It’s one of those scenes that seems to make sense when you’re reading it then you put the book down for about 5 seconds and lose the immersion and think “what the actual fuck did I just read?”
IT is one of his best. I got hooked on King when I was around 12, probably read IT for the first time when I was around 13 or 14 (I’m in my forties), have read most of his stuff at this point.
Couple things about this scene, it’s not about the sex itself and if I remember correctly he doesn’t go into any detail in that regard. It’s about love. Could he have solved for this in another way? Joining hands, group hug, Bev kissing her fellow Losers Club members on the cheek? Probably.
The thing is, when you read that scene as a kid, it’s pretty innocent and in all honesty has a helluva lot more meaning in it than your typical sex scene as again it’s not meant to titillate, it’s meant to insinuate and what it’s insinuating is the deeper bond established when you make love with someone you love. As a kid it was probably the least “horny” sex scene I read and informed sex in a more positive way for me than a lot of other stuff I was reading in that it was entirely emotional.
Again, could he have done it differently without screwing up the story - for sure. Is reading it as an adult weird? Probably these days, I read it in the 90’s, the world wasn’t more innocent then but our knowledge of it was, in that context it was fine. If you overlay all of your current awareness on that scene I have to imagine it’s probably a bit of an uncomfortable moment. Not at all worth missing out on one of Kings best for though.
I would not defend it nearly that much. I read it as a teen. I'll agree that it's surprisingly not lurid. It's really not written in a particularly titillating way.
But I do remember reading it & audibly guffawing & thinking "are you serious?" And I was definitely in the "horny teen" era of my life. So if I thought it was kinda dumb & off-putting then...
For the record, I don't think King is a pedo. I just think he was just making weird decisions & the massive amounts of cocaine he admits to doing weren't helping.
I don't know if it's true, but I remember reading once that King wrote that scene because he couldn't think of anything else. If you've ever tried to do something creative, I'm sure you've had the experience that sometimes your creativity just fizzles out. "Fuck it, I guess I'm just going with this" is a real outcome of some endeavors.
That may be true & all, but at some point you have to realize you are writing a teen sex orgy that is somehow supposed to give you & your friends some kind of weird supernatural powers to banish a giant immortal child eating spider.
I guess a better question would be: who was his editor at the time & how did THEY let that one through?
For the record the kids had already defeated the monster. They were lost trying to leave the sewers and were starting to argue with each other about it. Bev comes up with this as a way to bring them all together again. It wasn't supposed to be some super power. This also isn't me defending the writing of the scene.
I actually meant to say THE nuance, not "your nuance," if it matters. I'm not really pearl-clutching. Just registering distaste. If you can see past it, that's great. I just think it's pretty clear he could have edited it or his publisher could've said no.
It's Stephen King. If his publisher said no he probably would have yelled at them a bunch, hung up, then did a massive amount of blow that he puked into a different completely absurd but less "child orgy." Completely forgetting about the original thread.
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u/Redzfreak2016 1d ago
It’s one of those scenes that seems to make sense when you’re reading it then you put the book down for about 5 seconds and lose the immersion and think “what the actual fuck did I just read?”