Award-winning intimacy coordinator Ita O’brien has worked on movies such as Normal People and says that while Fifty Shades of Grey predated the intimacy coordinator role, it failed to draw the line between sexual exploration and an abusive relationship dynamic.
Meanwhile, in the film’s wake, the use of the rough sex defence – estimated to have been used 60 times in the UK alone – to victim blame dead women by insinuating they asked for rough sex was coined as the ‘Fifty Shades defence’.
The film has also been accused of having ‘non-consensual sex and heavy amounts of verbal and emotional abuse,’ by one non-plussed viewer – a dynamic throughout the franchise that sociologist Finn Mackey believes normalises sexual violence against women by turning it into entertainment marketed as ‘edgy and exciting’.
Jennifer, who runs a sustainable fashion consultancy business, also found it ‘freeing’, she says, likening the film to peeking behind the door of what could be occurring in people’s intimate relationships.
When Ita worked on the set of Normal People, which also had BDSM scenes, she made a point to mark a clear beginning and end to that sexual play, to stop that sub-dom dynamic from becoming all-encompassing.
