Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Pornography for the Boden set: The Missus, by E.L. James, reviewed

Count Maxim pursues his former cleaner Alessia to Albania – but sex in badly plumbed bathrooms while senseless on raki doesn’t sound that thrilling

E.L. James. [Getty Images] 
issue 01 July 2023

As an erstwhile fellow peddler of dirty books (Ambition, 1989), I’m in two minds about E.L. James. On the one hand, I’m glad that I never made money writing tosh which led legions of gullible women to collude in their own humiliation. Granted, my heroine had SOLD tattooed on her forehead, but so far as I know no murdering man ever used my book as an alibi, whereas, as Wikipedia puts it:

Rough sex murder defence, also known as the Fifty Shades defence, is employed by some people accused of murdering a sexual partner who claim that the death occurred because of injuries sustained during consensual sex. Advocacy group We Can’t Consent To This has identified… 60 police suspects or defendants in the UK who have stated from the outset or later plead this defence, 45 per cent of which resulted in a lesser charge, lighter sentence, acquittal, or the case not being pursued.

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