6 February 2015
Ah, the firm but playful thwack of riding crop on buttocks. If this for you is the sound of sexy-time, then good luck to you and your co-consenting adult(s) – don’t let anyone kink-shame you. Of course, there’s no subculture weird or subversive enough that it can’t be exploited by mainstream big-budget entertainment and repackaged in the usual sexist, capitalist pop-cultural paradigm. And so we had the multimedia sensation of Fifty Shades of Grey, in which a billionaire start-up bro inflicts physical pain and psychological control on a young woman of a more humble social status, but that’s cool because it’s their relationship and he’s rich and he looks like Jamie Dornan, which makes it erotic and edgy and even liberating. Ladies, take that stick out from up your arse and let your man give you a few belts of it!
Soundtracking that peccadillo circus is this pop-adjacent power ballad. Not endowed with the glass-shattering capabilities of the classic power divas, Ellie Goulding instead gives gushy and breathy – supposedly all a-tremble at beholding hunky tech-bro and his conspicuous wealth, judging by the lip-biting cover above and glossy video below. Lyrics to squirrel away for your next Valentine’s card or wedding vows: “You’re the colour of my blood / You’re the cure, you’re the pain” and “I’m not thinking straight / My head’s spinning around, I can′t see clear no more”, the latter sounding like that erotic-edgy-liberating protocol includes slipping a roofie. I could be generous and call this merely silly. If ‘Love Me Like You Do’ and the Fifty Shades of Grey universe are your kink, I take back all I say about the shaming.
