Fifty Shades of Degradation

The Fifty Shades of Grey novels have spent several weeks on the top ten best seller list. I haven't read them, and I don't intend to. I'm told they are some of the most graphic and perverted pornography to come down the pike in a long time. 

What does it say about our society that such trash has captured the imagination of so many people? We have sunk to new lows of degradation.

Julia Lepek of Fate takes issue with those who object to the sadistic pornography in the book. "Excerpts taken out of context cannot convey a novel's plot. Reading a work in its entirety is the only way to understand the author's true intentions." I hate to burst your rationalization bubble, Julia, but pornographic sex is pornographic sex no matter what the paragraphs preceding and following it are. And I suspect the author's "true intention" has been fulfilled -- he's making lots of money off of a dirty mind.

"Read all of 'Fifty Shades.'" The Dallas Morning News; June 13, 2012; p. 16A.