Love, Obsession, and Their 50 Shades of Grey

There's been a lot of controversy surrounding "50 Shades of Grey" on numerous levels of what it actually depicts.  Some say it's just a kinky romance novel.  Others argue that it's a novel that romanticizes domestic abuse, obsession, and stalking.   The level of difference in perception of what the book itself depicts is pretty telling that it very much hits on what may be a perceptual "grey zone" of how people view what love is or should be.

Oddly enough, "50 Shades of Grey" isn't the first time that a piece of written word has been perceived as being so subjectively different.  Probably one of the most well known songs of the 80's was The Police's "Every Breath You Take" and it was largely viewed as a song about Sting's undying love for someone.   In it, he croons,

Every breath you make.
Every step you take
Every move you make
I'll be watching you.

The Police, Every Breath You Take  

Now, if the same lyrics were written down on a note and left on a woman's windshield wiper on her car,  then, the words would have a much different effect to the recipient.  They'd probably contemplate picking up some pepper spray or maybe even a gun.  It would not nearly have the same effect. However, Sting wasn't some random guy on the street.  Instead, like the character Christian Grey, Sting was a good looking, successful man that both teens and adult women alike adored.  The difference between "50 Shades of Grey" and The Police's "Every Breath You Take" was that the latter was never claimed to be about romance by its author: 
  

"I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite."--Sting, BBC Radio 2 Interview

 
Oh no, say isn't so, Sting... You mean to say that that love song that so many young couples once romantically danced to at their high school proms or at their weddings was actually..."sinister and ugly".  Yikes.  In fact, the song is actually about stalking someone and obsession. How did we get it so wrong?  

Unfortunately, we don't have the best track record at being very good at identifying unhealthy obsession and stalking behaviors vs. healthy love.  Another song that was perceived by many as being intensely romantic was "Possession" by Sarah McLachlan.  The title of the song could have been a tip off that this isn't good but instead, people heard what sounded like love while ignoring key elements.  Like that title or even these lyrics:

Oh, into the sea of waking dreams, I follow without pride
'Cause nothing stands between us here and I won't be denied

Sarah McLachlan--Possession

So what does it mean to hold someone down, kissing them so their breath gets taken away and refusing their denials?  No means no, right?  Pretty sure that sounds like the prelude to a sexual assault.  But hey, at least the creeper is going to be wiping away her tears at the end.   For Ms. McLachlan, receiving these letters wasn't romantic in the slightest and in an interview with Rolling Stone on the subject, she outright called the letters "freaky".  That makes sense considering they were pretty much being sent to her by some unknown fan who was clearly mentally unstable.  That's pretty much the equivalent of the aforementioned woman finding the words to "Every Breath You Take" under her windshield wiper.

There's plenty of other songs that could border on being laden with obsessive forms of love from "Creep" by Radiohead to "One Way or Another" by Blondie.   Our culture is actually pretty laden with the grey depictions of what love is.  Even looking at Merriam-Webster's definitions of love and obsession highlights that issue:

love

noun \ˈləv\

: a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person
: attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship

: a person you love in a romantic way
--Merriam-Webster

So the top definition for love is a "feeling of strong or constant affection for a person".  Now let's see how they define "obsession", shall we?

obsession

noun ob·ses·sion \äb-ˈse-shən, əb-\

: a state in which someone thinks about someone or something constantly or frequently especially in a way that is not normal
: someone or something that a person thinks about constantly or frequently

: an activity that someone is very interested in or spends a lot of time doing

 --Merriam-Webster

In other words, the key difference between love and obsession is whether it is normal or not.  

Normal is defined, in this context, as being "mentally and physically healthy"  While I think that being the target of such regard by some unknown stranger would be fairly scary for many and roundly considered unhealthy, what about when it's coming from a person that you yourself are attracted to and/or love?  Love is one of the most heady emotions when it is coming from someone that we desire ourselves.  It is both one of the greatest feelings one can have when it's requited and one of the most perilous emotional attachments that a person can have with another human being.  There's always that risk of heart break. 

Perhaps, when we hear a song being crooned about deeply obsessive love that is all consuming, in a way, that's almost comforting.  The thought that someone could be so in love with you that you are their world to an extreme takes away that peril of having one's heart broken.  We all want to be loved by the object of our own desire unflinchingly and without risk.  After all, how often have we ever heard (or even were lucky enough to say ourselves) that we're "madly in love" with someone?  

The idea is intoxicating and empowering and this could be precisely why such stories of obsessive love bordering on madness have stood the testimony of time.  Is not the story of Echo and Narcissus the story of unrequited and obsessive love? Or the story of Van Gogh going to the residence of a girl named Rachel and handing her his ear, admonishing her to keep it like a treasure?  He was declared a madman and yet, so many recall it as a story of strange love.  When we think of Helen of Troy, do we recollect her as being a part of the tragedy of two young lovers?  No, instead she is the "face that launched a thousand ships".  An icon of the obsessive love of her husband and the destruction that followed.   Face it, we have long as a society somewhat idolized and romanticized even the most disturbing forms of love since the recording of time.

The problem is that, despite romanticism, the reality is that obsessive "love" is wholly unhealthy and destructive. 

Troy was laid to waste by it and thousands slain.  Echo wastes away to nothing, cursed.  Van Gogh nearly died from his wound and that's not even taking into consideration the horror the object of his obsession, that Rachel, must have felt when he laid his bloody ear in her hand.  Yet, with these tales at least, they became cautionary tales of taking the love of another too far.  We're not so good at that today if the elements of obsession within our books and songs go largely without notice or are simply viewed as being "madly in love".

Instead of preserving the value of the cautionary tale, today, we create a hypocrisy where the questionable activities of a handsome and successful character in a requited relationship is pinioned as being romantic against the stuff of psychological thrillers when it is unrequited.   The lines of what is the madness of obsession and what is love have been thoroughly blurred and this should be troubling to an extent.  As shown above,  it's not the first time we've confused love with obsessive behavior; however, what we're starting to traipse into  is a territory where Van Gogh gets his Rachel and its happily ever after. 

The realities of being the target of obsessive love in a relationship are not romantic.

It's suffocating, demoralizing, maddening and destructive as hell.  Every step you take holds a whole new meaning when you can't even go to the bathroom without being watched.  Surveillance cameras covering the front and back and having to check in every 15 minutes is not romantic.  Being threatened with harm or threat of losing your children is not romantic.   The following is a snippet of what just one such individual wrote:

Love: 
Something everyone searches for but, possibly not everyone finds.  Some find love in gifts or expressions, but I being blessed with the greatest form of love.  Unconditional love.  Agape.  Many hurts and sorrows have been seen to establish such a love, but now I can see that they were grains of sand in the vast sea of life. 

A future of love of romance.  I love you. May that which we have established in our lives be roots of life, growing aimlessly touching those around us with peace and the desire to love others. That we may make a change in the world we live, to say that I care for you, I care for my world.

Some might mistake that for being very romantic.  It wasn't when I found it inexplicably in my bedroom behind my nightstand as the person who wrote it lived several states away.  It certainly wasn't because I made it extraordinarily clear that I hated him for all that he did to me (and trust me, even he called himself a monster).  He was the one who followed me every step I took, even straight on into the bathroom.  His obsessiveness grew so terrible that he eventually made it so that I never left home at all and when I told him that I wanted to leave, well, that wasn't made possible til nearly two years later.   And he wrote the above sometime after we had finally been set free.  Romantic?  Oh hell no.  Obsessive love is not romantic.  It's terrifying. 

Christian Grey is the stuff of many women's fantasies and that's okay as long as they recall that the reality is not nearly as titillating.

Women fantasize about all sorts of things that they really would not actually like to experience in reality.  There's a huge distinction between fantasy and reality and the majority of women know that.  They're not stupid.   However, in other cases where obsession has been confused with love like The Police's "Every Breath You Take" and Sarah McLachlan's "Possession", neither were ever packaged to be a song about romance. "50 Shades of Grey" was from its release date on Valentine's Day to the calling it a Drama/Romance when it would probably be more to simply call it a drama and let the viewer determine whether it qualified as a psychological thriller or a romance.  It's doubly troubling when, if one recalls the snippet of the letter above from my obsessive and controlling abuser, the real monsters already package what they do under the guise of romance and love when it is anything but those things.  Will it empower them more?  Probably but they were already broken to begin with and maybe it'll just make it easier for them.