As a Christian, I've struggled for a while now with deciding whether I should put this out there for everyone to see and be judged by all, or just keep quiet on the sidelines. The latter is usually what I tend to lean towards, but with the second movie coming out, I just thought YOLO, and did it.

First things first: when reading this, pretend you've never seen the trailer or the movie for the first book, Fifty Shades of Grey, if you already have. The movie was a horrid representation of the book and just turned out to be two hours of chemistry-less crap. It even portrayed Christian as a complete a-hole, which is the total opposite of who he is. The soundtrack, however, was absolutely perfect for the book and I recommend that everyone should give it a listen. Beyoncé and Sia are just a couple of the featured artists and they KILL it.

Now, being a Christian, I think others would be surprised to hear that I personally love these books. You might ask why and say shame on me. Honestly, I don't care. Yes, the topic of discussion is usually sex, but we're all human beings so let's not pretend that nobody does it. That's not the reason why I'm so intrigued with them, though - and yes, I am intrigued. I actually love them for the cheesy love story and the psychological elements that make up each character. That's right, it's not all about sex, but in fact, there are real human emotions that exist in these people.

All three books surround a man who was abused as a child and suffers from emotional trauma and severe anxiety as a result. The other main focus is around a young, independent woman who has future goals for herself and just so happens to run into a broken human being on her way up to success. He's already successful at a very young age, but he doesn't know how to love or feel until she comes into his life and does everything she can to show him that he's capable of love.

Personally, I think it's a beautiful love story about two troubled souls just trying to make it in this world and they end up depending on each other to get through it. Sure, they get all weird and physical, but whatever. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there were people that actually exist who are similar to these characters; and you shouldn't be either. What I'm just trying to get at is never judge a book by it's cover.

So, as a result of all the social media banter I've encountered, here's a simple breakdown of what I've personally discovered through my own reading of the first book that will hopefully extinguish the fire juuuuust a bit.

1. Christian warns Ana about himself and gives her full control of her choices.

Christian tells Ana to stay away from him in the beginning. He tells her to leave whenever she wants and that she can say no to absolutely everything...like fifteen un-exaggerated times. She doesn't even sign the nondisclosure agreement because he ends up not caring if she's in a legal agreement with him at all. Instead, he actually cares more about her than he ever planned to and, subconsciously, he wants her more than his "lifestyle." And she wants to stay, so she does.

2. They don't end up doing anything remotely "crazy" until three-quarters into the book.

They barely touch each other because they're just getting to know one another and respect each other's boundaries. They go into his fancy little "red room" twice and everything is consensual - everything. So, please, don't say it's a book filled with nothing but crazy, involuntary sex because that's simply not true. There's plenty of grammatically incorrect dialogue to fill the spaces between all the action.

3. Ana is a strong, confident young woman who is only curious and inexperienced with the physical aspect of love.

She only does what she wants and pretty much lives in no man's land. Ana is that girl who is unaware of her attractiveness, which makes her more beautiful to others. It's not that she's insecure. She just doesn't notice that every guy around her wants her because she's focused more on her future than on a man. That is, until she meets someone that she connects with - just like anyone else might.

4. Male dominance and male sexual assault is an inaccurate accusation.

Christian only doesn't allow Ana to touch him - even on his chest - because he doesn't like being touched on his bare skin after being abused as a child by his MOTHER's lifestyle of drugs and alcohol. This only led to her abandonment and Christian's unfortunate time alone with her abusive boyfriend. Christian got into drugs in his teenage years as a result and was steered straight (as he saw it) by a FEMALE dominant - who technically did abuse him because he was not of age, even though it was consensual, and made him who he is today. It's actually incredibly sad and heartbreaking. The fact that people only see this book as "abuse against women" is just simply a false assumption.

5. What a "dominant-submissive" relationship actually entails.

In that kind of relationship, the sub is actually the one in control. They decide every limit and when to stop - period. Everything is consensual. That's why this is a female empowering book. Ana, not Christian, has the say and holds the power in the relationship. Hence her leaving in the end and his doing nothing about it because he knows that she wears the pants in their relationship. Sexual assault is the opposite of this concept since it is non-consensual and requires a victim, so I would not associate that concept with their relationship.

6. She wants to stay.

Throughout the entirety of the first book, she is not forced to stay; she wants to stay. No one is telling Ana what to do and she knows that she has full control of her choices and the entire situation overall. She wants to know more about him and understand why he is the way that he is along with learn more about herself as a sexual being - AKA the average person.

7. They are BOTH inexperienced, unaware human beings.

Christian introduces Ana to the concept of sex while she introduces him to the concept of love. At first, Christian is incapable of love or feeling any similar emotions towards other women. Ana, on the other hand, is sexually inexperienced, but is waiting to find a man who is worth her love. After giving him her all, in return, he gives up his lifestyle of being a dom for her, falls in love and ends up being a pretty decent man that wants to spend his life with her.

8. What about the circumstances towards the end that cause Ana to leave?

As a way to attempt to understand who Christian is and why he is comforted when engaging in his own version of physical contact, which he calls "punishment," Ana asks him to do so to her without cause. This results in a callous beating in the end and, even though it's consensual, it does cross the line of abuse. This is the part of the story that hurt my heart to know that this man was so messed up inside, that he felt it was necessary to inflict pain upon others - because pain is all he's ever known. But what happens next is so empowering for women. Ana immediately recognizes it as abuse, calls him out on it, and leaves like the strong woman she is. In this instance, her own self-worth means more than the love she has for this despicable human being. Christian knows throughout the book, especially in this moment, just how messed up he is due to his past and realizes he wants to change if it means being with her.

9. Just a hilarious/honest truth or two.

Millions of copies have been sold of this book. Most of the sex scenes in there are ones you've probably tried or are willing to try with your significant other because you're, just maybe, a little curious.

Also, the video of Donald Trump that came out of him saying, "grab her by the *****," is the complete opposite of the Fifty Shades trilogy, so please don't correlate the two. What he was talking about was involuntary and this book is quite the opposite of that.

10. Never judge a book by its cover.

Only those who haven't read the book seem to be the ones judging it for everything that it's not. Yes, the writing is horrid, but we should really take into thought the criticism of those who have read the books because they bring evidence to the discussion from the original source. I just dislike seeing all of the negativity being shared on social media when the hatred for the books comes solely from material that is simply inaccurate. It's like writing a review for a book: you don't use other people's articles and opinions on websites as evidence, you go straight to the source - the book itself.

As a final thought, I just want to say that as a Christian, I've learned to love everyone as Jesus would - and that means everyone; regardless of their past or how they live their lives. In these fictional books, the characters simply became real to me and I could not help but to try to understand their pain and ended up falling in love with the story as a whole.

Please take what you would like from this article. I just wanted to put my viewpoint out there for others to consider before deciding how they ultimately feel about these books as a whole.