50 Shades -3
1) An OTK spanking followed by a hard fuck is not the way to teach a girl not to roll her eyes at you, Christian. Also, I roll my eyes so hard at this book I have literally rolled my entire head in exasperation.
2) Yep, Christian's an asshole. I mean, at least he recognizes that he's fucked up, but c'mon. If the relationship requires honesty and transparency, you can't be a closed book to the girl. You want the girl to tell you all her thoughts and feelings, you have to tell her things too. I understand that a lot of dominants think they need to be aloof to maintain distance and authority, but I think that underestimates the power of sympathy to engender loyalty, and the power of love to engender submission. Also, the correct response to "I'm not going to sign your contract" is not to threaten kidnapping, even if it is kind of hot.
3) Anastasia, for fuck's sake, try something before you put it on your limits list. I mean, Christian wasn't lying, caning does hurt probably the most of the other impact scenes he described, but try it. I mean, I know she did her "research", so maybe she does know what caning and fisting are, but her unwillingness to try irritates me. I know she's new, and I know she's probably trying to maintain some sense of boundaries and control, but we do caning on 101 night, it's not like it's edgeplay (I mean, it is for some people, but anything is edgeplay to the right person).
4) I am trying not to be all one true way about this, but: if you want her to surrender completely, she doesn't get to decide something's a limit without trying it. Yes, sure, she gets to have limits, we all do. I've said "no" (or, more often, "please don't make me" or "I can't") to my dominants, and I think that a submissive should have the right (even the responsibility) to decline activities that she finds too painful or frightening. But I also think that part of the point of power exchange is that sometimes you do things you don't want to do, things you don't like, things you don't ever want to do again, because they please your partner (actually, I think that's true even in vanilla relationships - sometimes you go to [insert unpleasant activity here] because it makes the other person happy). Were I to have a submissive, they would not be allowed to put anything on their hard limits list unless it were a) something they had a moral/ethical objection to or b) something they had tried (or tried a reasonable facsimile of - you're allowed to say "no cattle prods" without trying one, if you've tried other kinds of electrical play). You're allowed to say "no leather floggers because I'm a vegan", you're not allowed to say "no flogging because I saw them do it in a movie once". You are allowed to say "I am scared of this because I have this understanding or preconception of what the experience will be, and I am not ready to fact that fear yet" (I definitely have these things), but to me, part of submission is saying at the end of that "but if it is important to you that we do this, I am willing to try to be ready to face that fear".
5) This book makes a lot of sense when you read it as a Twilight BDSM AU. I think knowing it was originally a fanfic helps contextualize some of the action (though some of the plot point parallels are insane).
6) I think it's who makes the point that part of Bella Swan's appeal to the reader is her blandness. She's a blank slate you can paste your own traits onto, and I think the same holds true with Ana Steele. She has so little personality, there's nothing to conflict with the reader's own personality.
7) Yeah, you go ahead and order me on oral contraception, we'll see how well that works for you, when your doctor tells you that hormonal birth control will raise my blood pressure (and thereby increase the frequency of my migraines).
8) Look, I have played drunk. I am not saying it is never okay to use alcohol to relax, or open up, or whatever. But it is really not okay to use champagne to get a girl tipsy so you can negotiate your relationship with her. That's manipulative and abusive, and it's an asshole move.
9) When your roommates don't like the guy you're seeing, try to listen to what they're saying, Ana. He is not the only guy in the world you can feel this way about.