In case you didn’t know it, Fifty Shades of Grey hit the theaters last weekend and has grossed $300M worldwide so far. There’s been a lot of buzz about the book since it swept the world a couple of years ago and sent women into bookstores everywhere trying to get a copy. I’ve not read the book for the same reason I don’t read any romantic fiction novels. And I won’t be going to see the movie for the same reason I stopped going to see “chick flicks” several years ago. What reason is that? Simple.
I’ve got better things to do.
Like fantasize about my actual lover…you know…my husband…
(That’s him playing out one of his favorite jokes. It goes something like this: “Hey look! If I had a _____ for a penis, this is what it would look like!” And it typically comes up when he has some random object in his hand. He’s filled in the blank with pencils, wrenches, pool noodles, knives, shoes, cucumbers, etc. This time it was a shotgun. …isn’t he adorable?! ;p)
…and our actual love life. I have a hard time doing that as it is. The last thing I want (or need) is for some made up characters’ love life creeping in on mine and making it even harder. I don’t want to want what they have. I want to want what we have. I don’t want to want Christian Grey. I want to want my husband.
I want to be intoxicated by my love story. Always and forever. I want Scott to know that he is the only man who can make me feel the way Christian Grey has made women all across the world feel…minus the controlling, torturing, creepy stuff. Why? because my husband is the man I agreed to ever be allowed to make me feel that way when I said my vows to him 3.5 years ago.
Perhaps you think it’s just harmless entertainment. It doesn’t really affect you and you won’t feel any different than you did before you walked into the theatre. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know you nor do I know your story. But, let me ask you this. Why do you care who your kids hang out with? Why do you care what they watch or read or how they “entertain” themselves? Because you know how much influence friends and “entertainment” can have and how subtle, but powerful that influence can be.
Harmless?! …please. Don’t kid yourself. There’s a reason thousands upon thousands of women are swooning over this dark, twisted, handsome, made up character and the life he seduces the innocent Anastasia Steele into. And, my guess is that, for more than a few of them, it’s because they are craving that kind of exciting, slightly forbidden feeling kind of love life at home. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that craving. In fact, I think it’s not only natural but biblical to crave it. I mean, have you read the Song of Solomon lately?! It’s dripping with it.
However, the craving is not the problem. The problem is that it’s human nature to want what we don’t have. And, even more than that, to want what we don’t have but not want to work to get it. That’s (in part) what makes Hollywood so successful. They give us, for a couple of hours at a time, the illusion that we can have – no, that we do have – it for the cost of a ticket and a bucket of popcorn.
And we not only pay them for it, we thank them.
All the while our real lives continue to unravel and fall apart at the seams because we won’t put in the same two hours at home to figure out how to make that fantasy a reality with the men we’ve committed ourselves to.
It’s dangerous. And I beg you, friend, don’t get sucked into it. Instead, stand up to it. Stand up for your marriage. Stand up for your husband. Don’t go see this movie and then complain that you can’t get the same experience at home.
Go make your own fantasy. Don’t settle for someone else’s. (tweet this)
