Two contracts figure prominently in the 50 Farts trilogy. The first is a non-disclosure agreement, which the characters refer to as an “NDA,” which Christian requires Ana to sign before any sort of physical activity between them. This is a legally binding document which Ana signs immediately, without fully reading.

The other document, which the characters refer to as a “contract,” is a description of the practices, obligations, and expectations of a bdsm relationship between Christian [the “Dominant”] and Ana [the “Submissive”]. Christian wishes that Ana would agree to the contract with as much alacrity as she agreed to the NDA, but she and he engage in tedious, minute discussion of its contents. It is not a legally binding document.

E.L. James lavishes much more attention on the contract than the NDA. We get the full text of the contract, but only dismissive summary of the NDA. Ana doesn’t even analyze the NDA at all; in fact, she skips directly to the signature line. By contrast, she queries Christian about many aspects of the contract, and James treats the reader to their endless back-and-forth. Clearly, she finds the contract much more important than the NDA.

 

But wait a minute… Back up there, author. I’m still hung up on the fact that a) Christian trots out an NDA before all nookie and b) Ana signs it without any compunction. Who does this doofus think he is? Usually people whip out NDAs when they have big, important secrets and/or when they have audiences eager for [salacious] details about their lives. While Christian’s interest in bdsm counts as a big secret, we have no indication anywhere in the narrative universe that anyone would really give a crap. [Seriously…do gossip magazines and paparazzi have any significant role in this series? No.] Sure, if Christian were a hot Hollywood celebrity with a reputation and a brand to manage, he might have an NDA, but I’m not convinced he’s famous, only that he’s rich. I suppose that anyone with his amount of money automatically has a reputation that they care about, but I don’t see his NDA as Christian Grey [TM] brand management. I see it as a way for a control freaky drip to inflate his own sense of self-worth by throwing his weight around in the form of unnecessarily punitive legal nonsense.

 

As I said, I also have great reservations about Ana’s uncritical acceptance of Christian’s NDA. Look at it this way: As soon as Ana and Christian establish mutual interest in intimacy, Christian produces a document that basically requires Ana’s silence so that the relationship may continue. This immediately makes me wonder what he’s hiding. What doesn’t he want her to talk about? Why doesn’t he want her to talk? What bullshit is he trying to keep under wraps? Absent any narrative indication that anyone really cares what he’s doing, Christian’s NDA comes across as an excessively controlling gesture by an abusive wanker. Ana’s blithe disregard for this red flag shows her to be very inexperienced and clueless.