Steve's Explanation For Loser's Sex Scene

[Dana Jean]

"I've been meaning to ask Steve for years now to give his explanation for why the sex scene was included in IT. Better late than never

as the saying goes, so here it is at long last in his own words:" -- Marsha

"I wasn't really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood --1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don't remember their childhood. None of us remember what we did as children--we think we do, but we don't remember it as it really happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It's another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children's library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues."

Stephen King

 

[TheTurtle]

Going to start this on off....... I feel that if the sex scene had not happened, When Mike started making the calls, none of the losers' club would have remembered their promise to come back. As adults they were already under what I like to call the "Derry Effect", not remembering most of that summer, but they all remembered the promise. So I feel that without that eternal, carnal act from Bev, they may have never come back. It was what bound them all together.

 

[GNTLGNT]

...the union was about love, and the power therein...not animal coupling...

 

[TheTurtle]

...the union was about love, and the power therein...not animal coupling...

Please correct me if I'm wrong, trying to bring both of our replies together, the power achieved by the children's act of love helped enhance\strengthen the bond. I know that
Maturin (the turtle) was one of the forces of the White acting to help the children, and perhaps their act of love and power allowed him to be able to help even more?

 

[GNTLGNT]

...that's a good thought...love summoning love...

 

[The Nameless]

Going to start this on off....... I feel that if the sex scene had not happened, When Mike started making the calls, none of the losers' club would have remembered their promise to come back. As adults they were already under what I like to call the "Derry Effect", not remembering most of that summer, but they all remembered the promise. So I feel that without that eternal, carnal act from Bev, they may have never come back. It was what bound them all together.

Yeah, pretty much. What I got from it was that the bond was already breaking after thier 1st showdown, when they were trying to escape the sewers, and Bev did what she did to keep that bond together and the White (as you said) was able to guide them out of the sewers.

 

[notebookgirl]

I know everyone says that scene is controversial, but that one is not the one I remember the most. The two boys in the woods. Wow. That was crazy scene. Until recently I thought that scene was what everyone was talking about.

 

[Dana Jean]

I know everyone says that scene is controversial, but that one is not the one I remember the most. The two boys in the woods. Wow. That was crazy scene. Until recently I thought that scene was what everyone was talking about.

I appreciate the insight to this scene, and everyone's theories on the scene, but I did not like this part of the book.

 

[notebookgirl]

I appreciate the insight to this scene, and everyone's theories on the scene, but I did not like this part of the book.

Neither did I. I had to put it down a couple of times. It was a little overwhelming. That kid was overwhelming to me. Pure evil.

 

[Dana Jean]

Neither did I. I had to put it down a couple of times. It was a little overwhelming. That kid was overwhelming to me. Pure evil.

Wooooo Hooooo! 150. It might take 30 mins for your un-moderation status to activate, and you might have to log out and log back in...but congratulations! You are a woman now my son. Or whatever.

 

[notebookgirl]

Wooooo Hooooo! 150. It might take 30 mins for your un-moderation status to activate, and you might have to log out and log back in...but congratulations! You are a woman now my son. Or whatever.

Yay! Whew! 150! Tear! hee-hee!

 

[Dana Jean]

Yay! Whew! 150! Tear! hee-hee!

It's a right of passage, don't fret.

 

[MaddenSudeikis]

At first I was disturbed about kids having sex, but I get it was a unity/bond thing.

 

[Dark Tower]

I think I'm going to have to go back and read this priceless tome because I do remember that scene existing but it didn't tug at me any way in particular. I mean, he was more descriptive about individual details during Bev and Tom's sex scene then he was about the scene with the kids. I think the even the way it was written shows that there was really nothing sexual about it in the traditional sense. Very much about the connection.

 

[Officious Little Prick]

I think this is simply a scene wherein there is a gulf between what King was aiming for and what, for the sake of basic decency, he accomplished. I could sense his intention behind the scene, so I was able to soldier through it, even though, for a regular writer of disturbing events, it is disturbing in a way none of his other writings are, a way that elicits deep revulsion, rather than entertainment value (and I have to call absolute b.s. on the assertion that we were oh-so-casual about something like this way back in the primordial year of 1985). At the risk of being a bit indecent myself, I have to assume the scene (hell, the whole last 100 pages of IT) would not come about in their present form had it not been for King's decent into alcoholism and drug addiction at the time, and I would agree more readily with most Constant Readers' rapturous estimation of the novel had the last 100 pages gone down a wholly different path (funny, my opinions of the two novels Constant Readers seem to worship the most--THE STAND and IT--isn't as glowing, namely because of the former's deux ex machina, pious ending and the latter's utterly gonzo, seemingly cocaine-fevered one). Whether his addictions of the era had any interplay here or not, I feel quite vehemently that he could have accomplished his "bond for the ages" concept in any number of more effective ways.

 

[Dark Tower]

I think I'll have to add this to the Questioning the King thread to see if he'll respond.

 

[Walter Oobleck]

I think I'll have to add this to the Questioning the King thread to see if he'll respond.

I think he did...didn't he? In the first post of this thread? Seems like there was a response available old board as well...old board new board...it okay be frazzled on Friday?

 

[Van Blaricum]

The book it was the first SK book I read, I was 11 I think, no older. I remember soon after reading it, a big hubbub over the fact that this was written into the book, and I remember thinking when I was like 12 that kids that age actually have sex in real life, and adults don't like that either, so I didn't see how it made a difference in any way except for the fact that as a young reader, I figured that if it were to go down in real life that way, it wouldn't seem odd to me.

Later when I was older and read the book again in my teens, I remember thinking that the scene was about life forcing your hand for your coming of age. IT was a monster who forced these characters coming of age. I once met a 24 year old man with gray hair, he said he had been a sniper in a war and " that's what war does to a man. "

There are far scarier things in life that a passage in a book. Instead of fret over reality mirrored in fantasy in books, adults should best better deal with the children in their lives.

 

[GNTLGNT]

The book it was the first SK book I read, I was 11 I think, no older. I remember soon after reading it, a big hubbub over the fact that this was written into the book, and I remember thinking when I was like 12 that kids that age actually have sex in real life, and adults don't like that either, so I didn't see how it made a difference in any way except for the fact that as a young reader, I figured that if it were to go down in real life that way, it wouldn't seem odd to me.

Later when I was older and read the book again in my teens, I remember thinking that the scene was about life forcing your hand for your coming of age. IT was a monster who forced these characters coming of age. I once met a 24 year old man with gray hair, he said he had been a sniper in a war and " that's what war does to a man. "

There are far scarier things in life that a passage in a book. Instead of fret over reality mirrored in fantasy in books, adults should best better deal with the children in their lives.

...well stated...

 

[Bryan James]

No real way around the instant subject for me: