You will see them across the city tonight, whatever city you happen to be in. They will stand out for their tightly clenched jaws, their sullen silences and general air of shiftiness. These are the men who have been dragged by their partners to see Fifty Shades of Grey at the cinema.
There they will sit, beacons of submerged testosterone in a largely female world, present mainly because they have calculated that they are, at least, on a promise; this not being the kind of film to which a woman takes her partner if sex is absolutely not on the agenda. True, after gazing lustfully on the fab abs of Jamie Dornan, their own partners’ more fleshy features may seem a step down but are they really going to start looking for an alternative at 11pm on a Clapham Saturday?
At some point it might occur to the men that in being made to watch the bondage bonkbuster, they have in effect been tied to their seat and forced to submit to the sexual fantasies of their wives or girlfriends. They may, like Anastasia, have worked out that sex was in the air, but they did not anticipate the “red room” — a darkened chamber where deviant fantasies are played out to the soundtrack of munched popcorn and the slurping of Diet Coke. No doubt Christian Grey would have had them sign a contract in advance promising never to reveal what happened inside the secret chambers of the Vue North Finchley or the Odeon Sheffield. In this case, it won’t be necessary. Few will want to talk about it.