From Amber to Anastasia: Looking at 50 Shades of Grey by Keith Taylor A recent erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey is about a woman named Anastasia Steele. It is another in the long list of what has come to be known as "bodice rippers." I remember Forever Amber, a salacious, shocking book published in 1944. That novel added to the uncertainties brought on by my puberty. Hitherto my biggest worry had been what Mom would think if a wet dream stained my shorts. My hormones were running wild and so was my imagination. Amber, the title character, was a young lass in 17th century England. I considered her lucky because she lost her virginity at age 16 while I, two years younger, saw no prospects of ever getting laid. Amber's life. as told by Kathleen Winsor, took her through late puberty and into her middle years by having one torrid adventure after the other. As a kid who learned "the facts of life" by listening to older boys and watching the animals, I was amazed a girl could do it so many times. As a Hoosier in a state where women weren't even supposed to cuss, I was further amazed a woman would write such stuff. Erotic writing didn't make the author popular in prim, Protestant northern Indiana. A visiting counselor, steeped in the religious mores of the heartland, visited our school and gave the assembly a lecture about the "questions we were afraid to ask." We were even allowed to submit questions anonymously and drop them into a box. The counselor would answer them publicly in the afternoon session. I was disappointed he didn't answer mine: "Are miss Tidmarsh's tits real?" We did learn that all school boys who had sex caught terrible venereal diseases, and all girls who did would never be respected thereafter. His notion of sex and respect was reflected by his comment about Kathleen Winsor. "She is just one of six (at that point) women who married Artie Shaw, the famous bandleader. I wondered how that was a problem but didn't ask. He'd already ignored by question about Miss Tidmarsh's boobs. Forever Amber, banned in fourteen states, was a godsend, and it was easy reading. The guy who stole it from a bookstore underlined all the good parts. I liked the orgasms best. Amber had lots of them. Winsor lived a long and disaster-free life. She left this world unscarred in 2004. She was also a trail blazer. A long list of bodice rippers, so-named because of the graphic illustrations on the covers, followed. Each tried to catch and hold in thrall a bit more of our baser instincts. Still, all were circumspect in their language. Common cuss words had yet to work their way into the vernacular of bodice rippers. Then, in 1951, along came James Jones with From Here to Maternity. Sergeant Warden uttered the ultimate obscene word when he went for a moonlight swim with his commanding officer's wife. Then he fucked her in the surf. Now, some sixty-seven years later, here's another author with yet another ripper. This time more than a bodice is ripped. This book features domination and clothes get torn -- all except Anastasia's panties. Sometimes he puts them in his pocket and he keeps them while they visit his mother. As with Winsor, whose first book was a huge best seller, Ms E. L. James hit the jackpot with her first. It was shocking enough to draw some haughty "tsk tsk" reviews, along with many positive ones. James' book sold ten million worldwide with two more coming up in the trilogy: -- . Fifty Shades Freed and Fifty Shades Darker. Anastasia was lucky to survive with her skin intact. Her playing field was moved from the boudoirs of auld England to the Red Room of Pain in a mansion in Seattle, USA! Otherwise, the resolute (perhaps depraved) reader of 50 Shades of Grey is offered a salacious book chronicling the dominance of a modern naïf dominated and tortured by an extremely wealthy young man. She loves hell out of it, perhaps because she had no idea that sex didn't require getting her pubes whacked with a whip. The author didn't say so but, Anastasia might have loved hell out of it because Christian lavished all sorts of expensive gifts on her, including an Audi. The naif described in "50 Shades" is an anomaly in today's America. As a beautiful university graduate she is not only still a virgin, she even never even dated. So far as the reader can tell, her closest association with sex is her favorite book Tess of the d'urbervilles. Tess was not a red hot mama herself. Unlike earlier erotic books Anbastasia does use the hitherto opprobrious word. She uttered the word "fuck" more times than I've done it.; A series of two-person orgies starts when the heroine interviews Christian Grey, super magnate of an undisclosed business conglomeration in the Emerald City for her college newspaper. The interview is special because Grey donated a million or so dollars to Washington State University, Vancouver. Their first sexual encounter followed about a day or so after the interview. It is special because it is about the only "vanilla" sex -- plain old screwing without punishment administered by whips, shackles, belts, even Christinan's open hand. Ana escaped the blandishments of pain because she was still a virgin. It wasn't a handicap to her appreciation for the act though. As did Amber sixty-eight years earlier she had a wowser orgasm the first time. Between erotic encounters she describes Grey's steely, often hooded, eyes and his clothing. She loves to describe his extensive wardrobe. Written the first person we don't learn as much about Ana's clothing except that he buys lots of them and that her panties always come off slowly by Christian's hands except when she first visits his mother. Then she puts them in Christian's pocket. Among her ten million readers, some surely weren't impressed by this new treatment of erotica. I'm one of them. Wrap....