Diary – 4 August 2012

What explains the extraordinary success of Fifty Shades of Grey? This question has been much skirted around but, as far as I know, no one has come up with what seems to me the obvious answer: a large proportion of women are to some degree closet masochists. Of course it’s an embarrassing thing to admit, but we are longing, in our sexual imaginations if not in real life, to be dominated and subjugated by a masterful male. This tendency also explains the enduring popularity of Mills & Boon romances, bodice-rippers and the novels of Georgette Heyer, many of which have been in print for almost a century. Fifty Shades is merely a more (much more) explicit continuation in the same genre. Indeed Mills & Boon are hurriedly bringing themselves up to date with a new series of 12 digital-only ‘racy reads’ called, believe it or not, 12 Shades of Surrender.