FIFTY SHADES OF GREY: FILTH OR SAUCE?

I confess to having neither knowledge of nor interest in pornography. Indeed I naively assumed that “Fifty Shades of Grey” with a sequel called “Fifty Shades Darker” was about the ageing process and hair dye. As a result of the recent hype, I now know that I was wrong.

Divorce lawyers, as you can imagine, are told all manner of things by their clients. It is therefore only by those confidences that I know anything about porn. Moreover, my own limited experience would suggest that accessing it can and does form the basis of unreasonable behaviour for the purposes of divorce. However, and although I have never actually undertaken a statistical survey, I’m fairly sure that I have only ever been involved in cases where the wife has made such allegations against the husband.

When I first started out in my career, I recall that behaviour of this kind took place on Saturday mornings by dirty men in macs huddled near a top shelf display in a newsagent’s. Subsequently there were repeated instances of “lads’ mags” and photographs stashed under a bed or in another discreet part of the family home. Then the internet boom arrived and the allegations related solely to what husband had been looking at on the family p.c.

Now my whole past experience is under challenge. The trilogy of books about Christian Grey and his sado-masochistic goings-on, is described as beyond erotica and into the realms of pornographic. Nevertheless the books are apparently being read almost exclusively by women; an awful lot of women if the sales figures are a reflection of the readership level.

So what do men think about this turn-round? Clearly there are many who do not approve. This week we have even learned about a man being convicted in court for common assault when he felt it wrong that his partner was one of those millions of readers. Mind his reaction was, shall we say, somewhat unusual in that he chose to spray her with brown sauce!

Personally, I am unlikely to find the time or inclination to read the books (and if I do, it will be purely in the pursuit of research). However, and in case Outdoor Man suddenly develops a sauce fetish of his own, I suppose I’d better look to emptying our pantry of all the usual condiments!