The Ban of ‘Mommy Porn’
It is banned book week this week, and like most, I’m sure when you think of a ‘banned book’ your mind instantly takes you to books like ‘The Kite Runner,’ ‘Of Mice and Men,’ ‘The Bluest Eye,’ or countless other books that have a large focus on race, sexuality, religion, politics, or really anything that challenges cultural norms, not the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ series.
Yes, yes, you all know what series I’m talking about, even if you don’t want to admit it. Some of us may be old enough to remember when its first book came out, feeling the pressure to get your hands on it and check it out, and then some of us may be young enough to remember our mothers (and even fathers) sneak-reading it around the house. But, did you ever really think of it as being controversial enough to be included on the TOP of banned books lists?
In fact, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ was the eighth most banned and challenged book between 2010 and 2019, according to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) which has been tracking and recording library and school attempts to ban books since 1990. Further, it was number 4 on both their annual list for 2012 and 2013 and number 2 for 2015.
Just as a painful refresher, this trilogy was originally created as the author’s version of Twilight fan fiction. It was published on a fan fiction website until the author decided to re-work it and ultimately changed character names, removed all vampire elements, and moved the story to Seattle. So with that in mind, why so many challenges to get this series banned all across the world?!
Well, because many viewed it as pornography when it started hitting shelves. Some even began referring to it as ‘mommy porn,’ since the main audience for this series was middle-and-late aged women. Now, I know you're asking yourself, ‘Well if its main readers were older women, and smut is really nothing new in literature for those age groups, why the banning?’
That would be because the series mainly centered on the main characters’ BDSM relationship which may be something many were not accustomed to. Many challenges against the series are due to its explicit sexual nature with most stressing that the BDSM relationship depicted is far past that of any real-life relationship and almost tumbles over the line into assault and abuse. And these challenges are fair; however, libraries carry obscene amounts of books that are sexually explicit, and smut has been a leader in fiction books for generations, so why this series in particular?
Well, many started getting their panties in a bunch that since this series focused on BDSM and was well-known to be a Twilight fan fiction that it would influence kids and teens to try out BDSM. Ummmm, what?! Nobody was trying to put this book into SCHOOLS for kids and teens to check out at their leisure. They only wanted it to be available in their public libraries for ADULTS to check out. In fact, there were libraries in Florida during the first year or two that banned it from their shelves due to not agreeing with its sexual content, but many admitted to never reading or even knowing anything about the book other than it being BDSM-focused. And due to overwhelming demand for the book from the public, these libraries changed their stances and ended up putting the books on the shelves.
This whole situation really brings up a debate of censorship versus just having common sense, you know? Like I stated, nobody was trying to put this series into schools. It’s not some literary marvel that every individual needs to read at least once in their lifetime—hell, I read it once and that was one too many times for me. And since I mentioned literally marvel, it should be noted that some of the challenges for having the series banned also cited how poorly written it was, but some of that may have just come from some mommies that didn’t get the satisfaction they thought they would get out of it, but that’s just my two cents. I mean, even the most poorly written book should have a right to be accessible to readers, right?
Anyways, just another reminder that it’s banned book week so I encourage you to go check out a book or two. The American Library Association has annual lists of the year’s top challenged books and I’ll include the 2024 list below.