Thank you, thank you, thank you for this article! I’ve been waiting for something like this and here it is! These are my thoughts exactly. I’m new to Medium, I’ve been here for only a little over two weeks and I just love this place, as here I get to see what’s in the minds of real people most of whom say what they have to say without the limitation imposed by money making driven publishers.

Now, I am from Romania, I’m 48 and I lived under the communist regime for 21 years. My coming of age and my education took place under that regime and I realize now that I don’t regret it. I’ve been privileged actually. I lived half of my life in a communist society, the other half in a capitalist one, so I got to experience things first hand. I went to University, which was extremely selective, especially in the study of humanities, as the communists didn’t need people thinking too much or too profoundly or to acquire too much knowledge about western culture and mentality. There were only 15 students in my class, selected from a quarter of the population of 23 million of the country at that time. I studied English language and literature (British and American) and French language and literature, all of it in the course of four years. That meant first reading everything that was available or considered necessary and important in both French an Anglo-Saxon culture. It was a huge undertaking but I loved it. I started my university education before the Revolution (as we call the shaking off of the communist regime) and I finished after, I was caught in the middle of things all my life.

There was no room in my mind for any other kind of literature than for the ’serious' genre. Of course, we would read some thrillers, science-fiction or detective stories now and then, but these were kind of an underground hot stuff, we would secretly exchange those like smugglers of forbidden substances or guns. But we didn’t have too much access to that type of writing, nor did we take it too seriously. I ended up being a teacher of English and I’ve been one for over 20 years, so I’ve been in constant connection with young minds, helping them learn English. I have a tendency of befriending my students, as it helps them doing the hard work necessary to learning a foreign language from a distance, we don’t really have a well established exchange student system and most of them can’t afford going abroad for a ‘language bath’. They usually tell me everything and come to me for advice in more than English study. About a year ago, through them I found out about this Fifty Shades thing. They wanted to talk about it. About it and about their confusions about it. I had to read it first and I did. It was appalling. I ended up throwing it across the room several times, but I forced myself to finish it (all three volumes). Of course, I needed to delve into this genre a little bit and I read others of the genre to update myself on it.

It was a flabbergasting experience. No wonder they were and are confused. They don’t know what to make of it, as they are just fresh out of childhood. They are the children of my generation, of people who were brought up in a time when we were educated in an egalitarian spirit, at least theoretically. I, for myself, never felt to be competing on grounds other than the professional competence. I didn’t feel I was overlooked or dismissed only because I was a woman. Not ever. I was lucky that way. I know what women in the western world and women in the generations before me in my own country were forced to go through and, sadly, are starting to go through in my country, because that type of mentality is slowly but steadily seeping through in my society, also by means of this Romance books that are becoming more and more popular in my country, too. Especially those coming from the Anglo-Saxon culture. They are messing with their impressionable minds, otherwise well-set by their parents' education. And it’s sad, because it was the one thing that had a positive impact made by the pre- revolution era — superficial as it may have been.

Girls now get the wrong impression of how they are supposed to be as women, boys get it wrong as to how a man should be, too. Because they give in to their hormone driven selves and they read and watch this type of things to the detriment of ‘classics’ before getting acquainted with real life. And it’s dangerous and frustrating, because what they learn now gets stuck, it will make them lead an ugly life and they won’t understand why or what to do to make it better. I can already see it happening to the adult generation younger than me, they are duplicating the problems in your society already. They are adjusting their life according to what they read and what they see in the western media they now have access to. They are mimicking your way of life without any selection. There are so many implications and so many things to say, that I find myself overwhelmed and babbling. I’ll stop.

But, yes, you are so very, very right an spot on. I hope you can make yourself heard, or at least start to set a thinking trend. We need more writers like you. Maybe, if there are more like you, publisher will be forced to sat aside their money quest from time to time and take their influence on mass mentality seriously.