“Just try to keep an open mind.”
I’m sitting in a dimly lit movie theater with my boyfriend, waiting to see Fifty Shades of Grey. I whisper after a group of women squeeze past us to find their seats. Their style is casual – jeans, nurses scrubs, yoga pants – but everything is embellished with rhinestone decals: first names, angel wings, and a dizzying number of lucky charms. “I never seen so many things spelled out with sequins”, he says with fear in his voice as the trailers begin to roll.
I nod and turn my gaze to the people around me. You see, it’s not the soft core BDSM on the big screen that I’m worried about (I’m fairly certain my boyfriend has seen worse on the internet), it’s the fact that we’re in Mesa, Arizona – America’s most conservative city.
Mesa is more or less what non-Arizonans picture when they think of the red desert state: stucco shopping centers surrounded by stucco cookie cutter homes, and the occasional Mormon temple. It’s a breeder colony for people who drive raised pickup trucks and slap on bumper stickers that simultaneously vouch for their love of Jesus and firearms. They blast country music, vote for sheriff Joe Arpaio, and eat at places like Piggly’s Barbecue or, if they’re feeling adventurous, Pei Wei.
Needless to say, it’s not the usual place one would go to see a bondage-based book series turned feature film trilogy.
Or maybe it’s exactly where you go. If you’re going to spend two plus hours watching one dimensional characters act out the not so nuanced fetishes of handcuffs and ass slapping, you might as well go somewhere where you can enjoy the show around you.
In our case, that show consisted primarily of women. Most had come in groups, presumably to dilute their feelings of guilt and embarrassment, while others had their submissives – er, boyfriends – in tow.
We opted out of the Valentine’s Day weekend screenings because we weren’t interested in seeing conservative couples taking note on how to spice up their holy sanctioned marriages. Instead we showed up on a Thursday night, opening night, because we wanted to see the die hards; the fans who felt obliged to see their unspoken favorite series brought to the big screen, the ones who left the kids at home and told their husbands they were at book club.
Not that they were really seeing anything all that graphic. This was lesser R version after all; a downgrade from the NC-17 rating horny hopefuls were pushing for that spared audience member the unholy sights of genitals, gags, and, dare we even say it, penetration.
Still, it managed to get its fair share of gasps, giggles, and the occasional jaw drop. I spent the majority of a sex scene involving whips watching the 60-year- old man behind me stare open eyed and open mouthed as his wife held his hand.
The film generated its fair share of hushed snickering following lines like “I want to fuck you into the middle of next week” and “what are butt plugs?” It was the audible embarrassment that brought back memories of sex-ed class and forbidden porno mags found under older siblings’ beds.
At one point, Christian Grey delivered the the line, “I don’t make love. I fuck hard” and one man put it upon himself to exert his masculinity by shouting out a guttural “Yeah!”. You go, cowboy!
I can’t say that I was so phased that I had to avert my eyes, like the woman next to me who conveniently texted the baby sitter during the steamier scenes of the movie. Honestly all I could think about was how expensive the whole BDSM lifestyle seemed. “How much did whips run these day?” I thought. “Do they run through a lot of cable ties? What would it cost to install suspension cables?”
Maybe it was easy to become side-tracked by the price of putting together a red room because the onscreen romance was so lacking. “I’ve had more chemistry with people I’ve urinated next to”, my boyfriend whispered.
But judging by the enrapt faces of the audience members, something told me they could have cared less about the emotional complexities of Anastasia and Christian’s relationship. I looked around the room during the the film’s raciest moments and registered looks of secret acknowledgment and endearing shock. They were completely absorbed by acts that are never discussed in casual conversation, or not in Mesa anyway.
When the movie did end, elevator doors shutting on Anastasia as she leaves her Mr Grey, an older heavy set woman in the middle row loudly declared “that’s some bullshit!”.
In everyone’s own way, I think they all agreed.
