This chapter broaches the topic of child sexual abuse. As you can imagine, it does not handle the subject very well. While there’s no sex in this chapter, Christian does take every opportunity to be controlling and creepy towards Ana.
Recap: You didn’t miss much, the previous chapter was mostly sex scenes. At the end of it, Christian’s mother showed up unannounced.
Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter Ten
Though Grey’s closing line at the end of the last chapter was “Shit! It’s my mother,” he now seems very excited to have Ana meet her. Now, to be fair, the line at the end of the last chapter was accompanied by a look of “humored horror,” so maybe the negative reaction to his mother’s arrival was merely that she’d showed up when Ana and Christian were in bed together. Nonetheless, it makes the ending of the last chapter read like a cheap attempt at a cliffhanger.
(This story was a fanfic before it was a published novel, and fanfics tend to be sporadically updated, making end-of-chapter cliffhangers more important to keep a reader’s interest. I have a feeling that what we’re seeing here is a leftover from when this was fanfiction)
Christian gets up and pulls on his jeans, telling Ana to get dressed too. He unties her wrists and Ana stares at the marks the tie has left on her skin. She finds it sexy. Which, okay, but given that Ana is so new to finding things sexy in general, you’d think her narration would have a few more thoughts on the matter than just “that’s hot.”
Ana has no clean clothes, so she suggests that it would be better for her to stay in the bedroom and not go out to meet Christian’s mother. Christian forbids her to do so and tells her she can wear some of his clothing:
“Anastasia, you could be wearing a sack and you’d look lovely. Please don’t worry. I’d like you to meet my mother. Get dressed. I’ll just go and calm her down.” His mouth presses into a hard line. “I will expect you in that room in five minutes, otherwise I’ll come and drag you out of here myself in whatever you’re wearing. My t-shirts are in this drawer. My shirts are in the closet. Help yourself.” He eyes me speculatively for a moment, then leaves the room.
It’s nice of him to tell her she’d look pretty in anything she had on, particularly given that Ana’s so insecure about her looks. But then he follows that up with “if you aren’t out there in five minutes I’ll drag you out no matter what you have or haven’t got on”?
I get the feeling that the sudden swing in tone from complimentary to commanding is meant to be sexy. And, if they’d worked out some arrangement where Christian has complete control over Ana — that is, a D/s relationship that extends outside of the bedroom — I’d be fine with it (provided he doesn’t actually drag her out to meet his mother half-naked, of course). But they haven’t negotiated the terms and conditions of their relationship yet. They’re not even doing D/s stuff in the bedroom yet. That means that when Christian threatens Ana like this, it’s not sexy or playful, it’s just plain old abusive behavior.
Christian leaves the room. Ana gets dressed in her clothes from the night before, but puts on a pair of Christian’s boxer briefs rather than her own underwear. After straightening herself up in the bathroom, she makes her way into the living room, where Christian and his mother are sitting on the couch.
Christian’s mother — her name is Dr. Grace Trevelyan-Grey — is a sandy-haired, well-dressed, well-groomed, attractive woman. (We’re not told her age.) Ana “die[s] a little” inside when she sees how well put-together Dr. Grace is. Ana, honey, I know you’re wearing last night’s dirty clothes and this woman is in some probably very expensive outfit, but could you please stop focusing on appearances quite so much? Jesus.
Dr. Grace is very polite to Ana and greets her warmly. She seems surprised that Christian has a girlfriend. Again, I have to wonder, did her visits never coincide with Christian’s time with his submissives? I know they weren’t girlfriends, but Christian would have had to pass them off as such to his mother anyway.
They have some small talk until Ana gets a phone call. She goes into the next room to take it and picks up without looking at who the caller is, thinking that it’s probably Kate. It’s not; it’s José, as becomes immediately apparent from the “Dios mio!” he opens the conversation with. (No, this hasn’t gotten any less painful to read. I also want to be perfectly clear that José is the only character of color thus far in the book, and I’m guessing from the way he’s written that the author has never met a Latino man in real life.)
José has been trying to get in touch with Ana since the incident at the bar because he wants to apologize. Ana tells him it’s not a good time for them to talk — she means because she’s over at Christian’s place, not because she needs time to think about what happened with José or anything like that. In fact, there’s no clue in her narration that she’s even upset about his misconduct from the other night, which is… weird. I can understand why she’d forgive him — he was really drunk, they have a long-standing friendship, and he does seem to be genuinely sorry — but I would think that her feelings on the subject would be a little stronger than “whatever, José, we’ll talk about it later.”
His apology also seems a little less genuine a few lines later when he asks Ana “Are you with him?” after she says she’s in Seattle. Really, dude, it’s none of your fucking business where she is and who she’s with. You’re on extremely thin ice already. Don’t push it.
Ana returns to the living room. Christian and his mother are mid-conversation. She tells him she showed up hoping they could have lunch together, but won’t intrude if he has other plans. Christian explains he has to drive Ana back to Portland. Grace collects her things, shakes hands with Ana, and is escorted out of the room by Taylor.
As soon as she’s gone, Christian glares at Ana and asks what José wanted. Ana explains that he called to apologize. Christian still seems pissed off. Jesus, this guy and his jealousy issues.
Taylor shows up to tell Christian there’s a problem with some shipment of his. This adds nothing to the story. We get it, he has a business and that’s great because businessmen are sexy or whatever. (I still don’t know what it is that Christian’s business actually does.)
Christian goes into his study and retrieves a manila envelope containing the contract. He hands it to Ana, tells her to read it so they can discuss it the next time they get together, and suggests she do some online research on BDSM so she can better understand the contract. How long is this contract that they can’t read/discuss it together, instead of Ana reading it at home on her own time?
Ana’s internet research into BDSM would probably be of very little help. Sure, there are sites on the internet which have very good information on such topics, but I doubt someone as clueless as Ana would know about said sites, or even recognize them if they saw them. She’d probably be just as likely, if not more likely, to stumble across misinformation or thinly disguised porn sites in her search for objective information on the topic.
I’ve said this before, but Christian needs to tell Ana what he personally would like to do in the realm of BDSM, and really go into some detail explaining what he means. She’s new to this stuff, so some good information on BDSM in general would be of use to her, but what’s most important is that she knows what exactly it is Christian wants to do. I mean, sex is a very personal thing, and a ton of different practices fall under the BDSM umbrella. It would also be important for Ana to know what this stuff means to Christian, what about it is enjoyable for him, etc. That’s not the kind of stuff she can learn through reading a contract.
Moving on. Ana says she doesn’t have a computer. As a reminder, she is a college student in 2011 with a very writing-intensive major. If she doesn’t own her own computer — which alone would be pretty damn weird given her age, student status, and the time period — she must have regular access to one, either via her school’s computer labs or via Kate, whom we know has a laptop.
Christian offers to lend Ana a computer. Oh, don’t tell me, Ana doesn’t have a computer so that Christian can give her one, right? Probably something real fancy and top-of-the-line, too, right?
Before heading back to Portland, Ana wants to make a call. Christian is angry when he hears this:
“The photographer?” His jaw clenches, and his eyes burn. I blink at him. “I don’t like to share, Miss Steele. Remember that.” His quiet, chilling tone is a warning, and with one long, cold look at me, he heads back to the bedroom.
Holy crap. I just wanted to call Kate, I want to call after him, but his sudden aloofness has left me paralyzed. What happened to the generous, relaxed, smiling man who was making love to me not half an hour ago?
Ana. Word of advice here. If your lover’s mood swings leave you “paralyzed,” that is a bad sign and you should probably run away very fast.
I don’t know what Christian means by not liking to share, either. Though José has romantic interests in Ana, Ana is uninterested in him, and I think Christian knows that (or ought to, anyway). The other possibility is that he’s jealous at the mere idea of Ana having male friends, which is ridiculous in a way that isn’t at all funny.
They take the elevator down to the garage, which is underground. Christian at one point threatens to fuck Ana in the elevator if she doesn’t stop biting her lip. I think he may have meant it playfully because he’s smiling a bit when he says it, but with this guy, who even knows? Maybe I should start doing alerts for every time Christian threatens to do something to Ana without her permission.
…actually, scratch that, if I did alerts for that we’d be here all year.
Ana tells Christian she needs to talk to Kate about sex because she has so many questions. He tells her that’s alright on the condition that Kate doesn’t say anything about it to Elliot, and that they don’t talk about anything kinky Christian would like to do with Ana — just about the stuff the two of them have already done. Sounds reasonable.
Then this happens:
“The sooner I have your submission the better, and we can stop all this,” he murmurs.
“Stop all what?”
“You, defying me.”
Really? Ana wanting to talk to her friend is somehow defying Christian? She doesn’t give up her right to have friends and talk to them by becoming his sub. (Right?)
To be fair, Ana herself wonders how exactly she’s defying Christian. Then again, she doesn’t actually ask him about it.
Lots of talking about how cool Christian’s car is. Not gonna bother relating it, it’s boring.
After driving for a while, they stop at a restaurant for lunch. The waitress is clearly attracted to Christian, which somehow surprises Ana. After all the talk about how Christian is the sexiest thing on two legs, Ana’s surprised to see other women checking him out?
Christian orders two glasses of Pinot Grigio for them, despite the fact that Ana did not want Pinot Grigio. His reasoning is that it will “go well with the meal.” I have a bad feeling that he’s actually trying to get her a little drunk, considering how poorly Ana holds her alcohol.
The subject turns to Christian’s mother:
“My mother liked you,” he says dryly.
“Really?” His words make me flush with pleasure.
“Oh yes. She’s always thought I was gay.”
Out of all the potential reasons Christian’s mother could have had for liking Ana, the author had to go with the homophobic one? I hate this book.
Ana asks Christian why his mother thought he was gay. He explains that she’s never seen him with a girl. I’m more willing to buy this than I was willing to buy Kate making the same assumption, since Christian’s mom is of course older and in previous generations it was more common for gay people to remain closeted, but it’s the 2010s and I don’t buy everyone thinking “oh, Christian must be gay” simply because he’s never publicly dated a lady.
Christian goes on to explain that this weekend has been a weekend of firsts for him as well. He’s never taken a date in his helicopter, never slept with somebody (in the sense of literally sleeping with them), never had sex in his bed, never introduced a sexual partner to his mother. He also tells Ana he’s never had vanilla sex before. She asks him why, and…
...ugh, this is bad. Turns out he was raped at fifteen by a friend of his mother.
Christian doesn’t say he was raped, of course, “seduced” is the word he uses. However, when we’re talking about a fifteen-year-old being lured into a sexual relationship with an adult who’s probably more than double his age, the only fitting word for that is rape.
This relationship apparently went on for six years. Christian was the sub to this woman’s Domme. (Figures; when we have a female Dominant, she’s a rapist. Great.)
Ana’s shocked, particularly at how young Christian was when he was first “seduced.” She asks a few more questions. Apparently, Christian never dated in college because he was content with his relationship with a child rapist, and “besides, she would have beaten the shit out of me.” He then “smiles fondly” at this memory.
This is getting seriously fucked-up.
Christian doesn’t reveal the age of his “seducer,” but says he’s still friends with her, though they’re no longer sexual partners. His mother never found out about all this.
Ana has a hard time processing the idea of Christian as a submissive. Child sexual abuse victim is the term you’re searching for here, Ana.
By the time the waiter brings the food, Ana’s lost her appetite. She feels like she needs some time alone now to think about what he’s told her. Probably not a bad idea, although she says it’s because he’s “so overwhelming, so Alpha Male” and once again I have a strong urge to set every copy of this book on fire.
Christian urges Ana to eat even though she’s not hungry. She asks him if their relationship would be like this (him ordering her around, that is). Even though the answer is completely obvious, I’m glad she actually asked him about it, because she still knows pretty much nothing about what being with Christian would entail. He says yes, it would be, “and what’s more, you’ll want me to.”
On the one hand, yeah, hopefully she would want to be ordered around by him if she consents to the relationship. But the way he states it like it’s a given is… not good, to put it mildly. Reminder again that Ana is extremely naïve and inexperienced, and clearly doesn’t have a good working knowledge of what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like.
It doesn’t sound enjoyable to Ana, by the way, but of course she doesn’t tell him that, just starts in on her food. Good god I hate these characters and this book and this story.
Christian tells Ana:
“Anastasia, you have to go with your gut. Do the research, read the contract – I’m happy to discuss any aspect. I’ll be in Portland until Friday if you want to talk about it before then.” His words are coming at me in a rush. “Call me – maybe we can have dinner – say, Wednesday? I really want to make this work. In fact, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this to work.”
I’m glad he’s making himself available for her to discuss things with, and I’m glad he told her to trust her instincts in making her decision, but when he keeps ordering her around before they’ve established that Ana would like to be ordered around and telling her what she likes instead of letting her tell him what she likes I have trouble being glad about anything that happens in this story.
Also, what makes Ana so damn special?
Ana wonders the same thing, actually, and asks Christian what happened to his fifteen previous submissives. He says there were various reasons why those relationships didn’t work out, but it all boiled down to incompatibility, and he thinks he might be compatible with Ana. Okay, except she has given no indication of being interested in doing BDSM with him (because she isn’t interested), and also given no indication that she likes him for any reason other than appearance, which he must get all the time.
Ana asks him if he’s still seeing any of the fifteen. He says no, he’s monogamous. This surprises her. Dunno why; monogamy’s the norm. Maybe she equated kinkiness with polyamory?
Christian tells her again to “do the research.” Coming after the last thing that was said, it sounds like he’s telling her it should be obvious to anyone educated in BDSM that he’s monogamous, which… doesn’t make sense.
They finish their meals — well, Ana doesn’t finish hers, but Christian doesn’t give her much crap over it, just scowls at her. Ana starts thinking about how Christian must work out to stay in such good shape despite how much he eats, and thinking about how in-shape Christian is gets her all hot and bothered. He takes notice:
“I’d give anything to know what you’re thinking right at this moment,” he murmurs. I blush further.
He smiles a wicked smile at me.
“I can guess,” he teases softly.
“I’m glad you can’t read my mind.”
“Your mind, no, Anastasia, but your body – that I’ve got to know quite well since yesterday.” His voice is suggestive. How does he switch so quickly from one mood to the next? He’s so mercurial... It’s hard to keep up.
The characterization of Christian as a guy subject to sudden and abrupt changes of mood isn’t bad, and actually makes him a more interesting person (and god knows he could stand to be more interesting; this book’s full of nothing but two-dimensional characters). However, do we really need Ana to keep telling us how mercurial he is? The author does a perfectly decent job (impressive for her) of showing us Christian’s mood swings; there’s no need for her to constantly point it out.
Telling instead of showing really is a beginner’s mistake. It betrays lack of confidence in your ability to make your readers understand your characters/plot/themes/etc. Any decently skilled writer can convey their message without stating it outright; it’s hacks like this author who try to hit their readers over the head with it instead.
Anyway, Christian pays for the meal and he and Ana walk back to the car holding hands. Ana thinks:
This contact, flesh to flesh, it’s what is so unexpected from him, normal, intimate. I can’t reconcile this ordinary, tender gesture with what he wants to do in that room... The Red Room of Pain.
Being kind and loving (not that Christian is, despite possible author intentions) and being into BDSM aren’t mutually exclusive in the slightest. I’d take this as merely a sign of Ana’s inexperience, except that I have a feeling the author herself thinks BDSM is typically incompatible with normal human affection and that Christian is oh-so-special for craving both.
They’re quiet on the ride home. When they reach Ana and Kate’s apartment, at around five, Ana invites Christian in but he declines, saying he has work to do. He kisses her hand, thanks her for being with him that weekend, and says he can pick her up from work for their date on Wednesday. Ana feels a little emotional over leaving but doesn’t want Christian to notice, so instead she climbs out of the car, tells Christian that by the way, she’s wearing his underwear (and pulls up the waistband of said underwear so that he can see), and saunters into the house, leaving Christian standing outside with his mouth hanging open.
This actually made me like Ana a little bit more, except that she had to mention her “inner goddess” immediately afterwards.
Kate is in the living room packing. She anxiously asks Ana if she’s okay and if Christian’s still there, but two seconds later changes her tune and asks how “it” was, grinning mischievously. Uh-oh, looks like Christian’s not the only mercurial one.
Ana doesn’t want to talk about her time with Christian; partly because of the contract she signed, partly because she’s feeling shy about revealing such private information, so she just tells Kate that it was “very good,” then adds “I think” because she’s got nothing else to compare it to. Kate, blunt as always, asks if Ana came. Ana blushes and says yes.
Kate talks about her first time having sex, which was awful in the standard sort of first-time way — that is, it was high school, after prom, they were both drunk, etc. She’s impressed that Ana had such a good first time. Ana is so pleased with herself for having a good first time that she starts talking about her inner goddess again.
They talk a bit more. Ana tries to tell Kate that, though she likes Christian, she isn’t sure if she has a future with him because “he inhabits a very different world” to hers. Kate interprets that as being about money, and Ana doesn’t correct her because of the NDA.
Ana wonders what the penalty for breaching the NDA would be. Maybe you’d know that if you actually read it, dumbass.
While talking about Elliot, Kate is all blushes and giggles, so obviously she and Elliot are going to be together for the rest of the series. According to Ana, Kate’s never acted that way about anybody before. It does irritate me a bit that Kate basically becomes Ana 2.0 when she likes a guy instead of, you know, having a distinct personality, particularly because the implication is “love/infatuation makes all women giggly and tongue-tied regardless of how they typically behave.” Ana is glad Elliot and Kate are going to be seeing each other more, because she’d like to get to know Elliot better (partly in hopes that he’ll provide some insight into Christian’s weirdness).
Kate asks Ana if she’s okay, because she looks “kind of overwhelmed.” Ana explains that Christian is “very intense,” though she explains that he was good to her. In what world?
Ana says she’s going to return the books Christian gave her to him, as they’re too expensive a gift to accept. I bet this will go well.
They talk about internships. Ana has two interviews coming up in a couple weeks, for two different publishing houses (not specified which). Kate’s already got one set up at the Seattle Times, because her dad knows someone who knows someone. I’m not sure if the book is trying to shame Kate for having connections or not.
More talk about future plans. Kate’s going to Barbados with her family for two weeks, leaving Ana alone in their new apartment. Ana seems a bit bitchy about having never left the States. Ana, guess what? I don’t care.
The phone rings. It’s José. He asks Ana if he can see her and apologizes again about what he did, asking Ana for her forgiveness. She tells him she forgives him so long as he doesn’t do it again, because she doesn’t feel that way about him. He replies:
“I know, Ana. I just thought, if I kissed you, it might change how you feel.”
That’s incredibly stupid reasoning. Also, now I personally don’t forgive him; I was giving him the benefit of the doubt and thinking that maybe he was so shitfaced he had no idea what he was doing, but that’s clearly not the case.
Ana tells José she loves him, but in a platonic way, and that that isn’t going to change. José immediately goes into jealous mode:
“So you’re with him now?” His tone is full of disdain.
“José, I’m not with anybody.”
“But you spent the night with him.”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Is it the money?”
“José! How dare you!” I shout, staggered by his audacity.
Wow, Ana, good for you. This must be the first time in the story you’ve actually stood up for yourself.
José backs down, and Ana says that maybe they can meet for coffee or something the next day. He agrees, and she hangs up.
Kate asks what José wanted and Ana explains that he “made a pass” at her at the bar on Friday. Kate says:
“José? And Christian Grey? Ana, your pheromones must be working overtime. What was the stupid fool thinking?”
Wow, good job implying it’s Ana’s fault because of her pheromones!
Ana and Kate take a break from packing to eat dinner (lasagna and cheap wine) and watch TV:
This is normality. It’s so grounding and welcome after the last forty-eight hours of... madness.
If being with Christian makes you that uncomfortable, Ana, just tell him you’d like to take things a hell of a lot slower, or whatever it is that you actually want out of this because I’m honestly not even sure anymore. If you would actually communicate your desires to him instead of just going along with whatever he says, you’d be a lot more comfortable with this relationship.
Ana’s also glad to not be nagged about eating, and wonders what Christian’s deal with food is. Author, seriously, we get it, he has an issue with wasted food. You don’t need to keep reminding us of it.
More packing. Yawn.
The phone rings. It’s Elliot. Kate grabs the phone and skips off to her bedroom, leaving Ana alone with her thoughts. She continues watching TV and drinking wine for a while, not wanting to read the contract.
Ana thinks about her relationships with José and Christian. Both of them are attracted to her, but she figures that José will be “easy to deal with.” Christian, not so much. Uh? She’s treating Christian as if he’s a problem that needs fixing, instead of her love interest. And yeah, I would consider Christian a problem, but I thought Ana was supposed to consider him her One True Love, so what the hell? I swear, one of the biggest problems with this book is that it can’t decide how it wants to portray its characters.
Ana thinks about Christian some more, which eventually leads to this:
He’s not even here, and I’m turned on.
Uh, congratulations?
Ana finally acknowledges that what happened to Christian was sexual abuse — she mentally calls Christian’s abuser an “evil Mrs. Robinson figure” — but it’s a throwaway line and she apparently has nothing more to say on the subject. She is using it as a justification for why Christian is the way he is, though, so… great.
I want to point out something important. You’re allowed to feel bad for people who have been through horrible things, even if they later go on to do horrible things themselves. The horrible things those people went through, however, do not excuse any future horrible deeds they commit. Christian was sexually abused as a teenager, and that’s tragic and horrifying, but it does not in any way excuse his mistreatment of Ana or anything else bad he does. He doesn’t get a free pass on committing misdeeds because he himself was abused in the past. That’s not how it works.
Ana briefly wonders if she’d be happier were she still as innocent, naïve, and virginal as she was at the start of the book, but decides she wouldn’t be. Well, actually, she doesn’t decide, her subconscious and inner goddess decide for her.
Before they head to bed, Kate tells Ana this:
“I’m glad you’re back in one piece. There’s something about Christian,” she adds quietly, apologetically.
Ah yes, the magical Kate intuition. For someone who has seen very little of Christian (and he’s behaved himself quite well around her), she’s awfully suspicious of him, isn’t she?
The problem here is that this author writes her secondary characters as little more than cardboard cutouts there to influence Ana’s thoughts and behavior in one direction or the other. She isn’t thinking of Kate as someone with her own personality and agenda, someone who’s as legitimate a character as the main characters despite having a smaller part and fewer lines. Any decent writer can make even their minor characters believable as people. This author, on the other hand, can’t even write a believable main character / first person narrator.
Ana goes back to her bedroom and takes the envelope with Christian’s contract out from her purse. She deliberates for a second before ripping open the envelope, then the chapter ends. Ooh, another cliffhanger!
Holy Cow! Alert: No cows, but there are two “Holy shit!”s and six “Holy crap!”s.
And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert:
[Ana wonders if she should take Christian up on his offer of lending her clothes] My subconscious purses her lips and mouths the word ‘ho’. [Seriously? That doesn’t even make sense, anyway.]
[After Christian confesses to having been sexually abused in his adolescence] I stare at him, unable to articulate anything – even my subconscious is silent. [Technically not a word from Ana’s subconscious. Included it anyway just for the mention.]
[Ana’s voice rises several octaves when talking to Kate about Christian; she’s worried she might be close to giving away information the NDA prevents her from talking about] Too obvious, Steele! My subconscious glares at me, wagging her long skinny finger, then morphs into the scales of justice to remind me he could sue if I disclose too much.
Does “Inner Goddess” Mean What I Think It Means? Alert:
[After Ana shows Christian that she’s wearing his underwear and he reacts in shock] YES! My inner goddess is thrilled.
[Ana is pleased that she was able to orgasm her first time having sex] My inner goddess sits in the lotus position looking serene except for the sly, self-congratulatory smile on her face.
That’s Too Many Inner Voices For One Sentence Alert:
[Ana wonders if she should give up on sex and sexuality] No! Screams my subconscious... my inner goddess nods in silent zen-like agreement with her.
Great Prose Alert:
He certainly doesn’t look like the multi-multi millionaire, billionaire, what-ever-aire, in these clothes.
He opens the door for me and I climb in. Whoa... it’s low.
I thought it was chocolate fudge brownie sex that we had, with a cherry on the top. But hey, what do I know?
Thoughts So Far:
Let’s talk about Christian’s, uh, “relationship” with his mother’s friend, shall we?
The book seems like it isn’t quite sure whether to treat what happened to Christian as abuse or not. On the one hand, I’m fairly certain the author’s trying to drum up sympathy for Christian by giving him some sort of Freudian excuse. On the other hand, the book barely acknowledged that Christian was actually sexually abused rather than “seduced.” Ana’s shocked by the revelation, but only, it seems, because Christian was so young when it happened and because she can’t imagine Christian as someone’s sub.
Now, to be fair, the views of the main character don’t necessarily indicate the views of the author, but Ana’s meant to be a stand-in character for the reader anyway, so I’m assuming by default that views she espouses are the views of the author (or close enough). At the very least, her views are meant to be relatable to the average reader.
Ultimately, this serves to blur the distinction between abuse and BDSM, which this book has been doing already. By not drawing a clear line between consensual BDSM practices and sexual abuse, Fifty Shades is trivializing abuse. And that’s legitimately terrible.
This book has a terrible stance on consent in general; its unspoken rule seems to be that a no is a yes that just needs some convincing. Christian seems pretty confident that Ana will come around to seeing things his way and that she’ll enjoy the stuff he’s into, even though she’s given no indication of being interested in any of that (in fact, most of it seems to be disturbing to her). The worst thing about it, though, is that Christian’s probably right. Ana has so little backbone that she’ll go along with whatever he says, whether she wants to or not.
Maybe further into this book — or at some point during the rest of the trilogy, at least — Ana will finally start standing up for herself. After all, at this point she’s still pretty clueless and in way over her head. Right now, though, it’s not looking good, and I don’t have enough confidence in the author to assume that Ana’s not standing up for herself because she’s feeling overwhelmed or because that’s just part of her character. It’s quite possible the author thinks all women are just natural-born subs, that they’re all timid and blushing (or else giggly and tongue-tied) when faced with attractive men, that they ultimately want a man to take charge and tell them what to do, etc.
The other thing I’d like to bring up in regards to this chapter is José. While the decision to forgive him of course lies with Ana, in forgiving him she removed all drama from the situation. Where’s the conflict now? He’s still jealous of Christian, but the tension between Ana and José is gone. (His attraction to her is still an issue, but his misconduct towards Ana isn’t supposed to be an issue anymore, which makes the entire scene seem rather pointless in hindsight.)
I could say more, but I’ve already said enough. Next time: we finally get to look at the dreaded contract!