remain anonymous, said in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, the character Christian Grey does not stop and does not care about safety for Anastasia, he manipulates her, the guest speakers discuss how a person such as Christian should not be trusted in real life. “The reason we wanted to give this presentation is to educate individuals that what is seen and read in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is not “sexual pleasure” but is actually abuse and people should remember it is not real. Also we want to educate parents on what their kids might be watching. The movie and the book should really have a warning note saying that the acts in the movie are not real and are signs of abuse more than exploring sexuality.”
WNMU student Dustin Franco said ” It was a very informative discussion, I saw the movie and it is important that we got education on the false aspects of Fifty Shades of Grey and also what BDSM is.” Silver City visitor, Emily Dipaola said that ” I liked hearing the discussion about BDSM being public and definitely the new information I learned and also the facts about Fifty Shades of Grey’s false interpretation.”
