How Star Trek Slash Explains the 50 Shades of Grey Phenomenon

Around the late 1960's, a literature and artistic phenomenon began, never before seen.

It was on the outskirts of underground culture and amateur fiction but it was definitely growing in presence.

Fans of the 1960's TV series Star Trek were writing stories and drawing pictures depicting romantic relationships between the characters. Fan-fiction based on television series had truly begun.

These writers and artists were making up short, or sometimes complex fiction spanning chapters which portrayed Star Trek characters in romantic encounters. Some were also drawing erotic art showing two characters in the series naked or embracing and in a sexual act.

What was so surprising about this phenomenon was that it was portraying same-sex (mostly male) characters together in the stories. The most common was a deeply erotic, sensual and intimate relationship between Spock and Kirk.

As cultural and women studies theorists explored this phenomenon, they discovered something even more surprising.

This kind of fiction and art, which portrayed homosexual relationships between fictional TV characters - was largely created and written by heterosexual women.

It is still very popular today and it's called 'slash' (as in Kirk/Spock). These days it pairs up two characters from many other TV series.

Researches who were out there interviewing and studying the genre believed that heterosexual women in the late 1960's and 1970's were pairing male characters together as a way of channelling their desire for the men in their lives to demonstrate greater intimacy and depth towards them.

A desire for a more complex and equal relationship. An equality that was perceived could only be truly achieved between two men, given the gendered nature of relationships at the time (and it can be argued, still today).

These women wrote about the quality of relationships they dreamed about not in a literal sense, but in a metaphorical one.

Certainly when you read some of this fiction, the tenderness, sensuality and intelligence that goes into these characters and interactions makes this interpretation understandable.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that E. L. James (her real name being Erika Leonard) started out writing her enormously popular stories as a fan-fiction piece based on the Twilight series.


All three of James' books in the 50 Shades of Grey series track a relationship between a sexually naive girl in her early twenties and a millionaire man who has only ever experienced sex in a dominant/submissive form. He also enjoys inflicting pain on women.


As such, there are a lot of questions being asked about why her series of books has taken the world, especially female readers, by storm.

What on earth does it say about women in the 21st Century and how far we have come, that we fantasise about being dominated by a sado-masochistic male millionaire?

I believe that by using the example of slash and what the genre demonstrates, the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon can be explained by the world around us and what we see happening now.

I don't believe women read these books because they want to ultimately be hurt for sexual gratification, dominated and then saved by a man.

I think these fantasies resonate with female readers at this time because it's a fun and harmless way of fantasising a solution to the predicament we find ourselves in.

Women are still largely paid lower salaries than men. We are fewer than men in the upper echelons of society and business where decision makers get to rule the world. Just take a look at Foreign Policy's 100 top most important twitter feeds to monitor. Despite women being almost half the population - there's only about 15 on that list.

We are seeing the ability to buy a house on our own pretty much dissapear - we can't afford it on the low salaries we are paid. The tax system is all about property and couples. Trying to combine career and kids is almost impossible with a quiet understanding that when the kids come, the career rise usually stops. We are working harder with less time to develop a healthy personal life and little remuneration that reflects the increasing invasion on our personal lives.

We are barraged by images of perfect bodies and feminine hygiene products that make us feel bad about ourselves and uncomfortable with our bodies. The right to contraception and the choice of termination is constantly under attack, especially in some countries. Hell, even our vagina's are dirty words that dare not be spoken in a place of government. In almost every public corner women are still under assault in the 21st Century.

And in our private lives? Figures show that women still do a majority of the housework, starting another shift when they come home from their jobs. We are still in this day and age, victims of gendered relationships and expectations, not to mention the rates of domestic violence.

So why not get lost in a world where a millionaire will solve all your financial problems and sexually excite you in a way that isn't on a Femfresh poster? A millionaire who is generous, attractive, has cleaning staff and the money to buy a nice house in a good neighbourhood.

What is titillating for mainstream readers about the sex in this book is the unusualness and somewhat voyeuristic nature of a world that is largely unknown to those of us who don't walk into the dominatrix scene.

Hell yeah, give me that fantasy any day over rich men who run the world and run it into the ground.

50 Shades of Grey isn't about women yearning to be abused, dominated and therefore shunning feminism.

It's a recognition of an inherent unfairness and inequality in women's lives today and a desire to simply escape from it into a story that channels their most basic desire for financial security, sexual satisfaction and excitement.

Given the choice, women want to make it on their own. But many of us don't have that choice right now -unless we give up a personal life. We never really did have that choice and what was on offer is dissapearing faster than ever.

In the same way that slash allows women to fantasise about a more equal relationship with men, 50 Shades of Grey allows women to fantasise about a world where we have financial security, stable relationships and power within those relationships - as well as being titillated through the representation of unusual sex.

That the novel does this through depicting a relationship with a man is not unsurprising. It is not only the norm of the romance genre but encapsulates the fantasy that many people have. We want to reach success but we don't want to be alone when we get there. Perhaps we even want it handed to us through wealth by any means, either inheritance, or through a partner.

I do wonder if the 50 Shades of Grey series would have been so popular if we were in a more prosperous economic age and if overtly sexual scenes had already made it out of the erotica section of the book store and into mainstream romance novels. The e-book certainly has much to do with this element, allowing women to buy and read books anonymously.

I don't agree with the common assessment that the women reading and enjoying these novels 'must all be stupid' and have turned the feminism clock back 50 years.

With a million print copies sold in 11 weeks, and about the equivalent in digital copies, it's not a fair assessment to say all those readers are lacking in the basic number of brain cells.

It's too simplistic and fails to see that what is popular is not so because of a literal take on the content. It requires context and an appreciation of the cultural realities.

Slash is still hugely popular, both as art and fiction. It's a way for women to explore the boundaries and cross over them in a safe space.

If we can't get it from the expectations in traditional relationships and our underpaid jobs, then we will always turn to fantasy to explore what might be missing from our lives.

Price Wars: Does the UK's Tesco use Racial and Stereotypical Profiling to Divide and Conquer its Customers?

My household recently resolved to go on an anti-candida diet. For those of you who don't know, that means eating nothing but wholewheat foods, including flour, pasta, bread  - everything as well as avoiding any added sugar. It's a pain in the butt when it comes to shopping at the supermarket with this in mind.

Let's not even talk about how much of our canned foods, flours and milk have added sugar, yeast, acids and chemicals as preservatives - (check out your ingredients for added sugar and you'll get a nasty surprise).

If you've ever looked at the label of a store bought product you'll know how tough it is to buy anything these days that doesn't have added sugar, salt etc.

So, armed with a shopping list and a mission, I ambled off to Tesco - a UK super-giant, supermarket chain.

But it wasn't to do my shopping in the usual way, it was to do research.

I wanted to see how many of the necessary healthy products I could find on the shelves of Tesco before I looked elsewhere. I figured if I could actually source most things at the local Tesco, then my life might be a little easier and a little less expensive.

I emerged two-and-a-half hours later with a totally different and unhappy perspective on how I think Tesco organises the products on its shelves according to racial and other stereotypes.

It occurred to me that supermarkets are super at profiling shoppers in their area. They assume they'll behave a particular way and then capitalise on that behaviour, even encourage it and train shoppers like rats in the lab maze. Let me explain.

I thought I could just go to the baking section and find all the flours and baking products, right? Nope. Wholemeal bread flour I found in the home baking  section - and paid 1.72 Pounds for 1.5 kgs.

But I much later made my way over to the section where "World Foods" (yes that's what they call it here) and pasta is, and found all the ingredients for Indian breads - chapatti flour and the like right next to it; very far away from the home baking section.

That might not be such a big deal except I suddenly noticed a 5 kg bag of wholemeal flour for 6.50. Huh? Why isn't THAT in the baking section. It's a cheaper deal and totally relates to home baking. (in fairness it's a few pence more expensive for 1.5 kg bags).


I wouldn't normally be looking in both sections if I were shopping in an ordinary way - just going in and buying what was on the list as quickly as possible. If I wanted to bake bread, I would go to the home baking section. Chapatti is bread though. So who would think to look there unless you're always fossicking in the 'World  food' section? 


Maybe it's just a one-off? Nope.

Many of the products and ingredients have been separated out in a similar way. If the product is mainstream enough, say couscous (1.39/1 kg, Tesco Brand ), it's in with the rice and you pay an ordinary price for a good amount.

But as soon as you move into Quinoa (1.69/300g) and other grains - they're smaller packets hived off in the health food section. (Incidentally I bought a 1kg bag of Quinoa from a small wholefoods store at 4.75 pounds - significantly cheaper).

What about spices? The worst offender. 


I went to the aisle where there is the usual range of curry spices and everything under the sun, only to be more than slightly annoyed when I found large curry powder packets at a much better price in the "World' food section. 


Take this for example: In the World Food section,  I can buy 100 grams of ground coriander for 49p, the same amount of Garam Masala  for 99p - an amazing deal. Wander over to the aisle actually labelled 'Spices' and this is what you get: 


Tesco Brand (in a jar):
Ground Coriander - 75p/37g
Garam Masala - 1.19/38g

Try another brand?
Schwartz Garam Masala refill (packet not jar)
1.38/31g
Schwartz (in a jar)
Ground Coriander - 1.45/28g
They're tiny amounts by comparison for much more money. 


How about dried chickpeas?
Indus Chickpeas in 'World Food' section - 1.99/2kg
Tesco Brand in a separate section (health food section) - 99p/500g - Four times more expensive

I started to wonder if Tesco could charge people different prices for different amounts by assuming that people who were interested in specific foods might shop in a particular section.


Those people may not notice how much more expensive it is compared to the same product elsewhere in the store. Or if they do notice that the product replicates itself, they're not interested in traversing the massive store to compare prices. 


Why else would they be separated? We are used to some brands being more expensive than others, so why not just lump them all together? Is this a push by Tesco to make it's brands more 'in your face' regardless of whether they're cheaper or not? Or are they threatened by companies that have better prices - wanting to make sure only the customers who demand those prices notice the difference?

Or what if Tesco is making assumptions about people's buying habits based on racial background?

For example, someone who cooks Indian food a lot at home, perhaps it's the tradition, will go to the Indian food section and buy the Chapati or whole flour in bulk for a price they would expect is reasonable, especially if they've become used to paying it at other Indian speciality stores. They would be unwilling to pay more, or wouldn't see it as such a good deal.

Well, now I'm the one making the assumptions  - but the question remains why separate and segregate the products based on cultural and sterotypical lines when they're essentially the same thing?

Those perceived to be health conscious get grouped in the same way. If you want the flours such as brown rice flower or Soya flour you have to go to the health food section - a totally separate specialist food section where you can't compare the prices and see if you're paying a lot for the privilege. You're the Type 'A' or Type 'B' shopper that's likely to end up in that aisle, who will pay more if they think they have to pay a premium for 'healthy' food.


No coincidence that it's where all the healthy cereal is as well.


But why not group all of the baking, grains and spice products and so on next to each other? We're used to the little labels that show prices displaying the amount by grams and helping us choose the best price  - why not just do that with everything?


Supermarkets stereotyping people isn't out of the question when you consider the way their product arrangement has changed over the years. There's a real science to it.

You've probably noticed an occasional massive rearrangement of shelves that's left you wandering aimlessly around what were once familiar aisles, frustratingly looking for a bottle of mineral water. That's not an accident.

It's not an accident that for any healthy food and essentials you have to walk past rows and rows of junk food. It's not a coincidence that milk and butter is always at the back. That unhealthy food like chocolate and chips are always opposite essentials such as tea or toilet paper. It's an effort to tempt to buy what you shouldn't.

Supermarkets will have special displays for products that the specific company has paid to be made prominent. Supermarket giants will even decide which shelf the product goes on - eye level or higher - depending on their relationship with the producer. Recently, maybe a few years ago, supermarkets decided to really push their home brand and make it much more prominent, which is why you see the home brand tins and such at eye level now and in a much more obvious place.

So it's not totally out of the question that supermarkets are at the level of profiling groups of shoppers, banking on them behaving a certain way, going to a particular section and therefore maximising profit.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. It could be that it makes sense to put the yeast-free stock cubes with all the gluten-free stuff. That's where people who want specialist products will go, right? And maybe Soy milk is now next to cows milk because it's become so mainstream that it's worth putting the two together? Perhaps Indian food at better prices is separated because the providers of the more expensive products have asked them to be or paid more in order to give themselves a better chance?

Maybe, but I thought it was all about being price competitive? There are simply some elements of products and their placement that just don't add up.

My conclusion, after researching certain products at Tesco, was that there is a very deliberate profiling based on stereotypes of people, why they might go to certain sections and what they might perceive to be a fair price. Whether it is or is not.

Is gluten free really more expensive to buy off the provider who makes it? Or is Tesco charging extra because people who are intolerant of certain foods will pay a premium just to stay healthy. Oh, and put it in the section separate to everything else so you can't notice how much more expensive it is. (Wheat/Gluten/Milk free pasta penne1.50/500g, Mainstream white pasta penne Tesco brand 95p/500g).

Don't get me wrong, I don't want Wallmart style prices  - I want to pay what it's worth and make sure the manufacturer hasn't been ripped off and staff are paid properly. But after seeing products arranged the way they are, I can't be sure that's what's happening.

I do know that I will no longer shop in supermarkets the way I used to. I won't make a bee-line for where I know the product I want is, dutifully comparing the prices of surrounding products, not realising that the same product is often replicated throughout the store at varying prices. I'll look further a field and visit my smaller food providers in the neighbourhood to see what they've got going.

I'll be looking in the health food section and what I've sometimes seen offensively titled as the 'ethnic foods' section (thanks Sainsburys) to make sure there isn't a better deal there, or to make sure that I shouldn't take my business to my local wholefoods store.

As It Happened: CNN and FOX Blunder on Obamacare Decision

This is an amazing piece which sets out how CNN and FOX got the Supreme Court's decision on the US President's healthcare bill embarrassingly wrong.

As a result their reporting ricocheted around social media, muddying the waters at best, telling people the wrong thing, messing with the stock markets and even misleading the US President.

It's compelling and entertaining to read the blow by blow description with time stamps and quotes. Tom Goldstein from Scotusblog - a well respected blog analysing the US Supreme Court and its decisions - says he did first hand interviews to try and figure out how two networks made such a huge mistake. 

For those who are students of media theory - there's a nice little Jean Baudrillard 'hyper-reality' moment when Fox uses CNN to confirm it's reports, and vica-versa.

Whether you agree with the blog's conclusions or not, it's a very solid insight into how US media operate on big stories. It's also a reminder of how crucial an initial reporting premise is, and how it can make or break you. Speed vs accuracy?

I took one thing away - when you're reading something, make sure you turn the page to see what's written on the other side!

Nicki Minaj: "When I'm assertive, I'm a bitch...when a man is assertive, he's a boss"

This is awesome footage of Nicki Minaj taking about sexism in the music industry.

Guess every woman suffers.

The UK is going Back to the Future on Social Equality and Fairness

I recently discovered that in the UK, if you're late doing your taxes, you get fined ten pounds a day.

To put it into perspective, it's more than the cost of unlimited travel for one week across London if you live on the outskirts, or it's a week worth of groceries for two.

Now London's tax system is a little bit different in that the state waits for your employer to tell them how much you earned and how much tax you've already paid. The adjustment is then done for you. Nice.

Otherwise, if you're self-employed, you do your taxes yourself. That's when the fines come in. 

But being self-employed could mean working as a casual cleaner or in some other low paid job, or writing down some equipment you bought for a business. Who is this fine really going to hurt and who is it going to help?

If you're wealthy and/or have an accountant then that's fine - you either pay the fine and it doesn't hurt at all, or you have an accountant you pay to get your tax return done on time. Great.

But otherwise, if you're too busy working all those hours for low pay, running your business, unwell or have some sort of issue in your life which means you're a little late putting in those figures in to HMRC, then you're fined 10 pounds a day.

It does add up and it hurts. It might even mean any return you had coming to you is cancelled out by paying more to the government.

It's a punitive measure that only punishes those that can't afford it. And for what? It might make the small percentage that's doing the wrong thing sit up and take notice, but ultimately it's a measure which means that those that can least afford it get hit.

It's a pattern that resembles the change that's been sweeping through Britain, demonstrating a punitive policy culture that's settling into this country from the top down, and it makes me rather nervous.

Discussions about cuts to housing benefits for young people, university fees sky-rocketing, high unemployment, equally high youth unemployment with numbers of young people in neither education nor training climbing for the first time in years. Private companies profiting off carers and the jobless in the same way vultures circle for the kill in a drought-starved land.

It's almost as if we are punishing the working poor and unemployed for no reason other than being underpaid or unemployed.

It wouldn't be so jaw droppingly shocking if the top tier - the 1% shall we say - were hurting as well. But they're not. Figures show that the rich have really done well out of the financial crisis and their quality of lives have been maintained or even improved.

Now with Barclays and the Libor scandal - we're seeing more of our nation's riches shoved into the pockets of bankers but no charges yet to punish those responsible. Rather odd given something criminal did take place.

Certainly the banking industry is yet to get a flogging equal to that which the poor or young and jobless are receiving.

What really makes me nervous is that all these policy decisions are being made by a Prime Minister who is really very wealthy himself.

Mr Cameron would never have had an issue with housing, given he inherits a rather nice structure. His only private sector job paid 90 thousand pounds a year and his wife's mother got it for him.

Regardless of political background - Tory or Labour - you want to know that the man or woman making the decisions for the so-called good of the economy really understands what he or she is doing. You want to know that Mr Cameron has lived the lives we've lived and gets it. (It's not unheard of, many of Australia's PM's have come from humble beginnings).

If Mr Cameron had experienced a hard-luck life and still thought the cuts were good for the country, maybe people would swallow it and carry on - in the great British way.

But this is a man who has had nothing but privilege. It frightens me that a man like that speaks for us all. A man who had it all rather easy, who was never, ever going to have his cheek near the rough edge of the road at any point in his life, no matter if he failed school, made the wrong career choice and saw his wages fall or accidentally got a woman pregnant.

That someone from that background tells us to trust him when he guts the paths to social equality and social mobility? I don't know, I'm finding it hard to swallow.

What I would expect is for business to be told in no uncertain terms - do not drive down wages, put more of your profit margin in your people so that quality of living is maintained, so that recruitment agencies aren't tempted to hire people who will work for much less (to the detriment of those people and the rest of us whose wages they undercut). So that we can afford the rent or the mortgage and so people don't have to rely on benefits. 

Start employing and training young people and pay them a decent, living wage so that they don't need to subsidise their income with a housing benefit.

In other words, don't expect a government handout for your business just so you can make a profit while underpaying your workers - Wallmart style.

If you ask for the business (and banking!) sector to help share the load, rather than just cut, cut, cut government spending, maybe then I'd be happier about what was going on.

I'll tell you what - how about in return for Libor - a promise from Barclays to give 25 per cent of young unemployed or underemployed people from poor backgrounds traineeships with great first year pay?

Maybe then I wouldn't cringe as transport costs rival the mortgage repayments, as I struggle to get to work and as I lay down after a 14 hour day, just as exhausted as David Cameron, but no where near as filthy rich.

I Love It: London Rioters Get Jail But Bob Diamond of Barclays Keeps His Job

This opinion piece in the guardian makes the point - a man got six months jail for stealing bottles of water in the London riots, where as who is facing criminal charges and jail after the giant Libor/Barclays bank rigging scandal? And what about all the other major banks who are involved?

It'll be interesting to see how this unfolds and who actually, if anyone, ends up in jail. But it does hark back to the days when you could be wealthy in England and get away with murder, but be poor and steal a piece of bread and you're sent on a perilous journey to Australia.. you know.. back in the 1700's.

Addendum: Diamond has finally fallen on his sword  - though he was apparently pushed rather than willingly jumped.. I'm sure it was this post which tipped him over the edge ;) I wonder how many more heads will roll?

Do You Know What Tomatoes Taste Like?

Apparently few of us do. 

Scientists have figured out why tomatoes have such little flavour. 

According to This New York Times article by Gina Kolata, about 70 years ago, tomato breeders stumbled upon tomatoes that were totally red, and then seeing a profit potential, bred tomatoes from that gene line. 

Unfortunately, the gene mutation that made tomatoes as red as can be also switched off many of the flavour genes. That's why store bought tomatoes often taste like flour. 

Great. Looks like we'll all be growing heirlooms soon.