WHEN I watched the trailer for Fifty Shades Of Grey, I wasn't thinking about the calls for a boycott of the film by domestic abuse activists.

Truth was, I was barely aware of the campaign and its accusations that the film glamorised stalking and controlling behaviour. But those two minutes of film made me groan - and not with pleasure.

The problem wasn't the sex scenes, the whips and blindfolds. I felt bored, wearied and depressed by the snapshot narrative: the young, nervous, naive girl, seduced by the attentions of a powerful, controlling and stalkerish man. It seemed too tired and familiar. And I didn't like seeing that dynamic there on the big screen. Big-budget Hollywood movies like this legitimise narratives and behaviours.

With 100 million copies of the book sold, and counting: the truth is that a great many women, and men, have enjoyed it. Maybe some of them have just read it because it's a fad, or they think they should and that it might just spark something in their love life. Maybe they like porn. But, having read EL James's book now, it seems clear to me that the reason many have read it is that it's kinky sex wrapped up in a conventional romance tale.

It's the romance that troubles me most; not the BDSM (bondage & discipline/dominance & submission). One doubts a book like this would ever have taken off in such a mainstream way if it really had been a proper exploration of BDSM. Romantic fiction is like porn. It shapes our desires as well as satisfies them. Read enough versions of the same tale, and your own desires will begin to be moulded by it.

As a teenager I went through a phase of reading Mills & Boon, initially for a laugh, but also later a little compulsively, and I don't think it did me any good. They so often seemed to follow the same old pattern of distant, arrogant, controlling male, whose heart, like Christian Grey's in Fifty Shades Of Grey, is heavily-armoured, finally falling for the charms of a passive but warm-hearted selfless female. I don't just blame Mills & Boon, I also blame some of the classics. My appreciation of the sweet agonies of Jane Eyre's relationship with Mr Rochester, probably helped shaped my sense of the power dynamics of romance. We learn from the books we read, the films we watch, as much as from our parents and those around us, what romance and desire are.

So we should be alert to these stories, because the patterns of control and abuse involved in them are also present in some of the most disturbing sexual abuse cases of recent times, in which celebrities groomed their victims by flattering them, telling them they loved them or promising to make them famous. Those same dynamics are even there in some of the shocking stories that emerged from Rotherham: the older men preying on the young and vulnerable, the bestowing of gifts like mobile phones, money and drugs, rides in cars. Many of the girls who were abused said they wanted to believe their abusers had feelings for them. They described how they were isolated from friends and family. They talked of wanting love. They even talked of being in love.

In Fifty Shades Of Grey, it appears very much like the protagonist, Ana, is being groomed. Christian buys her a car, a mobile phone, clothes and first editions of Tess Of The D'Urbervilles. She is also controlled. She has to agree not to speak to anyone about what happens between her and Christian Grey. He has her mobile phone tracked. She is punished for certain behaviours - when punishment is not what she desires.

But also her consent to the sex acts Christian asks her to perform is often unclear. At a time when important moves are being made to to clarify what sexual consent is (in England and Wales, new guidance is being drafted emphasising the need for rape suspects to demonstrate consent was made "with full capacity and freedom to do so"), Fifty Shades introduces a worrying mainstream note of grey. Many other popular works of women's fiction also contain non-consensual sex acts, or at least dubious consent.

The problem with Fifty Shades Of Grey is that Ana's "Yes" is not clear, or enthusiastic. It comes doubtfully and nervously. At no point does she sign the sexual consent contract offered by Christian Grey. She puts it off, still hoping she can get "hearts and flowers" rather than whips from the man she desires. That is dubious consent, and we should be wary of romanticising or eroticising it.

Of course there have been plenty of attempts to make the film appear female-empowering. Sam Taylor Johnson directs; Beyonce sings on the soundtrack; Angelina Jolie was, we have been told, in the running for directing it. But I'm not buying it. I don't buy the idea that because Ana rejects the sexual contract on offer by Christian, or because, in the second book, she woos him round to her ways, this is a tale of girl power. The fact that she gets what she wants makes it a worse fantasy. It creates the illusion that the controlling man might back down and let the woman assume power in the end.

These are the notions we should want to dispel. It's because of them I would advocate not so much boycotting Fifty Shades Of Grey, as talking about it. It is, after all, just the tip of the vast iceberg of this romantic myth.