Now It Can Be Told: Shopping for "Fifty Shades of Grey"

J had, of course, considered the option of buying the ebook, but decided against it because her children frequently use her iPad. By buying the physical book, she thought, “this way I can control where it is all the time.” But back to the shopping experience…

So I still have the stack of books. The boys are shopping all this time and I don’t want them to know what I have. This is not how I want them to learn about sex! I go back to where they are and now they all want to buy multiple books, of course. I could have spent hundreds of dollars just to get out of there without anyone being the wiser. But I have to carefully set my books down (I still have Fifty Shades with four other books surrounding it) and look through what they’ve found.

Then we go and get in line and there are 10 people in front of us and the boys are talking and asking “What’d you get Mom?” I distracted them with the top book, then finally it’s my turn and I walk up to the cashier, set down my pile in front of her, carefully slide "Fifty Shades" out of the center, point to the other pile and say “These books I don’t want.” The cashier just gives me an “Oh goodness” kind of look, like “Oh, you’re one of those.”

I’m ok with the cashier knowing (although I hope to never see that cashier again!). I don’t typically care what people think if me, but this book has such a stigma on it as female porn. That’s part of the hype, too. Why am I embarrassed? Do men feel the same way when they buy Playboy or Penthouse? What’s the male equivalent of this? It’s as if it’s making a statement about me.