What Exactly Happens In Portland's Heathman Hotel In 50 Shades of Grey?

The Heathman Hotel

We've now had 72 hours to absorb the terrible news that scenes in "mommy porn" novel 50 Shades of Grey take place in Portland's downtown Heathman Hotel, and that the Heathman has begun offering guest packages based on E. L. James' book.

This means that Portland not only hosts tours of the locations where the Twilight movie was filmed, but also has a hotel where people can reenact the fetish sex scenes from hit fan fiction based on the Twilight characters.

This is basically the only remaining pillar of the local economy.

The story, first reported by Fox 12 on Tuesday, notes what this guest package might include:

50 Shades of Grey
Google Books
50 Shades
Anastasia Steele gets spanked a lot.

But let's not rush ahead of ourselves. Anticipation is everything. The Heathman first shows up early in the book (we'd give you page numbers, but 50 Shades of Grey doesn't have page numbers) with a thorough description.


Here it is worth reminding you that Christian Grey, CEO, is based pretty much shamelessly on Edward Cullen, vampire, although E. L. James went back and changed the names.

Anastasia is impressed:


"Holy crap!" is one of Anastasia Steele's catchphrases.

Anyway, for reasons we were not willing to bother reading through, Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele wind up moving the party to her Seattle apartment and then his mansion, where Anastasia has her first
BDSM-tinged sex
. Even though most of the sex scenes don't happen at the Heathman Hotel, this is the part of the book that has people wanting to visit the Heathman. A sample:

 

It goes on in this vein for a long while, but eventually they get around to the promised punishment.


Yes, that's what she says. Aargh. The sexiest of words.

But she gets through the spanking, and is rewarded with this:


So that's what people are doing at the Heathman. Spanking, and using words as towels. But this is not the only scene featuring the hotel. There's also a terrible hangover, a cautionary tale of what happens when you have too much pouille fume.


This would be an amazing hotel slogan, by the way. The Heathman—oh no, the vomiting.

Anastasia also gets a crucial revelation in a Heathman elevator; it's on a page Google Books won't show us, but the results are vivid.

It's a little bit like the elevator scene in Drive, but in Portland.

Finally, Christian Grey takes Anastasia Steele to a private dining room above the Heathman Restaurant & Bar, where they have oysters.

This is by far our favorite scene in 50 Shades of Grey. But the book's appeal—and the allure of Portland as a sex-tourism destination—is summed up earlier in the novel.

The Heathman is definitely okay with this. You want to run to the Heathman for sex? You can have it express delivered. Along with a complementary necktie.

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