The novel by E.L. James, 50 Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic romance novel that follows Anastasia Steele, a college student, and Christian Grey, a wealthy young businessman, as they enter into a complicated relationship involving a contract he proposes to her. That contract is what is called a BDSM contract standing for Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission and Sadism & Masochism. The core principles of a modern BDSM community operates on the framework of SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) or RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink). Informed, enthusiastic consent between adults is considered the defining line between BDSM and abuse. When I think of S&M (not something that happens often), I think of the Marquis de Sade, the French nobleman who coined the term “sadism”. He had a very unique philosophy of life during a time of great libertine and revolutionary thinking in a country that led the way in both regards. He felt that nature is amoral and violent and that human “virtue” was a fiction. He said that true freedom means transgressing all social and moral constraints and that suffering and pleasure are intertwined at a fundamental level. Not surprisingly, he felt that God and religion are tools of oppression. He was essentially a radical materialist and nihilist, using pornographic fiction as philosophical argument… a kind of extreme Enlightenment anti-moralism. I wonder what the Marquis would have thought of Jeffrey Epstein or, for that matter, the whole of American society that is enabling the amoral Trump kleptocracy and violent materialism?
Think about it for a moment…the key concepts of BDSM are about the Dom/Domme/Don being the partner taking the dominant/controlling role and the Sub partner taking the submissive role. Think about the powerful Executive and the submissive Congress. Then there’s the Switch, which is someone who enjoys both roles. That sounds both like Congressmen inside and outside of the White House or within sight of the Don. It also sounds like the bully who likes to play the victim, right? In BDSM there is the Safeword, a pre-agreed word or signal to immediately stop activity. Perhaps that could be something like “Midterms”. That certainly is a pail of cold water on the thinking of most Republicans that don’t have pictures of their constituents in the proverbial closet with a goat. It also increasingly serves to sober up the drunk-with-power President in ways that even assassin bullets don’t seem to. One of the necessary components of modern BDSM ala Anastasia (Melania) and Christian (perhaps the anti-Christ in our too real world) and even the Marquis (Baron), is what the practitioners of this not-so-safe sex call “Aftercare”, the emotional/physical care following a scene, which is considered essential to moving on to the next encounter. We are in such Aftercare at the moment on several fronts. To begin with, we have already been lulled away from worrying too much about Jeffrey Epstein and his Trump connections…we are, after all, getting to the seven-year-itch moment since Epstein’s untimely death in the bowels of the Bastille…oops, I mean the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. Public opinion polls suggest only a minority of Americans believe Epstein died by suicide. One poll found 16% believed it was suicide, 45% believed he was murdered, and 39% were unsure. The suspicions were fueled by multiple irregularities like guards who had falsified monitoring logs, the fact that he’d been taken off suicide watch, and that, strangely enough, cameras in the prison had conveniently malfunctioned with precision timing. In February 2026, newly released DOJ documents and surveillance video observation logs raised additional questions about activity near Epstein’s cell on the night before his death…but now, suddenly we have unearthed a possible suicide note in the artifacts left by some fellow mob-connected cellmate…how interesting after such a long time and the general inability to make this all go away… Of course, let’s not forget that in 2025, the Justice Department under the Trump administration concluded that Epstein was not murdered and that there was no “client list,” though it also released cell footage that was missing one minute and appeared to have been modified. Not even E.L. James has such a vivid imagination, proving once again that truth is always stranger than fiction.
Has it occurred to anyone on the Right that there is a clear psychological dimension to all of this? Many practitioners of the sport of the Marquis emphasize that BDSM is as much psychological as physical. It’s all about power exchange dynamics, trust…and negotiations are central. Trump is the Negotiator and Chief is he not? Look at what a star job he and his minions (JD, Jared and Stevie Witkoff) are doing with Iran. He has managed to bring an end to the Persian Devil with the total annihilation and defenestration of Iran and its fundamental and anti-Christian theocracy (except for that little niggle of the Strait of Hormuz). And he has done that all within 60 days, precisely (ignoring the Naval attacks on the blockade line, even though international convention states clearly that a Naval blockade is, indeed, an “Act of War”). That is way less time than Truman/Eisenhower spent in Korea, Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon spent in Vietnam, way less time than Bush & Son spent in Iraq, way less time than Bush/Obama/Biden spent messing with Afghanistan (Trump had no part in that because he was busy making nice with the Taliban), and even less than FDR/Truman spent waging war against the Germans and Japanese. It’s amazing to wonder how much better the world would have been if only we had let Trump run all of those altercations. He might have been able to use tariffs and his unique and unpredictable trade negotiating style to make the world a better and safer place (at least for his closest and wealthiest friends).
In the world of 50 Shades of Grey, research suggests many participants report all the shenanigans as a source of stress relief, intimacy, and connection. The DSM-5 (psychiatric manual) distinguishes between a BDSM interest (not a disorder) and a paraphilic disorder (only when it causes distress or harm). Consensual adult practice is not classified as pathological. And the one thing we know about Donald Trump and his sexual history is that everything he has ever done has been totally consensual.. That was proven in the E. Jean Caroll case…in fact, it was established that she pretty much wanted to be abused in the Bergdorf’s elevator and was thrilled that the Donald was prepared to sully his hands with her bodily fluids. As for the Epstein situation, Donald barely knew the guy and the best evidence of that was that all those pictures of them together prove that Epstein was obsessed with the Donald and couldn’t get enough photographic evidence of it to adorn his study walls.
50 Shades of Grey as a novel was critically panned, but commercially it was a massive phenomenon, essentially creating a mainstream market for erotic fiction. I suspect that the Trump Administration in all its tawdry light-of-day reality will meet with the same conclusion. The Trumps and Friends gang will walk away with their billions (Trillions in the case of Elon and Putin) and the rest of the world and Americans will critically pan the experience with a great big, “what were they all thinking?” because, after all, one of the basic tenets of the BDSM culture is self-care and never admitting to anything…ever.