Lorraine: A large portion of the traffic on SS.com comes from keyword searches, specifically from people I imagine are looking for legitimate information about Fifty Shades of Grey. I get a twisted sort of pleasure out of thinking about those people instead finding diatribes on toothbrush sharing and mental furniture arrangements.
Sweeney: Based on yesterday’s comments, I’ll +1 this and hope that they leave this blog ready to put down their awful book and join us in hating the state of popular culture that made this garbage a phenomenon.
Barring that, perhaps they can leave us a comments and we can acquire FSoG fan trolls? That might be fun.
Lor: I’ve been waiting for a few haters, mostly so I could break out my haters gifs.
Anyhow, in the spirit of our end of the book celebrations, I figured I’d go ahead and answer the most frequently searched for questions, Snark Squad style. You are welcome, web searcher from far and wide. They appear below in order of frequency.
1. What is flogging in Fifty Shades of Grey?
Oh, you know. Beating.
Essentially, it is one of the fake-BDSM/real-domestic-abuse activities listed in the Sexy Times Contract along with “whippings, spankings, caning and paddling.” Also, I Google image searched a flogger for you all:
Sweeney: Questionable google search of the day!
2. What does ‘yar’ mean in Fifty Shades of Grey?
Lor: I just searched my copy and that word doesn’t actually appear in this book, so, um, you are confused. But! You were directed to our site, dear Internet searcher, because of a comment left by “MiyaLovesCherries” on our Chapter 16 recap:
“You didn’t mention the creepy bit where Ana reads from Chapter 1 of Things Abused Little Wimminfolk say when the Cops come around Because the Neighbours reported a Domestic Disturbance. Katherine Kavanaugh asks crying Ana what the hell’s wrong with her red, swollen ass, and I believe (haven’t read, paraphrasing from a friend) she replies something along the lines if ‘yar, I fell down the stairs. oopsie’. And I get a little sick in my mouth.”
We all get a little sick in our mouth. So, for the purpose of FSoG, I think I’ll go ahead and say that “yar” in FSoG means “100% of Traumateers agree: this book sucks.”
Sweeney: I googled this. First: I love that we are the third result for this. Second: as far as I can tell, it seems to be something that FSoG fans say in comments on articles about the books. A nonsensical thing. So, yeah, that definition is probably accurate.
3. What’s the sexiest chapter in FSoG?
Lor: LOL.
Wow, gosh, it’s really hard to say. It could be that one chapter where Ana brushes her hangover, alcohol vomit, morning breath mouth with Grey’s toothbrush or it could be that one where Grey punish-sexes Ana in his parent’s boathouse or it could be the one where he pulls out her tampon, probably clogs a toilet, and has sex with her.
Sweeney: Or perhaps one of the many where you wonder if Christian is going to fuck her or murder her?
Lor: You choose, dear intrepid web wandered.
4. What’s the dirtiest chapter in FSoG?
Definitely the one where Ana is period-bleeding over herself, and presumably the bed she fell asleep in after her boyfriend relieved her of her tampon. Oh, wait, you meant dirty like RAWR dirty? We’ll go with Chapter 25 because we get sex three times and a hymn. We’re never going to drop the hymn.
Sweeney: It was too fantastically hilarious to forget. In the cesspool that is this book, we have to enjoy the little things.
5. What chapter does FSoG get dirty?
Lor: Grey and Ana don’t have sex until chapter 8, but it’s mostly to get rid of Ana’s hymen, because it offends Christian.
6. What did Christian Grey buy at the hardware store?
Cable ties, masking tape and rope.
And now I must ask why you want to know, because those are nefarious items. If you are searching these things out because you, like Christian Grey, are a muderapist boyfriend: stop that. RIGHT NOW.
If you are thinking of surprising your significant other with some gifts, all I’m saying is that cable ties, masking tape and rope seem awfully kidnapper-y and maybe even a little murder-y.
7. What is Christian Grey’s middle name?
The book doesn’t mention. We could ask the Traumateers to nominate one for him to adopt. I’ll go ahead and start: Christian I’mGonnaGetChaI’mGonnaEatCha Grey. It’s foreign.
Sweeney: Christian IGGCIGEC Grey for short. I’m a fan of Christian Murderapist Grey.
Lor: Keep the nominations coming!
8. What is the best chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey?
None of them.
9. What happens in chapter 8 of FSoG?
Grey decides to have sex with Ana to “rectify the situation” of her virginity. Grey licks Ana’s feet, which I’m assuming were sweaty after plenty of time in sneakers. Ana screams “AARGH!” like a pirate, as one does during sex. Grey makes Ana take a little taste of her own virginity blood and after some more sex, they fall asleep on top of the bloody sheets.
Sweeney:
10. What does “I felt sated” mean?
Lor: Well:
Basically, it means to feel satisfied, perhaps even overly so. The word is “sated” is used five times in Fifty Shades. The first three times are in reference to the first time Grey hits Ana. She says she didn’t enjoy the experience, but that she did feel “sated.” I hypothesized that perhaps she drank a lot of the tears she cried and got really full of of that. Grey answers that he felt sated too, because hitting women satisfies him.
11. What does Grey do to Ana’s chest?
Touch it? Is this a trick question?
Fine: the word breast is used 35 times in FSoG (about 1/6 of the times “murmur” was used.) Here are some verbs attached to those uses: rubbing, cupping, blowing, gliding, pushing, kissing, tugging, sucking, caressing and striking. To be fair, 3 of the times breast was used it was in reference to Grey’s pocket or jacket.
Nipple was used 27. Just FYI.
12. How does Ana come so easily?
Because she is a fictional character in an erotic novel written by an author too lazy to think of her own characters or plot line, and certainly too lazy to write any believable sex scenes.
13. How many times was exasperated used in FSoG?
A form of the word “exasperate” was used 24 times. Here are some other word counts:
Hitch – 18
Clamber – 23
Mutter – 50
Subconscious – 80
14. Where can I download the contract?
Seriously? SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY? You should probably just go now.
Feel free to leave other questions in the comments. I hope you found the answer you were looking for.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
