Author E.L. James' best selling erotic novel 'Fifty Shades of Grey', actually perpetuates the issue of emotional and sexual abuse against women, a new study has revealed.
The research, which was conducted by Amy Bonomi and co-authored by Lauren Altenburger and Nicole Walton from the Ohio State University, concludes that emotional and sexual abuse is pervasive in the novel, with the main female character, Anastasia, suffering harm as a result.
About 25 percent of women are victims of violence by intimate partners.
Bonomi, lead author of the study, said that the book is perpetuating dangerous abuse standards and yet it's being cast as this romantic, erotic book for women.
The researchers conducted a systematic analysis of the novel to clarify patterns consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definitions of intimate partner violence and associated reactions known to occur in abused women.
Anastasia suffers reactions consistent with those of abused women. She feels a constant sense of threat and loss of self-identity, changes her behaviors to keep peace in the relationship such as withholding information about her whereabouts to avoid Christian's anger, and becomes disempowered and entrapped in the relationship as her behaviors become mechanized in response to Christian's abusive patterns, the study found.
The study was published in the Journal of Women's Health.
