At the library, middle-aged women turn 50 shades of red

The phone rings at the Jewish Public Library’s circulation desk. “Put me on your waiting list,” whispers an elderly woman on the other end, “I could use a little extra romance in my life.”

A well-dressed middle aged woman walks casually into the library, looks around to make sure no one is looking, discreetly takes a book out of her purse and slides it over to the librarian.

With this book return, the elderly woman on the phone is one step closer to reaching the top of the four-month waiting list to read 50 Shades of Grey, by far the most indemand book at the Jewish Public Library, and across many parts of the world, these days. The Jewish Public Library, an almost centuryold establishment on Côte Ste. Catherine Rd. is known for its vast collection of Judaica, archival treasures and literary and cultural events, and is a respected fixture that has been serving its community for almost a century.

These days, though, from my office near the front desk of the library, I can hear the chatter of women young and old, secular and religious, lining up to get their hands on the latest steamy reading craze. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?

In case you’ve been on an extended vacation on a deserted island, 50 Shades of Grey is a wildly popular erotic novel by British author E.L. James. It chronicles the relationship, in rather graphic detail, of college student Anastasia Steele and busi- ness tycoon Christian Grey.

Eddie Paul, head of bibliographic and information services at the library (a.k.a. the guy who decides what books to purchase for the library), says that though some libraries across North America have banned the book, there was no great debate about bringing the book to the Jewish Public Library. “You don’t want to stand in the way of making erotica available for ladies of a certain age,” says Paul. “Besides; let them have a little fun.”

The decision to bring in 50 Shades was not based on the quality or content of the book, but by the undeniable demand: “Within a day of hearing about this book, there were five requests for it; the next day, nine. By the time we decided to buy it, there were 23 (people) in line to read it.”

Although the novel’s sexual content is not for everyone, there have been few complaints about the racy book’s presence (along with its two follow-up novels) at the Jewish Public Library. It has received more complaints about Hebrew copies of the New Testament and Jimmy Carter’s controversial book on Israel than it has about 50 Shades of Grey, Paul says.

“People are just obsessed with this book, but no one wants to admit it,” says Ivy Rabinovitch, a circulation clerk at the library. “I even spoke to a woman who was reading it on her iPad to travel so that no one on the airplane could see what she was reading.”

So what is it that has cultured, refined, well-read middle aged women and their senior counterparts in such a tizzy over this book?

“Many women, regardless of age, are feeling liberated to read erotic material just by virtue of the fact that it is ‘mainstream,’” says former Montrealer Alex Chinks, a clinical psychologist and sexologist in Boston. “This book takes great strides in permitting women to acknowledge their sexual selves and allow themselves to explore sexual fantasy – such as sexual dominance, which is portrayed in the book – and sexual preferences, in an open, acceptable environment of pop culture.”

Chinks notes that while this book has allowed erotic literature to become more accessible, there has long been, and continues to be, a great deal of stigma and taboo around the idea of women deriving sexual pleasure from reading. She notes that D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was first published in 1928, sparked obscenity trials and government bans internationally – Canada included – well into the 1950s and 1960s. “I speculate that a reason for 50 Shades of Grey’s wild popularity at this time is that we are living in a world of ereaders and the Internet that allows for anonymity and more sexual freedom within the pre-existing societal taboos.”

Borrowing the book from the library perhaps helps with the anonymity factor, as well. Once readers are finished with the book, they simply return it, and no evidence is left behind.

Cindy Davis works at the Jewish Public Library and as a

freelance journalist.