Fifty Shades of Grey is ‘Much Too Soft’ For 84-Year-Old Dominatrix

84-year old dominatrix Catherine Robbe-Grillet, the “most famous dominatrix in France,” thinks Fifty Shades of Grey is practically G-rated.

“It’s a poorly written fairy tale and much too soft,” Robbe-Grillet told the Daily Mail. “Real bondage is massively more fulfilling.”

Robbe-Grillet, wife of the late French writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, has been living with Beverly Charpentier, 51, since her husband’s death seven years ago. Chapentier is Robbe-Grillet’s “submissive;” the two women engage in regular, “brutal” bondage sessions at their 17th century Normandy chateau, using whips, chains and other weapons in the bedroom.

“Fifty Shades of Grey is a romantic fairytale by comparison,” Robbe-Grillet told the Mail. “It’s romantic literature – effectively the story of a powerful man, a Prince Charming, and his adventurous relationships. There are spicy bits, and the scenes certainly inspired an interest in bondage, discipline, and dominance, but I don’t believe it did much to increase the number of people taking part.”

In contrast, Robbe-Grillet’s relationship with Charpentier seems a lot spicier. In 2005, Charpentier reportedly wrote an “oath of allegiance” to the octogenarian dominatrix. Charpentier wrote

Madame, you have asked nothing of me; it is, therefore, of my own free will that I offer to you allegiance, obedience and loyalty. I swear to serve you faithfully in all things great and small, to obey your orders, carry out your wishes, whatever they may be. I commend to you everything I possess, material, intellectual and physical, that you may dispose of what I have as you see fit. I swear to dedicate myself to you.

Robbe-Grillet admitted that she only read the first book in the Fifty Shades series, calling it “poor literature.”

Interestingly, early reviewers of the film adaptation of Fifty Shades, in theaters this weekend, level much of the same criticism at the movie. USA Today‘s Claudia Puig wrote that “those looking for hot, kinky sex will be disappointed,” while Entertainment Weekly‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote that “nobody sweats, nobody strains, nobody loses control or even fakes losing control by simulating an orgasm.”

Read the rest of the Daily Mail‘s interview with Robbe-Grillet here.