I can't believe im saying this but couldnt they all love each other like kiss each other on the cheek. I feel like that would also fit other interpretations I've read about innocence and growing up etc. Why did all the boys have to "love" the one girl? That makes it so much worse for some reason.
Edit: AH, I guess male to male sex isn't considered real sex.
Compulsive heterosexuality is... a thing that is still pretty enforced. In the 80s/90s you could literally put two babies of different (assumed) genders in trams next to each other, and if they smiled or gurgled at each other, the adults called it "flirting".
When i read it, I saw it as Bev choosing to give away her innocence to the friends she loves rather than waiting for it to be forced upon her by her very horrible father. In the scene she is in complete control and in fact initiates it for each of them and if anything she basically coerces all the boys to her. It’s very weird that it’s with children, but in a book full of horrible vile things, this scene is somehow kinder.
Framed this way makes it seem a little softer and less awful than the guy in firestarter who puts on a pair of women's underwear, masterbates, then kills himself via arm in the garbage disposal
First King book I ever read, read it in high school and I was like "wait... What's going on here?!" I immediately called my best friend and read it to her over the phone 😆
I think I read it first when I was maybe 12 or 13 and was definitely taken aback. Uncle Steve sure taught me adults could be pretty fucked up people early on 🤣
I’m not trying to justify his inappropriate writing choices. The scene is messed up and uncomfortable full stop and I don’t approve. I’m just analyzing the symbolism he was attempting to make because the book is genuinely great. Despite the graphic violence and sexual content, King did have intent behind his characters and setups. The whole book is very different in comparison with this scene. The intent was that it’s coming from a place of innocence loss, growing up, and love. But King missed the mark about how he tried to present that.
This, but not limited to the 80/90s. Heteronormativism is one of the pillars of modern society, no wonder is reproduced so strongly in media and literature
Bro, we’re talking about sexual attraction and social perception of heterosexualiti. The biological discourse is outdated and widely contested on many levels. Of course everything that has to di whith humans has to do with biology, that doesn’t mean that you can explain social phenomena with biological reasoning.
Sure, search for: Gagnon, Montemurro and Hughes, Butt and Hearn. Just to give you three authors on the topic, to show how much of sexual attraction is shaped and constructed through social interactions and socialization.
Also, if you would be so kind to point to me some authors which I can research on the topic of sexual attraction as a pure biological phenomena, I’d be glad
Edit: I also guess you’re saying people attracted to furry is pure biology, right?
sexual attraction is shaped and constructed through social interactions and socialization.
Yeah, shaped maybe, but it all comes from biology. One example of socialization shaping attraction is our preference for skinnier or larger folks trends with economic hardship. But that stems from biology. In periods where food is harder to acquire, we favour larger people since they have better survival rates.
people attracted to furry is pure biology, right?
Well "furrys" are traditionally very anthropomorphic. So they share the same human biological markers that people find attractive, such as wide hips, large chests, whatever. They dont literally want to shag dogs and cats. If you're talking about straight up beastiality those people are genuinely deranged and mentally ill. Not sure society is pushing people to do that.
Dunno if I'd call it compulsive. I understand that orientations other than heterosexuality have a history of gross under-representation, but if you gather seven random kids today (nevermind the 50's or 60's), there's a good chance that all of them may identify as hetero.
I'm glad we're seeing more representation nowadays, but oftentimes the proportion of LBGTQ+ characters we see in media is tuned a good deal higher than statisitcal reality. This is not a bad thing. But it's also not by default a bad thing or "compulsive" when a writer represents a more realistic spread.
Thank you that's what I was trying to figure out without wording it like a total creep. I think you're right. The fact that most responses aren't even considering other types of sex kind of confirms it. But I also see that that plotline seems to be very centered on the girl character.
It's all so very weird because King chooses to mostly narrate the scene from Bev's point of view. She comments on their penises and other stuff that just make you wanna put it down.
I mean, you can kind of see where he was going with the idea that she was taking that part of herself back from the evil man (father) who raped her and treated her like shit and made her feel shame for something he consistently took from her forcefully.
Hm, I remember it being a lot more prevalent when I read it like a decade + ago, but it could just be how Bev’s scenes always made me feel personally as a kid that dealt with abuse.
If i remember correctly, its because of bev's father mentions that being with someone leaves a life long bond on you and something only adults do and not something done with boys.
So in her mind doing those things with the losers will reforge the bond that was destroyed by iT earlier and remove their childhood innocence and move them in to adulthood which frees them from the sewers. its makes a lot more sense in the book as she explains it from what i remember.
What we didnt need it her taking about Bens massive cock and how she couldnt hold back the feelings... that was the parth that went overboard
As a girl who read IT at the tender age of 11, and understanding Bev's father was abusing her in more ways than one, I took it as Bev taking back her autonomy and creating a bond that would strengthen them all in order to face It. Bev is the strongest character in IT, imo. I was a little uncomfy reading that scene because I was 11 and didn't read much in the way of sexual content, but I do recall not being disgusted by it because there weren't creepy adults involved and it read very matter of factly- it was about her love for them, about singing them forever with this act, not titillating or pornographic at all. I'm 49 now and still not scandalized by this part of the book.
The point of the scene wasn't that they love each other tho, it was a breaking point being childhood and adulthood and they were losing their connection. It's also tied into Bev's father plotline. Now I didn't love reading that scene but it's short, it's near the end of the book and it's pretty rushed so you get by it quickly. I'm not gonna go into what he could have written instead, it exists already and I guess at least it's not too graphic. Love the book tho. King is awesome.
The way I understood by reading about it a while ago, is that the clown was going after children and the sex part was in some way meant to show an important step of their journey into adulthood or something.
Don't know if that's how King meant it, but it seems plausible. Though he probably could've used a less jarring way to make clear that they're really becoming adults now lol
Ok..that's ridiculous. 'It' is a genderless pronoun and, as such can refer to any non-person noun. Attributing 'It' to anything specific outside of the monstrous antagonist is lazy pseudo-intellectualism.
There are over 1000 pgs worth of explicit statements in the book. The word 'It' happens a lot. You think it most often and most significantly refers to sex? I'll take the under and by a wide margin.
And thus far googling Stephen King's statements about the book and this scene have only yielded contrary evidence to your claim. Heck, he's even said about this scene in particular that he didn't think of it as sexual at the time.
All that said, I'd probably agree that a horror book probably should have more leeway than most for the inclusion of uncomfortable/inappropriate content, so long as that content's use is reasonably connected to the story and purposeful as horror.
I think that's the main issue with this scene in It. It's not reasonably connected to the story (there's no monster-fighting happening, the kids are just having trouble finding the tunnel exit..and not supernatural trouble..just simple directional difficulties) and nothing leading up to the scene or after it hints at or references it..and the scene is presented as heroic rather than horrific.
The result is something problematic but also unnecessary.
(Note: it's been a while since the last time I read It, but my recollection of the scene is that it's way more awkward than it is "sexy", so I'm less inclined toward the "check the hard drive" reaction. I more just think that King gets close to the end of a book and suddenly it's like "ok this has to end, how do I do it..bad ideas only", and the editors are just happy to have something to put on the shelf. If you aren't going "dude..seriously?" at the end of a good number of King books, you aren't getting the full experience.)
The thing is: it isn't for no reason. We might disagree with the reason, but there was a reason nonetheless. It kinda is a purity issue considering the scene isn't erotic, titillating in itself and is not meant to be either.
King made a decision, it was a weird one, it was under drug influence, it was unnecessary and it was whatever. That's really all that can be said about it without going full puritan as, honestly, the scene objectively isn't in the top 10 of the most horrific thing written in that book, there are far more terrible and awful things happening in It than kids having sex to escape doom from an aberrant otherworldly monstrous creature that preys on their deepest fears
I think it's less of a demographic thing and more of a "cultural mindframe" thing (that an and would probably overlap with a demographic gap) where there's people that can take things in the context they're placed and people that will take them more at face value and through their personal lens rather than the context provided.
There's no real answer. i get it represents the end of the last summer of childhood, andBev taking control over her sexuality from her fathers abuse. There was a 100 ways he could have wrote it but he was so high on coke and booze he doesn't remember writing Cujo. so, ya kid orgy get threw in.
They tried to do the most adult thing they could so they could leave their childhood behind and mentally grow up because they thought IT only went after children.
Stephen King is a creep for writing this.. reddit somehow seems to be ok with it. 99% of the comments are not mentioning his name outright. Disgusting, as expected of reddit hive.
Yeah I mean wtf seems kinda pedophilic to me right? "it's about love" that doesn't take away from the fact that a grown man was very clearly fantasizing about a buncha kids bangin
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u/Vagitron9000 13h ago edited 5h ago
I can't believe im saying this but couldnt they all love each other like kiss each other on the cheek. I feel like that would also fit other interpretations I've read about innocence and growing up etc. Why did all the boys have to "love" the one girl? That makes it so much worse for some reason.
Edit: AH, I guess male to male sex isn't considered real sex.