Opinion

‘50 Shades’ for girls: Planned Parenthood pushes porn

It turns out that Planned Parenthood staffers love “50 Shades of Grey” — so much that they proclaim the series and its dubious philosophy to teen girls looking for guidance.

“Fifty Shades” tells how how hyper-controlling Christian Grey subjects 21-year-old Ana Steele (who, it must be noted, talks like a 13-year-old) to an endless series of physically harmful and degrading sexual situations.

Some consider it liberating (or at least titillating), but you can also call it sadomasochistic porn. Of course the mentality here, and its popular success, isn’t new.

Recall Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”: With its unending repetition of “I know you want it” while (on the video) mostly naked girls dance around fully clothed Thicke and his male friends, it’s hard not to see the song as pro-rape.

When “Blurred Lines” has more views on YouTube than the United States has citizens, and when the “50 Shades” trailer had 19 million views in its first week, it’s hard to ignore the common feminist assertion that a “rape culture” plagues our society.

Which makes it so bizarre to find what’s normally seen as a feminist institution, Planned Parenthood, promoting that culture.

We at Live Action (a new-media pro-life group) were thinking of Thicke when we set out to investigate Planned Parenthood’s sex-counseling agenda.

We sent investigators posing as 15- and 16-year-old girls into Planned Parenthood facilities across the country — as it happens, just as the “50 Shades” trailer came out.

It turned out that Planned Parenthood counselors consistently recommended the “50 Shades” series to what they thought were minor girls.

“You need to read it,” an enthusiastic staffer said in Indiana. “It’s pretty good,” we heard in Colorado.

Another called the series “extreme,” but “if it’s consensual, again, completely normal.” Even a counselor who personally disliked “50 Shades” advised that “it would be a big eye-opener for you.”

The staffers’ script was much the same everywhere. All of the employees went on to insist on “trust” and elevating the “safe word” (a word that sex partners who are intent on extreme behavior agree to use as code for “no, stop, and I mean it”) to set-in-stone status.

In short, Planned Parenthood counselors told our investigators that “no” doesn’t mean “no” anymore.

It, and everything else, means “yes” — or at least it does to those looking for a quick sexual fix.

Note that in one “50 Shades” scene, Grey explicitly ignores the safe word and even punishes Ana for trying to use it. In several others, he shows outright contempt for the girl’s limits and has his way with her, to the point where the sex scenes read like rapes.

In the world of fiction, an author can conveniently just have the character enjoy this treatment. In reality, behavior like this — and promoting it — is a recipe for disaster.

This is what makes Planned Parenthood’s dogmatic adherence to the cult of the “safe word” so disturbing. According to the group’s trained counselors:

  •  “Stop” can get “mixed up when you’re having intercourse.”
  •  “The boy might wonder, ‘Does she really mean ‘stop’? Or does she mean, you know, whatever?”
  •  “Usually, a lot of people will say ‘stop’ even though it feels good, so that’s usually not something that is used.”

What mother wants her daughter to go through her interactions with boys thinking that no “can get… mixed up”?

What father wants his son to hear a girl protesting and wonder if she really means it . . . and if, maybe, he should just have his way with her anyway? How much more blurred can these lines get?

With girls made into abuse victims and boys made into monsters, whom does the “no means yes” culture help?

Well, it helps Planned Parenthood, which is standing by with STD testing (for a price) and the suction machine for any “accidents.” (Will that abortion be cash, check or charge?)

According to Planned Parenthood, “no” can’t mean “no” anymore; the word “can get mixed up.” So learn the “safe word,” and pray that your partner doesn’t decide that it’s not so safe anymore.

When Planned Parenthood counselors train our girls not to expect that “no” means no, they disable a crucial form of protection for all women in a violent world.

And when boys get that same message, those who we’d most expect to decry “rape culture” — feminists, so-called women’s-rights groups and even Planned Parenthood — make men into predators, and foment the very abusive sexual ethos they claim to oppose.

A world of compliant Ana Steeles and repulsive Christian Greys is nothing short of nightmarish. We all should turn away from any road that leads there.

Lila Rose is president of Live Action, a new-media pro-life group.