From left, Erica Jong, Melissa Febos, Ian Kerner, and Daniel Bergner.

McNally Jackson was packed full of women—many in their twenties, and a few slightly older—and even a smattering of men for Wednesday night’s 50 Shades of Grey panel, featuring Erica Jong, along with Melissa Febos, a former dominatrix and author of Whip Smart, sex counselor Ian Kerner, and Daniel Bergner, author of The Other Side of Desire. Roxane Gay, who wrote warily about 50 Shades of Grey for The Rumpus, Skyped in.

Ostensibly the panel had gathered to discuss whether E.L. James's blockbuster book was a step forward for American sexual culture. “I just want to say right off the bat that we are not going to be discussing the book’s literary merit,” said McNally Jackson’s Amy Lee, the moderator for the event. Yet despite this disclaimer, many of the panelists seemed unable to resist taking a few cheap shots at its notoriously clumsy prose, referring to the book repeatedly as a “piece of shit.”

Ms. Jong seemed especially preoccupied with the book’s literary offenses. “What possessed the publisher to not even edit the book?” she began. “I don’t believe anyone ever said ‘holy cow’ at the moment of her first orgasm,” she said disdainfully, voicing a familiar criticism that she would repeat more than once before the end of the night.

Literary jabs aside, the debate was muddled by the fact that numerous panelists admitted to not having read the trilogy in question.

Ms. Febos was first to confess, noting that she didn’t finish the book because she’s currently trying to finish a novel and “very susceptible to influence,” and thus couldn’t risk absorbing too many of James’s inelegant sentences.

Mr. Kerner was quick to defend the book, citing numerous statistics about widespread American sexual frustration and praising 50 Shades for prompting an increase in the sale of sex toys, and, presumably, sex itself. “I do think it functions as an erotic stimulant, and on this level I think its great,” he said.

“Okay, so what part of it do you find particularly erotic?” Ms. Jong asked skeptically.

Mr. Kerner admitted that he hadn’t read much of it.

Ms. Gay was the only panelist who had read the entire trilogy, apparently “more than once.”

“It’s a travesty,” she told the audience. “But a fun travesty. I’ve never laughed harder. Every day I would just fall off the treadmill laughing.”

Ms. Jong explained that “because she was being called on as a cultural commentator,” she had read the first book in the series, assuring the audience that she found it a “tough slog.”

“Maybe I’m more aware of the lack of editing than other people would be, but I couldn’t find anything that turned me on, other than the fact that he gives her a rare copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” Ms. Jong said, referring to Ms. James’s protagonists, Christian and Anastasia.

Ms. Febos took advantage of the pause in conversation to ask the audience how many of them had found 50 Shades erotic, a question that was met with little enthusiasm from the crowd. “I actually did,” she said earnestly, clarifying: “I was simultaneously repulsed and turned on.”

“I mean, good writing is not necessarily the bedrock of good erotica,” Ms. Febos said.

Ms. Jong responded that she didn’t find 50 Shades of Grey as big of a turn on as the Story of O—a point which few present at last night’s discussion would likely contest.

Yet, as Ms. Febos pointed out, “it’s pretty irrefutable that [50 Shades] has tapped into something in the erotic fantasy life of American women.”

“That doesn’t worry me at all,” she continued. “What I find disturbing and more concerning is the American media’s reaction to that phenomenon…I’m not going to name the one specific article in Newsweek,” Ms. Febos said, referring to Katie Roiphe’s April cover story, “But saying that [submissive fantasies] are a threat to feminism is just an insanely reductive, sexist idea.”

But some members of the audience remained unconvinced that the content of the book itself isn’t having a negative effect on the larger culture, calling it “a book of abuse” and asserting that it is “shaping people’s fantasies in harmful ways.”

“I don’t give the book that much power,” Ms. Febos responded, adding that BDSM fantasies are nothing new. She maintained that 50 Shades isn’t necessarily shaping American culture, but asserted rather optimistically “the conversation about sexual fantasy that’s on the surface actually can.”

“I would like to challenge all of you to make up new fantasies,” Ms. Jong concluded tritely, met with generous applause from the audience.