In this article I will review the famous 50 Shades of Grey and the less well known but BDSM cult favorite Secretary.
Now if you don’t know what 50 Shades of Grey is then please pause further contact with my planet for the time being, it’s not the best time, there’s a lot going on, but do come back later because we might need your help with your whole interstellar travel thing.
Secretary stars James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhon and came out in 2002 .The Dom, a lawyer, also last name Grey, opens a positioin for a secretary and proceeds to direct her work with increasing strictness. Eventually, repeated mistakes on her part lead hm to roughly spank her. It continues.
To review the BDSM scenes themselves, 50 Shades wins hands down.. First there is just a lot more scenes depicting various sadomasochistic and sexual activity, it borders on soft porn many times. Secretary is far more subtle in that sense, my guess deliberately from the openness of the culture at the time.. The actors in 50 Shades are indeed excellent in their portrayol of arousal, especially the darker aspects of it. This is well done on their part.
As far as the chemistry and characters.
The women, both subs, both played their part properly and had that meek shyness with a naughty secret vibe going, and their characters in the story were quite believable.
As far as the men, there is a distinct difference. The acting in both was good, but in terms of the energy and the actual character in the plotline:
Now what I’m about to write has the following exception:
In 50 Shades he does give her a list whereupon she indicates her yes, maybe, nos, and mentions the use of a safe word. For that, it is to be commended.
However, there is an interesting sense that several rather psychopathically controlling behavior episodes are also indicative of a lack of dominance in the man in 50 Shades Guy. Indeed, the BDSM community tends to speak negatively of the film, psychologists write Christian Grey’s behavior is pathological, and people also say that if the man wasn’t a billionaire he wouldn’t have seduced her..
Specifically, the 50 Shades guy is dictating an ever increasing part of her life without her wish and stalking her, and this comes across as, obviously, very needy. Relatedly, Christian Grey is himself emotionally unstable.. And so he doesn’t have that gravitas of a masculine Dom. He is at least locally famous, and his wealth gives him power.
On the other hand, in the Secretary, besides occasional human displays of excitement at seeing her beauty, he is generally solid and stable in his demeanor. His only drama is a sense of guillt that he did this at work and she is the one that came back to him. This is quite obviously the opposite of controlling. And, relatedly, there was only one thing he instructed her to do outside of work, and that solves a lifelong mental health problem she had. In that sense, his dominance iis more paternalistic. and thus mature.
Notice how, in turn, the woman in 50 Shades was herself dramatic, while the only “drama” the Secretary girl gave, was declaring her love for him and begging for him.
So ultimately in Secretary the relationship is far more authentically Dom-sub. And I like the fact that this is associated also with him being not a shitty person. as well, ethically.
Unfortunately, though, in both movies, proclivity towards BDSM was portrayed as associated with mentall health conditions, in general, which is not supported by the scientific literature. Nevertheless, thank both, and indeed 50 Shades in particullar, for popularizing BDSM and encouraging many partners to do it to spice up their sex lives and explore fantasies.