Steve's Explanation For Loser's Sex Scene

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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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Good points all. Some view through the glass physically and some spiritually. I personally had no problem with that scene and thought it rather fitting based on the bizarre circumstances surrounding the young tet. My only issue I had after reading the book is that I was slightly turned on by the turtle. I haven't been able to look directly into the mirror since.
65aee644d21bd68043eca5bccf0c5deae9c8b52a82b426b58e401834c4e29b9a_1.jpg
 

César Hernández-Meraz

Wants to be Nick, ends up as Larry
May 19, 2015
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I dunno, man...I don't think the kids in IT went to bed calmly at all. Heh heh. But I get what yer saying.

Yeah. Even the bit I was going for does mention kids not being calm in bed, but here it is, anyway, so we all remember what the book was going for in respect to the difference of points of view of a kid and an adult.

Now, standing here in the fading drizzle in front of a Trustworthy Hardware Store that had been a pawnshop in 1958 (Frati Brothers, Ben recalled, the double windows always full of pistols and rifles and straight-razors and guitars hung up by their necks like exotic animals), it occurred to him that kids were better at almost dying, and they were also better at incorporating the inexplicable into their lives. They believed implicitly in the invisible world. Miracles both bright and dark were to be taken into consideration, oh yes, most certainly, but they by no means stopped the world. A sudden upheaval of beauty or terror at ten did not preclude an extra cheesedog or two for lunch at noon.

But when you grew up, all that changed. You no longer lay awake in your bed, sure something was crouching in the closet or scratching at the window ... but when something did happen, something beyond rational explanation, the circuits overloaded. The axons and dendrites got hot. You started to jitter and jive, you started to shake rattle and roll, your imagination started to hop and bop and do the funky chicken all over your nerves. You couldn’t just incorporate what had happened into your life experience. It didn’t digest. Your mind kept coming back to it, pawing it lightly like a kitten with a ball of string ... until eventually, of course, you either went crazy or got to a place where it was impossible for you to function.
 

morgan

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Jul 11, 2010
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Some are talking about the Losers as if the were just typical kids. They are not. Through and through the novel is it pointed out how the fight they are in have changed them. How the monster has affected their life but also how their resistansen has affected the monster. They are not only friends , they are bond together by the ties of a common enemy and an awareness of not being able to turn to the usual channels to solve problems. (GROWNUPS). Instead they turn to each other and its not strange that they do everything they can to help eachother out. In the process of all that they growing up, maturing, faster which isn't strange. When they find themselfes in a place bordering on panic and no way out Bev finds a way to unite them all, stopping the panic and helping them all to save their lives. Such a solution, in the context of the whole book, i dont find revolting or strange at all. It is logical. It might not be clean or morally what we would wish but it is true to the story and that, to King, has always had priority. It is one of many reason i like him. To imagine that they could have walked away from that fight unblemished without some strong thing to draw them together again is, in my view, to negate some of the premises set up. He choose a sexscene. I guess it could have been something else but i don't know what would have worked as good as the thing he put down. For me it is a keyscene and it work well.
Just wanted to thank you for this post, Kurben. I recently finished a reread of It and had difficulty with this part of the book. Your explanation really helped me understand the scene and reminded me that their actual ages were so different than their emotional age.
 

johntfs

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Nov 18, 2008
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I read IT when it came out 30+ years ago and since that time, I'd kind if convinced myself that I'd somehow hallucinated that scene. I do know that after IT, I kind of disconnected from King's works until I got into The Dark Tower series.

I get artistic license and symbolism and the power of love and whatnot, but 12 year olds having sex just isn't cool even if they are fighting a cosmic spider monster.
 
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stormsiren801

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Apr 1, 2017
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I just want to say that IT is my favorite King book (outside the Dark Tower series) and when I first read the sexscene between the Losers, it made me feel a little uncomfortable, even though I think I did basically get what King was trying to convey by it. But that was really only because of the kids' age that I felt the way I did about it at the time, not because of any other aspect of the scene. And I wasn't really offended by it in the end because I got the point of it, even if I still think it might have been slightly distasteful, albeit not intended as such by the author.

That said, people who are freaking out about it and saying things like Beverly was treated like a whore in that scene, and/or that it somehow validated what her father thought of her are just dead wrong. The only reason why sentiments like that even exist in the first place is because of the sexist stereotypes against women that automatically deem them as whores or sluts if they ever dare to have multiple male partners under any circumstances. Beverly was not raped or abused it any way in that scene. Even worse is the fact that Beverly's father was an abusive misogynist who was overly possessive of his daughter because he viewed her as his own property, and didn't want her having any other relationships, healthy or otherwise. So there's nothing Beverly could have done to ever validate anything he ever said.

Anyway, one thing I have always liked about King is that he is not afraid to challenge the status quo in his works, and even if this scene was perhaps going a bit overboard to that effect, I still respect him for having the guts to write it they way he felt was right.
 
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FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
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Apr 11, 2006
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I just want to say that IT is my favorite King book (outside the Dark Tower series) and when I first read the sexscene between the Losers, it made me feel a little uncomfortable, even though I think I did basically get what King was trying to convey by it. But that was really only because of the kids' age that I felt the way I did about it at the time, not because of any other aspect of the scene. And I wasn't really offended by it in the end because I got the point of it, even if I still think it might have been slightly distasteful, albeit not intended as such by the author.

That said, people who are freaking out about it and saying things like Beverly was treated like a whore in that scene, and/or that it somehow validated what her father thought of her are just dead wrong. The only reason why sentiments like that even exist in the first place is because of the sexist stereotypes against women that automatically deem them as whores or sluts if they ever dare to have multiple male partners under any circumstances. Even worse is the fact that Beverly's father was an abusive misogynist who was overly possessive of his daughter because he viewed her as his own property, and didn't want her having any other relationships, healthy or otherwise. So there's nothing Beverly could have done to ever validate anything he ever said.

Anyway, one thing I have always liked about King is that he is not afraid to challenge the status quo in his works, and even if this scene was perhaps going a bit overboard to that effect, I still respect him for having the guts to write it they way he felt was right.
Welcome to the site, Stormsiren. :smile:
 

FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
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Apr 11, 2006
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Thanks :) By the way, this is off topic but I'm really looking forward to the new IT movie. I suppose there is another thread to discuss that, so I'll go look for it. And two of my favorite short stories are The Sun Dog and Uncle Otto's Truck, which I always wished would be made into movies as well.
I'm looking forward to it also, the trailer looks fantastic!

IT official trailer and thread.
 

Rick Aucoin

Active Member
Apr 3, 2017
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Mind if I cut in? No, you didn't violate the letter of the rules. Nobody has any doubt that you violated the spirit of them. Your post was brief, cutting, and sarcastic. It hit the other poster exactly as you had intended it would. We are all adults here. We understand how rhetoric works.

I know in many forums it's considered a bit of rude to resurrect ancient threads like this one with new comments (though I've nevery quite understood why it is considered rude) but I just can't help the temptation to comment here. Or, more accurately, to applaud in admiration of Robert Gray''s almost surgically precise and amazingly effective posts here after he "cuts in".

As an old battered veteran of many a forum war in my misspent middle age I stand in awe of Mr. Gray''s incisive thrust and parry, how able his counters and riposte!

Not to mention the quality of the actual content of his argument.

Just...yeah, just wanted to add my quiet and polite applause and appreciation of observing a master of rhetoric at work. Impressive, sir, impressive.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
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Cambridge, Ohio
I know in many forums it's considered a bit of rude to resurrect ancient threads like this one with new comments (though I've nevery quite understood why it is considered rude) but I just can't help the temptation to comment here. Or, more accurately, to applaud in admiration of Robert Gray''s almost surgically precise and amazingly effective posts here after he "cuts in".

As an old battered veteran of many a forum war in my misspent middle age I stand in awe of Mr. Gray''s incisive thrust and parry, how able his counters and riposte!

Not to mention the quality of the actual content of his argument.

Just...yeah, just wanted to add my quiet and polite applause and appreciation of observing a master of rhetoric at work. Impressive, sir, impressive.
....he is an IT aficionado, fo sho.......
 

Hill lover35

Well-Known Member
Jan 8, 2017
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Alberta canada
Ok so what page is this sex on? With the kids? And how old where they. I got a copy of it in and I was trying to find this passage and got to the part where Beverly as an adult has sex will bill? s an adult and she rembers having sex with them. I really whant to read this to understand the comtext