Rachel Kramer Bussel

In romance, as in any story, there needs to be a conflict, and the central conflict between Ana and Christian is, in fact, that she wants a traditional, loving, monogamous, vanilla relationship—albeit with hints of spanking and BDSM play—and he has never considered this type of relationship before.

James is heavy-handed with pretty much every aspect of her plot, but her job is not to convince the public that BDSM and love can go hand in hand.

Imagine if it were—surely she would then be criticized for painting too rosy an image of kink, sans any thorns!