Fifty Shades of Seriously?

It started a couple of months ago. “Have you heard of Fifty Shades of Grey yet?” my friend asked. Nope, I responded. Should I have? YES, she sighed dreamily. Buy it now. Trust me. But, I didn’t trust her, back on that rainy day in March. Nor did I trust the next 20 friends who echoed the same sentiment. Memories of flipping through Twilight and wondering what the big fuss was about danced in my head and I resisted. But that was hardly the last I heard about it.

Overnight it seemed, the female population was obsessed. Moms at school drop off were discussing bondage in between bake sale numbers and PTA events. My online friends had it on their Kindle’s. My real life friends were snatching up paperbacks. My cousins couldn’t get enough. It was the topic of conversation at dinners out with friends and over pedicures and even at a recent Bar Mitzvah.

Last week, I officially became the last female in the country to climb on board the Grey train. I read it in a few days, not because I was so smitten with the intelligent writing, but because I’m still twelve and merely skimmed the book for the juicy parts… and, juicy they are.

Frankly, I still don’t get what all the hype is all about. But, what I really want to know, is what’s next? If Fifty Shades is gateway mommy porn, what’s in store for us after the books?

The manager of a Barnes and Noble where I spoke told me that he gets at least 50 calls a day about the book and has sold more of Fifty Shades than any other single book in the store’s history. (This following a report that he’d sold exactly two of my books. Thanks, dude.) Yesterday, I received a PR pitch from a sex store who informed me that a vibrator, anal beads and lubricant was “just what mom needs this year for Mother’s Day!”

Does anyone else find this the least bit bizarre?

I mean, I’m not complaining about it, but I do find the whole thing to be highly entertaining. Is this the beginning of some new sexual revolution where porn is no longer relegated to back rooms and seedy basement stores? Will sex swings soon line the playground for after hour fun? Will whips proudly hang on our Pottery Barn coat racks? Will Playgirl sit out at the nail salon along with People and US Weekly? Will women proudly display burns and bruises? It’s… kind of odd.

But, most importantly, if this is the direction that we’re headed, how to we go about cloning our husbands into Christian Grey? I mean, my imagination may be good, but it’s not that good.