Sunday column: Maybe she should date Oliver Sacks edition

Today’s column is online here, from a young college woman whose mother thinks her boyfriend is abusive. Spoiler: He’s not, but the LW is so “clumsy” (her own distinctly non-pathologizing language) that she’s got three out of four limbs in a brace anyway.

I got this letter around the time “50 Shades” came out, and I’m sure that movie played into the mother’s worries. Here is my all-time favorite take on the franchise, by Amanda Taub at Vox:

The movie’s primary fantasy isn’t male control, it’s female laziness. It’s not a window into a world filled with kinky sex, of which there is shockingly little in the film. Rather, it’s an imagined universe in which women are free to resist all pressure to self-improve, need never worry that their professional mistakes might have negative consequences for their careers, and can reject every piece of sex and relationship advice a women’s magazine ever gave them, and have it work out great for them.

Now if this movie makes it look all glamorous and sexy to disregard advice columnists, I’m even more offended! But maybe today’s LW should watch it anyway, if Ms. Taub is right and “50 Shades” is a paean to women not doing anything. Because every time my LW does do something, she apparently sprains herself.