Guilty pleasures

Iman Qureshi on the literary phenomenon that is Fifty Shades of Grey and what it means for publishing

Every page I turn, every link I click, every scroll up my twitter feed, there appears yet another comment on what has become the sexual and literary zeitgeist - Fifty Shades of Grey. Like a black hole, there's no escaping it. So, on the basis that if you can't beat 'em, you should join 'em, here are my fifty cents.

There are many reasons why you might not have expected Fifty Shades of Grey to be the runaway success it has been. Firstly, it has its roots in fan fiction. And not just any fan fiction. Twilight fan fiction. Really. Married middle-aged mummy's juices (creative) flow after reading lame vampire series for teenagers. Seeing its erotic potential, she puts fingers to keys and bashes out some fan fiction to publish on internet forums, which gradually evolves into one of the bestselling novels of all time. That's a great story in itself.

Secondly, the book is loosely defined as 'porn', or as is the preferred turn of phrase - 'mummy porn'. It's been lambasted by feminists and women's groups. Portraying bondage and male domination - or, as I like to call it, misogyny - as the essence of female fantasies, is problematic. Christian Grey is a punch, kick and a shove away from the suspiciously similarly named Chris Brown, the world's poster boy for domestic violence. And we all know how that ended; his new album, 'Fortune' has sailed to number 1.

Thirdly, it was self-published online.

Fourthly, the gleeful snooty venom with which people seem to descend on the quality of writing in this book would have me convinced it's International Brian Sewell Day. Now there's a scary thought.

Despite all this (or because of it) the book has triumphed. So now what? Rival publishers are scurrying around like hens, trying to find the next juicy worm to feed their readers, who are apparently gagging for more. Journalists are desperately courting E L James for a few minutes of her time. Writers are committing themselves to penning the next best-selling bodice ripper.

And what am I doing? Well, I suppose I'm celebrating. Because the really wonderful thing about this whole saga is the fact that I need more than ten fingers to count the number of people I see reading a paperback of Fifty Shades in a week. And that doesn't include those who might be surreptitiously savouring it on their e-readers. In spite of all the eye rolls and scoffs, it has gotten people reading. More than anything, the triumph of Fifty Shades of Grey is a triumph over shame.

For too long we've been embarrassed about what we read: for what it might reveal about us to others, of what we like in bed, or our intelligence, or our weaknesses. In the days before ebooks, I had a friend who suffered from a severe eating disorder. She'd wrap her self-help books in brown parcel paper to hide what she was reading on holiday. Teenagers are teased for their choice of books. Men feel uncomfortable reading what is classed as 'chick-lit'. For anyone to feel ashamed about what they read is a tragedy. People should be free to read whatever they want and without judgement.

And what of the 'bad' content? Well, even the problematic feminist politics are better out in the open. Let's consider what it is about our culture that propagates these terribly unbalanced gender roles. At least now we can have a discussion about it - and that's the root of all change.

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