Domestic violence charity to burn 50 Shades of Grey4

Governance | Jonathan Last | 28 Aug 2012

Wearside Women in Need, a domestic violence charity located in the northeast of England, is organising a mass burning of the erotic international hit novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

National media reports the charity’s director Clare Phillipson calling the Fifty Shades trilogy ‘vile’, and that the organisation is encouraging women to submit copies of the books to its offices in time for a bonfire on 5 November – Guy Fawkes Night.

BBC News quotes Phillipson as saying: “I do not think I can put into words how vile I think this book is and how dangerous I think the idea is that you get a sophisticated but naïve young woman and a much richer, abusive older man who beats her up and does some dreadful things to her sexually.”

Phillipson continues that she objects to the fact that whilst local authorities are making cuts to outreach and refuge services for women, libraries are ordering in extra copies of the trilogy by British author E.L. James to meet demand.

This represents, she is quoted as saying, a misuse of public money "on a book that says ‘violence is sexy’", when funds could be better spent supporting the victims of abuse.

No-one from Wearside Women in Need was available for further comment.

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy centres around Anastasia, a young college student who has an affair with older billionaire Christian Grey that delves into sado-masochistic sexual practices.

The UK publisher of the novel, Random House, is quoted as saying the sex scenes in the multi-million bestseller are “entirely consensual.”

Place a comment

Elena Joseph
Head of New Projects
Workplace Giving UK
29 Aug 2012

Hmmmm....I actually wonder whether Clare Phillipson has actually read the book/s - "abusive older man" the character she refers to is 26 to the leading lady's 23 - it is a book, a fantasy, a bit of titilation - I would be far more outraged at the online porn freely available to very young people!

Cannot believe they are calling for a book burning, perhaps a well written opinion piece about why she believes the book is so dangerous would have been better!

[Reply]

Howard Lake
Director
Fundraising UK Ltd
28 Aug 2012

Book burning is an act of violence. The act has such a history of persecution and has often been the precursor to acts of violence on people that I am astonished that a charity would ever think of staging such an event, however important the issue and however well-meaning.

[Reply]

PS Siu
Fundraiser
RNS
28 Aug 2012

Burning a book that one disagrees with is rather extreme, violent, and carries with it a whiff of ignorance and refusal to engage in an informed debate.

I can see why WWiN is sensitive to certain themes in the novel, but this proposed action might just hijack the message they're trying to send out.

[Reply]

Shane A
28 Aug 2012

Idiots. It's a book, it's all consensual, you probably ... **content removed - refer to community standards**

[Reply]

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