50 Shades of Grey: The erotic novel everyone's talking about

It’s been hailed as the adult version of Twilight, described as ‘mummy porn’ and is at the top of the New York Times e-book fiction bestseller list.

The erotic novel is about a 27-year-old billionaire, Christian Grey, who seduces college student Anastasia Steele and trains her to become his submissive sex slave. A subject matter that sounds unlikely to be popular in a post-feminist world, has female readers unable to put it down.

Mia chatted to Karl Stefanovic about Fifty Shades on The Today Show. Here’s the clip:

A segment on the US The Today Show shows professional women talking about the novel and discussing how they actually want a man to take control (or dominate) in the bedroom.

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American Sexologist, Dr. Logan Levkoff also appeared on the show to talk about the BDSM aspects of the novel, which segued into a broader discussion about the complexities of women’s fantasies in relation to feminism. In a post on Huffington Post she writes,

“In our culture, it is politically incorrect for women to become aroused by something that makes us appear/seem/act submissive. However, we don’t control how and if we turn on to something or someone.

We may not desire to have fantasies about losing control, but many of us do. It doesn’t make us bad women or bad people. It doesn’t even say anything about our psyche or whether or not we want to “lose control” in our own lives. We may not have even known that we could turn on to a particular scene or experience until reading about it.

And in the case of “Fifty Shades,” if it got you hot and bothered, it got you hot and bothered. That’s about it; there’s no underlying psychological issue here. This is not about feminism or the demise of the women’s movement, which is what I fear may have come up during the Today Show segment.”

According to The New York Times, it has “electrified women across the country, who have spread the word like gospel on Facebook pages, at school functions and in spin classes.”

It’s even making women want to have sex with their husbands.

“In the cities and suburbs of New York, Denver and Minneapolis, the women who have devoured the books say they are feeling the happy effects at home.

‘It’s relighting a fire under a lot of marriages,’ said Lyss Stern, the founder of DivaMoms.com and one of the early fans of the series. ‘I think it makes you feel sexy again, reading the books.’”

The first book of the trilogy was published by a tiny independent press in Australia, The Writer’s Coffee Shop, in May with sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed quickly following in September and January respectively.

You can buy Fifty Shades of Grey here.

Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey? Do you believe women actually want a man to take control in the bedroom?