I'm enjoying it, but then I liked Twilight and Harry Potter too. And before you scoff, I've read plenty of literary classics and enjoyed them. Fifty Shades is clearly not great literature but then I don't think it pretends or aspires to be. It trots along in a pacey way and there's lots of sex. Simples.

It isn't risibly bad but it's deeply unchallenging and therefore unsatisfying. The characters are chronically one-dimensional with a hefty portion of really lame cod psychology thrown in. Plot developments are signposted a mile off and set up clumsily. The sex is titillating though - Mr Grey is a bit smooth and masterful (at first) - but by the time you get to sex scene no. 20 it has become very repetitively described.

However, I welcome this phenomenon. Literotica.com is a good resource but you have to decide that you're looking for erotic fiction, which therefore meant it reached a fairly minority audience. Fifty Shades has suddenly catapulted erotic fiction for women into the bestseller-of-all-time list. This can surely only be a good thing. It might mean that someone writes something intelligent about sex for a change, or manages to describe it well, now that publishers have cottoned on that there's an audience for sexy literature. It's taken it out of sleaziness and into every bookshelf.

I don't know how many of you detractors have ever tried writing about sex without it sounding trite, repetitive, mechanical, hackneyed or plain mucky. Treading a line between romantic slush and over-graphic squelchiness is really tough. I've tried, and I'm not gonna give you the link to it, lol. Authors I admire have tried to write sex scenes and failed dismally. Martin Amis was nominated for The Literary Review's "bad sex" award and rightly so (for a passage out of The Pregnant Widow). Asked about it, Amis said: "Very few writers have got anywhere with sex... my father used to say that you can refer to it but you can't describe it."

I agree - even the "smutty" novels like Lace or Jilly Cooper's finest don't go there. They allude but gloss over. If the Fifty Shades success encourages more authors to write well about actual sex I'm all for it.

And if one man reads it and as a result is able to give his bird a better time in bed, halleluja. I don't mean with the whips and paddles that Mr Grey favours, just in terms of recognising that taking command (when warranted) or simply being good at what you do is a turn-on.

Meanwhile I actually can't put the damn trilogy down, haha. I'm telling myself that I'm just appraising myself of a current cultural phenomenon

THIS, totally.

Ahahahaahhaa I know this is a serious post but that really made me laugh! I understand your difficulties telling your bf. I have a long term bf who knows a bit about what I'm into but not the specifics and MAN I am TERRIFIED to tell him the details. I have almost come to the conclusion that I just can't. It makes me want to curl up and die. Unfortunately it feels so extremely shaming and embarrassing that I'd almost rather just forget it with him and carry on pretending. Which is also not really a viable option. I can talk about it fine with people I meet through the community/here but not with him and I can't work out why. It's not as if he's a judgmental or blinkered person or anything, he's pretty open-minded. Ugh the very thought makes me anxious. I think part of the problem is that I'm a follower not a leader when it comes to bedroom stuff so putting myself out on a limb and saying "this is what I like, perhaps you might too, hey let's do THIS" is too scary and uncomfortable to contemplate. What a cowardly custard.

Ruby, thanks for this, it really works.

www.geographylwc.org.uk/A/AS/AShealth/pdf/GFAQA7.pdf

Apparently statistics suggest that obesity rates are above the national average in Cumbria, South Yorkshire and North East Derbyshire, some places in East Anglia, and the West Midlands. The prevalence of raised waist circumference was greatest in Yorkshire and Humber.

Whether or not it would be good for a BBW to live in those places I don't know. You might find eg. GPs under pressure to reduce the obesity rates and therefore holding more negative attitudes about being overweight.

So I'm definitely the only one in the country left watching it now haha

Who do you want to win? I see Deana is currently the bookies' favourite.

Grrr! Despite being evicted, Lauren is STILL annoying me on BBBOTS (the dinner party feature with surprisingly amusing Shievonne (sp?), pointless Arron, Caroline & Lauren) by making out she was unjustly bullied by Caroline and demanding to know why, all the time looking really smug, superior and sanctimonious. Lauren love, they didn't like you because you're vile! I almost feel sorry for Caroline.

I worry about losing my luggage when I fly.

A girl who wears small sizes can just nip to a local shop at her destination and pick up a cheap set of new underwear, swimwear, jeans/shorts & t-shirt to tide her over.

It's hard enough sourcing nice clothes that fit in my home country, living in the capital & with the internet at my disposal, let alone on an island in Thailand or up a mountain in Peru. There's no way I'd find a bra or a swimming costume or a pair of jeans that fit in a holiday resort (unless possibly it was in the USA or Tonga!), and I'm "only" a size 20 so it's not even that big an ask, you'd think.

So I always pack those things in my hand luggage. I've never lost my luggage yet but one day it's gonna happen and I don't want my holiday ruined by feeling like a freak because I can't find anything to wear.

So I simply say that I agree with a post and you think it's ok to insult me sarcastically?

I begin to see why you're (NB. that's how you spell it) not managing to get on with people too well.

Those whose responses you don't like on this thread are simply going on the evidence in front of them. You claim they can't make those comments because "they don't know you". But that's exactly their point. There is nothing about you in your profile or on the site to enable that, so they're merely trying to help. No point being catty when that's (politely) pointed out to you.