Pity those of us too superannuated to be young, free and single in the age of the app. Back in the day, discovering whether a potential female partner was in the mood for frolicsome fun was a disheartening affair – all too often dependant upon a would-be suitor's ability to gauge a woman's body-language, attentiveness, blood alcohol levels, state of excitement, and general consciousness by the unwieldy and often-inaccurate mode of talking to her.
No longer! The louche and technologically-literate pull-artist of 2012 has a suite of tools at his command. Not the least of these being the audacious http://www.whoisreading50shadesofgrey.com, which, takes as its central premise the following assumption:
Women, suckered by the romance myth (in which a rich and commanding man, who does not know how to love but who can of course be tamed, will sweep them out of the drudgery of their quotidian existence via some glamourous restaurants and kinky nookie), are reading 50 Shades of Grey in their one-handed legions.
And, whilst doing so, are afroth. Diddling themselves silly at the thoughts of a French-speaking rich toff with a controlling streak. Which is the moment to POUNCE! Catch them when they're in fantasy-land, imagining themselves sans-gag reflex, reduced to an avenue of ingress for the manly accoutrement of their favourite freaky francophile. Catch them at the right moment and it could be you, chaps, beating her on the bottom with a ping-pong paddle whilst enjoying the benefits of a shapely cupid's bow around your, how was it Anais Nin put it?, mainmast?
Who is reading 50 Shades of Grey right now? Who's literally gagging for it this minute? (Or in the case of the book's gag-reflexless Anastasia – not actually gagging for it). Now you can find out. The rest is up to you, sailor.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
