The Pleasure of Being Looked At: Objectification, Fantasy, and Fifty Shades of Grey

James’s Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) became a global bestseller and a 2015 Universal Pictures film.

Most of the time, “objectification” carries a negative charge. To objectify someone is to see them as a body, a role, or a thing to be used. We usually think of it as something imposed rather than chosen. But then there’s Fifty Shades of Grey. This is a story centered around a woman being controlled, watched, and shaped by a powerful man. However, millions, especially women, didn’t just accept it. They enjoyed it. So how do we make sense of the idea that people might actually find pleasure in being objectified?

Erving Goffman’s ideas offer some explanation. He argues that social life depends on roles, and that we’re always working to manage the way we present ourselves. This is through clothes, posture, tone, and setting. Goffman broke down one’s “expressive equipment” into setting, appearance, manner, and personal front, or in theater language, stage, costume, and persona. What Fifty Shades gives is a fantasy where someone else takes over that work. Christian Grey chooses the clothes, sets the scene, and writes the script. Anastasia steps into a role rather than working to build one herself. For readers who devote daily effort to curating their own image, the thought of handing that labor off can be deeply appealing.

This links to what we called the literacy of the body. This is the idea that we use subtle strategies to visually shape identity. We define ourselves by what we choose to wear and what we refuse. In a fantasy setting, being objectified can feel less like losing your sense of self and more like having it studied closely. To be the focus of intense attention is still to be seen. That’s the real temptation.

Jack Katz’s work on crime brings an unexpected angle. In “Sneaky Thrills,” he describes the pull of breaking rules. This is the sense that it would be simple, followed by either euphoria or deep shame. Much of Fifty Shades’ appeal relies on that pattern. Readers step into something forbidden, feel the rush, then return to their regular lives unchanged. The tension between shame and euphoria isn’t a byproduct. However, it’s at the heart of the story’s draw.

Postmodernism adds another layer. Where modernism put faith in grand stories, postmodernism suggests we can borrow from them without buying in. Fifty Shades borrows the oldest romance plot. A powerful man and the woman who changes him, without asking readers to actually endorse it as a model for their lives. That’s where simulation comes in. It reproduces the essential features of domination as an artificial, safe version. It fools the fans, not the players, or maybe more accurately, the readers are in on the act. They know it’s all performance.

That said, I don’t think this lets the franchise off the hook. Critics, including many people within the BDSM community, have argued that the story blurs the line between consensual power exchange and a genuinely controlling relationship, with surveillance, jealousy, and pressure framed as romance. In class, we asked what allows people to believe unreliable narratives. Trends and popularity were on that list. When a story goes viral, its version of desire can become normalized. This is true even if the fantasy works differently in fiction than it would in real life. Enjoying a fantasy of being objectified and wanting to be treated that way in reality are not the same thing. However, popular culture doesn’t always help people tell the difference.

The trailer sells control and being watched as romance.

So can people enjoy being objectified? I think the answer is yes, but with a condition: the enjoyment depends on choice. The pleasure in Fifty Shades comes from fantasy, from roles that can be stepped into and out of. Objectification becomes harmful when that exit disappears, when the role stops being a costume and becomes the only identity someone is allowed to have. That line, between a role we choose and one we’re trapped in, might be the most important thing the franchise’s popularity asks us to think about.