The Progressive: Fifty Shades of Protest

[Scuba]

http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/02/188004/fifty-shades-protest

During the movie’s Valentine’s Day weekend release, leftists, dominatrices, anti-pornography feminists, and family-values religious traditionalists from the United States to the United Kingdom to Norway demonstrated against the big screen adaptation of E.L. James’ novel about a sadomasochistic relationship between Christian Grey, a billionaire who practices bondage, with Anastasia Steele, a virginal young student.

On February 12 this reporter stumbled upon a demo at a theater in Westwood, about a block from the UCLA campus, where about six mostly male left-wingers picketed Grey, claiming the movie promoted violence against women. Using a loudspeaker, they chanted, “Fifty shades of degradation! Fifty shades of humiliation!” and held signs bearing similar slogans as well as the website for Revolution, newspaper of the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party.

...

Taylor is also an initiator of the organization Stop Patriarchy, which calls for an end to “the enslavement and degredation of women” through pornography and patriarchy. The group also protested Grey in Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles, with signs demanding: “Stop romanticizing women’s enslavement. Start fighting for women’s liberation!” and “Whips, shackles, chains and terror—if a dog was treated the way Anastasia Steele is you’d know it’s abuse.”

Taylor claims a dozen demonstrators chanted, “Stalking, abuse and sexual assault are not love—they’re signs of abuse,” and that bystanders were “very thankful” the protests took place, although this journalist heard a passerby heckle picketers at Westwood. Taylor explains, “In every sphere of the culture and social life today women’s rights and bodies are under assault. . . Some of the most concentrated expressions of this are the ever-more degrading, ever-more violent, ever-more humiliating cruel and revenge-filled pornography that’s becoming more and more mainstream.”

[NaturalHigh]

1. These young "Maoists" have too much time on their hands.

I hope they find a healthy hobby someday.

[marym625]

2. It's a shame that this book/movie

Don't depict what two mature, secure people do in a SMBD relationship. Which, by the way, can have a woman as the D

Using a virginal, insecure woman as the "sub" and a dude with issues against women sends a horrible message. I agree with the protests