50 shades of hell no

Once again Valentines Day is here and the final instalment of the Fifty Shades series had made its way into the cinema leaving ladies all over Ireland all a flutter. I for one will be sitting this movie out. When the books first came out I gave in to curiosity and read the first one which turned out to be every bit as terrible as I feared and sadly I will never get that time back. The terrible writing aside, the story rang a few alarm bells for me. I have written about this topic before but it hasn't ceased to be relevant.

Let me share the story of my own Mr Grey. Before anybody starts squirming uncomfortably I will reassure you that there are no sexy bits in my story. Probably why it has never become a bestselling book. In my last year of college, my confidence was at an all time low. I was going out and leaving my self esteem in my other handbag. On one of these nights out I ended up meeting Mr Grey (lets just say his real name is a lot less sexier). He was a few years younger than me, carrying a bit of weight and there wasn't a power suit in sight so it's safe to say they wouldn't have been casting Jamie Dornan in this role. What started as something casual quickly became something more serious and before I realised who I was actually dating I was hooked. He didn't have a mysterious past but he did have a messed up childhood. He didn't own a company, in fact he didn't even have a job. Weirdly the Mr Grey type becomes a lot less sexy when you have him on the dole. He was big into control and humiliation. He liked to know where I was and what I was doing. Sometimes my days at work became a quiz I couldn't hope to ace, trying to remember what answer I had given him to the same question when I was asked it 10 minutes ago, He was very concerned with how I presented myself and how I dressed and preoccupied with this notion that if I behaved in a particular way that people would be laughing at me. This really meant people would be laughing at him because as his girlfriend, I was an extension of him in some weird way. I stayed with him for way too long because I believed the lies he told me about who I was and that I wasn't worth any more than he could give me. One day I did walk away and it was hard and it was messy because it might have been an awful kind of love but it was love all the same. The one thing it never was some sort of sexy story.

When I think of 50 shades it doesn't get me all hot and bothered. Instead I see all the hallmarks that far too many women recognise and I shudder because I really couldn't imagine anything less sexy if I tried.