British
Hotel Replaces Bedside Bibles with Fifty
Shades of Grey
Instead of the
gospels, guests at the Damson Dene Hotel get "mommy porn" as their
bedside reading.
“Nestled in the picturesque Lake District of northwest England, the Damson Dene Hotel seems, at first glance, like the typical English countryside hotel. But its bedside tables contain a shocking secret. Instead of the traditional bedside Gideon Bible placed at arm’s reach, its forty rooms each contain a copy of E.L. James’ bestselling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey.
“Jonathan Denby, owner of the hotel, told NBC News he felt that in a secular society, it
was “wholly inappropriate” to put a religious book in someone’s bedroom. He
confessed the novel, which started life as Twilight fan-fiction, wasn’t his first choice of
replacement. In fact, he hasn’t even read it. “I was thinking originally of
putting in a book by Ayn Rand — Atlas
Shrugged was my first thought,” he said, but “because everybody is
reading Fifty Shades of Grey,
we thought it would be a hospitable thing to do, to have this available for our
guests, especially if some of them were a little bit shy about buying it
because of its reputation.”
“Fifty Shades of
Grey traces the relationship between a business magnate and a
young college graduate, featuring explicit depictions of bondage and
submissive acts. Since the Damson Dene’s dirty little secret has emerged, the
hotel has received dozens of angry emails — not from Britons, but from Americans
— demanding that the bibles be restored beside the beds. Writing on his
personal blog, Denby revealed that
he has been called a “puppet of Satan,” and that several people emailed him
“pretending that they were just about to make a booking the Damson Dene, but
had changed their mind.”
Unsurprisingly, the move
has also attracted the ire of local parish priest Rev. Michael Woodcock, who told the Westmorland Gazette, “It is a great shame that Bibles have been removed from
rooms and very inappropriate to have been replaced by an explicit erotic
novel.”
Cassi Creek:
I’ve stayed
in many hotels in the past. In no
instance have I ever found cause to
search for and/or read from a hotel room
bible. If I were so inclined my
preference would be unavailable. The
Gideons’ bibles are incomplete, ignoring the Torah and the Tanach. What they do provide is a stripped down
edition that is intended for Protestant Christians. The non-Protestant Christians are ignored; as
are all hotel guests who practice no religion.
There are
apocryphal tales of men (this sort of tale almost always involves men, it
seems) who have checked into hotels, accidentally found a bible in a drawer,
and been somehow prevented from committing suicide by some miraculous interaction. These remain tales. They are along the same order as the soldier
spared a combat death when the bullet that hits him is slowed by a bible. They provide fodder for inspirational
speeches designed to raise money for some itinerant preacher milking a tent
revival circuit.
In the first
instance, the tale never provides verification.
In the second instance, those tiny little throw-away editions that churches
shove into soldiers’ hands are too thin to stop a pellet gun. Better to carry a Zippo over one’s heart into
combat. Zippo, at least, provides
verifiable advertising.
If I want
something to read in a hotel, I’ve got it with me. I don’t need to look in the drawers. If I want to watch news or simply want white
noise, there is always a television. If
I want something erotic to kill idle hours, that can be had for a slight
fee.
And now, for
women who find little interest in average hotel erotica, a thoughtful inn-keeper has provided something written for
women that they can take or leave for the duration of their stay. While it may not interest all women, it
contains, by all accounts, less sex and violence than the Gideons’ contribution
to non-literature.
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