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| Rebecca Chance |
50 Shades/9½ Weeks:
what do women really fantasise about?
By Rebecca Chance
What's your ultimate fantasy? What do you want - really, really want, as the
Spice Girls would put it? To be tied up? Spanked? Have someone yell at you because you dared to sunbathe
topless, and whacking you across the boobs in punishment?
Hmm. Or, would your ultimate fantasy be something much more
long-term and seductive? What if I whispered in your ear that you would never,
ever, have to do housework again? No cooking, washing up, ironing, hoovering,
laundry folding, stain removal, supermarket shopping, dry cleaner visiting, any
more. Not only that: you wouldn't have to organise anything any more. No travel
arrangements, no renewing your driver's licence and passport, no parking
vouchers or council tax payments or home and contents and building and travel
and life assurance, no - well, you get the idea. Someone else will do all of
this for you. All you need to do is relax, surrender completely, and have a lot
of fantastic sex to boot.
That does sound lovely, doesn't it? Like falling into a big,
warm, luxurious bed. Or a Jacuzzi, bubbling deliciously, its water scented with
very expensive oil. It’s the fantasy that, 34 years ago, made the book Nine and A Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill a
cause celebre and a huge bestseller.
Having met and moved in with the hero, the heroine lists the tasks that he does
around the house. All of the above and more. He runs the bath for her, he
dresses her, he feeds her from his plate as she sits happily on the carpet at
his feet, tied to the table leg. He not only makes every single decision in the
home, but does all the work that goes along with it. After listing everything
he does, the heroine writes:
"What did I do? Nothing."
Nothing! Nothing!
I can't even imagine doing
nothing when I get home, and I bet you can't either. Do note, the heroine goes
out every day to work: the book is allegedly a memoir of a period in her life
when she was working in Manhattan as an executive for a large
corporation. So she wasn't bored and aimless all day; she had to struggle in
through the New York crowds to her office, put in a full day's work, struggle
home again, walk through the door, take all her clothes off and then do absolutely bugger all for every single evening and weekend. Oh
yes, apart from having increasingly kinky sex.
When I first read Nine and A Half Weeks, in my early twenties, as a
footloose and fancy-free girl who was out partying all the time, all I focused
on was the kinky sex. Naturally. There are some really hot
scenes. But recently, now that 50 Shades
Of Grey has been such a success, I pulled Nine and A Half Weeks off my shelves and re-read it. It's brilliant. In a mere 144 pages, it
does what 50 Shades doesn't manage in
over three times that amount. But what really struck me, now that I'm no longer
a girl, or in my twenties, or partying all the time, was that the fantasy of
not having to do any housework was just as compelling as a jolly good spanking.
Honestly, it might be even more so…
I loathe the term 'mummy porn': it's sexist, patronizing and it excludes
those of us who don't have kids. But, having said that, women with kids work
even harder than I do at running their households. Every single survey since
the dawn of time has shown that women do way more housework than men, even when
they're both employed outside the home. I know I do much more than my husband,
and he's really very good about it. The heroine of Nine and A Half Weeks earns her own money, is
economically independent outside the home, and a happy slave inside it (at
least at first). A slave with no duties, one who's free to leave at any time.
Bliss!
Ana, in 50 Shades, is
unfortunately much less feminist. She's a virgin at 22, waiting for a
billionaire to pop her cherry, tell her what to do, and fund her lifestyle. But
still… she doesn't have to do any housework either. Clever Ana. Isn't that the
whole point of these books, the ultimate female fantasy? The longest-lasting
one?
Hot sex, after all, only lasts a couple of years before it starts to
burn out and transform into the more familiar, domesticated version. But not
having to do housework? That could last forever. And it's priceless.
