At this point i'm pretty sure everyone in America has heard about 50 Shades of Grey as well as the abuse claims that come along with it. Whether if the Anastasia/Christian relationship is abuse can be debated since there was a contract detailing what Miss. Steele was getting herself into. So the question is, since she agreed to the punishments she would receive if she was "bad", is it abuse or not.
I think that the consent might not be as straight forward as it seems. There are three categories of abuse; verbal, physical, and sexual. Physical and verbal are pretty straightforward. One is causing physical harm to another, the other is saying cruel things to someone, often resulting in mental anguish. Sexual abuse unfortunately has a lot more elements to it. The most recognized form is rape but the abuse can also, and often, occur in a romantic relationship. My personal experience with verbal and sexual abuse is what got me thinking about Anastasia's own situation. In my relationship I was not comfortable doing any sexual things. My boyfriend at the time was not okay with that. At first I begged and struggled for him to stop advancing and as persistent as he tried to be, I would not budge my opinions on the matter. This is when the verbal abuse came in. For the course of about a week he filled my head with negative thoughts about myself using many derogatory terms, ending in me feeling like the only thing I was for was sex.
The thing that I shared with Anastasia was that this was my first actual relationship, so I did not know what a healthy relationship should be. So even though we both eventually consented to what men wanted to do to us, was it actually consent? In my case the only reason I agreed to these things was because of the verbal abuse, and her's was physical abuse, but I still did not want any of it. So does it actually count as sexual abuse? Unfortunately this is an issue many women and men face all around the world. Some partners will use physical violence to get what they want, others verbal. What is also sad is a lot of us don't register it as sexual abuse at the time because we don't know any better and because we're only taught growing up about rape.
I think its time we properly educate the youth on actual life situations and how to deal with them so less people allow themselves to stay in these types of relationships. As always, support it also an important aspect in helping out victims.
If you or anyone you know is in a sexual abusive relationship call the National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE
