Vetting VS topping from the bottom

Miss Magdalena​(sub female){FreeSpirit} - When the D is good, it can make you stupid. Lol.

WhatamIfightingfor​(dom male) - The author had worked on the set of Doctor Who. It would have been a better book if she had spent some time paying attention not just to the action and thrill, but the relationships between the characters and what made them tick.

YourDarlingSub - The author was also a blogger for twilight. Why the writing style was so similar. She took the characters from twilight and put a sexual spin to it. Nothing original about it but we all know, sex sells.

WhatamIfightingfor​(dom male) - Yup it was a fanfiction blog. Errors are okay there, but in published works if there are to many can really hurt a story.

Max Sterne​(dom male){Morley} - I have never seen the movies or read the books, but I have had the storyline explained to me and read a great many blogs about it. So, ya, basically I know very little from the source material. That being said, your explanation makes perfect sense to me. I run into this topic often and you make really good points about the popularity of the story. Please forgive me if I paraphrase your points in the future. Love this article you wrote!

YourDarlingSub - It was popular because it had mind blowing sex. All the attention was on the woman. She was satisfied every time and it wasn't the missionary position. Woman will tolerate a bad man and good sex than a good man and bad sex

sparkleslove​(sub female) - I agree with what you said regarding the book and people's perceptions. I have not read the book or seen the movie but can say the few times the topic of bdsm has been brought up around a few friends this book is what they reference. I have googled about the book and spent time researching bdsm. It does seem this book does not cover any substantial or real aspects of the lifestyle at all, which is sad. It doesn't give a real sense of anything other than what others are saying: sex sells.

It would be nice to see a movie that actually shows a more realistic view of the lifestyle and how life really is.

YourDarlingSub - The books touched on BDSM in the beginning but not in detail. The relationship would fall in the kinky category. Light bondage and impact play. It was enough to get attention but it was riding on the Twilight coattails so by keeping the characters similar, it gained popularity. Grey was the new Edward to fantasize over.
If a movie was made based off of the lifestyle, it would never make it into theaters.

sparkleslove​(sub female) - Oh. This makes so much sense. I'm sad this wouldn't be part of movies in a positive way though. The few times movies and shows make any reference to bdsm or kink it's usually in a negative way or the person is characterized as weird.

YourDarlingSub - It they left out the part where Grey got submissives that looked like his Crack addict mother and beat them senseless as a way to punish his deceased mother... it might have not been seen in such a negative way. I think that's where all the talk about abuse came about. He used the lifestyle as a way to deal with his demons without actually facing them.

sparkleslove​(sub female) - That's horrible! And definitely not kink or bdsm. What a horrible way to handle that situation. Sounds like he needed counseling

obsequiae​(dom male) - I could see your analysis of the book (women looking to have fulfilling sex lives in the barest of minimum ways) could be spot on, but I think the rest of it isn't the whole picture. I think the effects of the internet have far more to do with the things you are talking about than 50 shades could have done all by it's lonesome. There were definitely lambs to the slaughter and morally bankrupt butchers waiting for the cull, but I also feel like other stuff is at play as well. I can't know for sure but to me the "old guard" scene seemed very cut off in regards to class, race, orientation, and other such social markers. And of course while misogyny is still alive and well in this day and age, I can only imagine it was ten, a hundredfold worse back in the day.

And while this naive/predator dynamic is good, I would say that kink being more out in the open, accepted, etc is a net positive - the legal/political system mightn't have caught up quite yet I don't think, but actively working to destigmatize instead of existing in the shadows for people who choose or have the luxury of being able to do so in the community means more people speaking out about abuse, from all angles on that topic, can only be a good thing compared to when it was with grim acceptance that a lot of the times if you were lucky enough to get out you just moved on with your life and told only the most trusted people about it.

I'm sure there are other examples of why questioning "protocol", if you mean that in the sense of just the way the community conducted itself back in the day, is a good thing. If you mean "protocol" as in "high protocol", then that's just always been subjective preferences at work.

I don't disagree with what I think the main thing you were striking at in the second part with is though, and that's people should not be participating in this lifestyle without being edified in some way (internet muddies those waters as it does in all things cause there's just such a deluge of information in general).

I know I rambled a bit here, and if something isn't making sense in my writing please excuse me as i'm a step or two behind as i'm absolutely heckin' knackered at the moment.

sparkleslove​(sub female) - These are 2 usual concepts that go together in stories and movies. In reality, things are more complex but for movies and storylines money and power usually make the female stay with the man even when he's a mean person.