Francesca and Paolo, Doomed to Hell

The Fifty Shades book trilogy by British author E. L. James, was bought by a publisher in 2011 and the books soon made their way into millions of homes. Billed as an erotic romance series about the sexual exploits of a domineering billionaire and an inexperienced coed, the series was recently made into a movie and debuted in theaters across the country this past weekend, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Its February opening ranked a close second behind Passion of the Christ, with a record- breaking $81.7 million.

It was time for me to read the “romance” book and see why millions of women have been drawn to its much heralded, sexually explicit content. While reading the poorly written, 514 page book, an overwhelming feeling of sadness engulfed me. Here was a story, although fictional, that has introduced 100 million readers worldwide to the kinky subculture and dark world of BDSM, an abbreviation for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism. Anastasia Steele was a soon to be graduate from Washington State University and Christian Grey a twenty-seven year old billionaire from Seattle; Anastasia an unconfident virgin and Christian a formally abused child turned control freak with a fetish for dominating women through the use of humiliation, pain, bondage and other perverse methods.

This foreboding dark gray story features page after page of perverted sex; cold, calculating sex bound by legal contracts, time frames, dominance, submission and a twisted “Red Room of Pain.” It reads like a narration right out of Dante’s Inferno where Dante passes through the gate of Hell bearing the inscription, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

I began to wonder why so many women read these books and then thronged to theaters to watch as a servile female submits to a callous Dom on the big screen. I wondered why the media and talk shows such as the Meredith Vieira Show discussed the finer points of BDSM culture last weekend. They were baffling questions that haunted my mind and jolted my sensibilities, until the chaste warning bells began ringing in my ears, signaling to me that our American culture has once again taken another giant leap forward toward the fires of hell.

As Feminists continue to trample and downgrade the male species, some even delighting in labeling their men as ‘Domestic Goddesses,’ is it any wonder some women are curiously attracted to a strong male dominance that warrants their submissiveness, albeit in a perverted kinky way? The fact that the Obama administration has encouraged, promoted and normalized a perverted pansexual community, allowing it’s subculture to be mainstreamed into the consciousness of America and into the daily indoctrination of our children has only helped to confuse principled discernment and virtuous thought processes.

In Dante’s trilogy, Paolo and Francesca are lovers who are caught by Francesca’s husband and then murdered. She tells Dante that she and her lover read romantic literature together and allowed themselves to be carried away by the narrative and seduced into playing the adulterous Lancelot and Guinevere. Even though these two were damned to hell, they refused to take the blame for it and felt their damnation was owed in part to the poetry of their day. The moral clarity of this is, the poet cannot disconnect him or herself from the social consequences of his or her art. To create is a sacred gift and must not be abused. One’s writing, Dante teaches, must be undertaken with a higher sense of responsibility. The only way a true artist can be fruitful is by seeking to set his course by the divine plan and making his words serve truth and virtue, not the almighty self. Lot’s of luck Erika Mitchell (pen name E.L. James) and Barack Hussein Obama, Dante’s Inferno is ready to welcome you.

This is a warning. If your young, immature daughters are reading this sexually implicit garbage, please know that BDSM has been romanticized and could have long term affects on their future decisions and in seeking or forming normal healthy relationships. Dante’s Inferno, has taught us what sin is, how sin works, how we allow ourselves to be seduced by it, and how we deaden our perception of its working within others. It is an encyclopedia of human failure.

In stark contrast to Fifty Shades, the fictional 1970 epic movie, “Love Story” starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw exemplifies the sweet, innocent love of two young college students, a passionate love affair of the heart that “cannot be measured by the hours in a day” and will last “til the stars all burn away.” Its message and musical lyrics could never be more poignant in 2015; finding a love that fills ones heart with angel songs and wild imaginings, a guileless, romantic love that reflects God.