Change in perspective

This is not a book review, but it is about a book series.

I do not know if the Fifty Shades craze has hit other parts of the country (although I have seen mention on Pinterest about the best man to play Christian Grey, so I think it has).  I am not one to read books that are “bodice rippers” anymore.  I did read my fair share in the past, but I have

not really read those for close to 5 or 6 years now.  However, the buzz around work for the series was becoming incessant, so I caved. 

Sure, there is quite a bit of sex in the series, and the bulk of it in the first book is about BDSM.  Nevertheless, as a witch with a variety of friends with “alternative” lifestyles, it was not anything of which I had never heard. So, what kept me reading the books?  I wanted to know what had happen to that little boy that made Fifty the way he was. 

See, to me the books were not so much about the sex; they were about the ease in which a person’s childhood can really fuck them up.  It is a story of how this man had endured some horrific beginnings and was still able to find love.  Yes, I know these were fictional, but tell me you cannot see it happening in real life. 

It also makes me think about those people that others have given up on.  What do we know about the circumstances that have made them what they are today? 

Maybe that man who makes you cringe every time he comes into the emergency room was abused as a child and he had no one to show him that they cared.  Could it be that this is his way of getting a little bit of gentle attention? 

That woman that keeps having kids?  She may have never anyone to hug her and she is trying to feel that little scrap of unconditional love that comes from an infant. 

SO many people out there have had something in their lives that screwed them up so badly that they struggle to fit in with the rest of society.  These books have made me stop and look at my life and I realized that, while my life was not the ideal, I could have had it much worse.