Fifty Shades of Grey Panel

With Erica Jong (Fear of Flying, Sugar in my Bowl), Daniel Bergner (The Other Side of Desire), Ian Kerner (She Comes First, He Comes Second), Melissa Febos (Whip Smart) and Roxane Gay (The Rumpus, Salon)

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, the Twilight-fan fiction turned S&M erotica blockbuster, still sits at numbers one, two and three on the New York Times bestseller list, and beat out Harry Potter to become the fastest-selling paperback of all time.

But is it a positive sign for American sexual culture that so many people have embraced this explicit pageturner, or does the success of E.L. James’ steamy trilogy demonstrate something less progressive?

McNally Jackson will have the feminist icon and writer Erica Jong, Daniel Bergner, whose The Other Side of Desire was an open-minded exploration of fringe sexual cultures, Melissa Febos, former dominatrix and author of memoir Whip Smart, Ian Kerner, sex counsellor and author of She Comes First, and Roxane Gay, a writer for Salon and The Rumpus who called out 50 Shades of Gray for perpetrating negative cultural messages about female romance, on hand to discuss.