50 Shades of Research

I'm doing something risky with my first college research paper: centering my thesis on the best selling erotica novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Go big or go home, right? I am not ashamed to say I have read and re read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and actually enjoyed it. What I just started asking myself, though, is why do I enjoy a book that has violence toward another person in it? Why do I read about a man who controls everything his "submissive" does? I would never allow a man to take control of what I eat, who I see, where I go or what I wear, etc. Why, then, do I enjoy reading about a man, who is in all actuality, being a complete dick to an innocent girl? The woman in the novel is not the greatest representative for women too. She allows this man to take control of her life and barely expresses how she feels or takes action against some issues she has with the "god-like" man. Women have made such big advances towards being productive and important members of society with a loud voice. So why then do they read about a woman undoing all the gains that have been made for women over the years? These are the questions I am going to ask and answer while I write my research paper. My research paper is not going to be about the crazy sexual toys the characters use or the insane passionate sex they have in an elevator. I want to understand the psyche of the readers and society today that made this trilogy a best seller. 

To ensure I wasn't insane for choosing this topic, I took the idea to my professor and presented my ideas and where I wanted to take the paper. The feedback gave me the prefect encouragement to really take this topic as far as I wanted to. This topic has so many gender issues and subject matters in it that i really feel the research paper can write itself. I am so excited to divulge into the mind of the reader, also myself, that the paper length is not intimidating in the least. Watch out wives, mothers, and daughters because you all are about to get your mind probed and blown!