In this article, we problematise the implications of some of these familiar binaries asthey are used in the Fifty Shades trilogy. Through analysis of some of the trilogy’s narrative tropes, we investigate how the separate poles of binary oppositions are established and kept in tension in order to make clear distinctions between the two. At the same time we highlight the constant work that has to be done to obtain these distinctions and a certain form of normative violence that is performed in the story to practices andidentities that are constructed as outside the normal. In the second part of the essay, we queer these binaries by exploring alternative narratives towards which the story itself points. These grey zones and blind spots taken as a point of departure for a queer critique of the binaries and norms about sexualities that organise the story.