Yeah, they ain't filming that for the adaptations...
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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In one of the adaptations, they all just hug instead
Yeah, even he's said that it was not a great choice lol.
I kinda get what he was going for though. It failed utterly, but as a scene meant to ground characters in their humanity and link them so deeply that the power of it could carry them through and into adulthood, the symbology is right.
The problem was their ages. Not because kids that age are never sexual, they can be. It was that the combination of the shock to the reader and the details of the scene pushed the idea into unrealistic territory that made it read unhinged rather than like an improvised magic ritual of sorts.
Like, c'mon man, you don't actually need to describe as much as you did. The concept of a young girl making that decision as her size first experience is already at the very edge of credibility, trying to make it seem beautiful and otherworldly just breaks the ragged remains of suspension of disbelief. Like, no Steve, no. Not even in that situation would that happen, it just isn't realistic even in that world. Fade to black, have it happen off screen, and be done with it if you really insist on that being the magic activity.
The fact that he didn't consider anything less skeevy is another issue, but damn, there were a dozen things that would have carried the symbolism just as much, or more. Why not become "blood brothers"? Everyone slice a hand and shake on it, you dig? You know, something that group of kids would actually think of in that situation. On a literary symbolism level it's better.
For one thing, the magic connection would be tied into all of them, not just hinging on one character. For another, blood exchanges as a form of power are damn near universal across the world's history and cultures.
I like King. The dude has a strange and engaging imagination. But that scene is the worst one he's ever written, on multiple levels.
I'm pretty sure Stephen King was sexually abused as a child, and I'm pretty sure this scene in It is just another example of him trying to work through it with his writing. It's a recurring theme in a lot of his work, and some of it feels like he's speaking from direct experience. The Library Policeman specifically. He also mentions in On Writing that he has sparse memories of his childhood with long blanks spots, which is pretty standard for traumatized kids.
I'm pretty sure the cocaine wrote that particular scene.
is it Kujo he has no memory of writing due to cocaine?
Or something lol. Dude had to be whacked out
Oh he absolutely was, throughout the 80s King was heavily cocaine and alcohol addicted.
Thank you. This confirms my sanity. Perfectly said. Love that book, deeply troubled over that scene. You've said everything I thought. Cheers.
I'd love to see the correspondence he had with his editor
I have to imagine it had the spirit of the Pepe Silvia incident
Beverley herself reacts with shocked horror when the memory returns, so some part of King knew it was farked up
could someone please explain for those who have not read it?
The characters are young kids, like 13ish I think. The book ends with them getting lost in the sewer, and they somehow decide they have to have sex to escape. The 3 boys take turns on the 1 girl, with the sex described from the girls person. Then they leave the sewer.
A few notes:
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They were 11
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She describes it in way more detail than you'd ever want
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It was supposed to be them going from innocent kids towards adulthood, so Pennywise would no longer want to eat them. And it is how they find their way back out.
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It was written towards the tail end of his over decade long alcohol and cocaine binge(he doesn't remember writing several of the books in that period, especially Cujo)
- ew
- so what did they do for the movie?
It gets worse.
Her dad is implied to want to abuse her, and she feels empowered after unbuckling one of their pants after he initially doesn't want to do it, since she's doing it on "her terms". And he starts crying afterwards. The whole thing is real fucked up.
Understandably both the miniseries and movies ignore and skip that whole thing.
- it had nothing to do with escaping pennywayse they were lost iN the sewers after they thought they'd killed him
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.
-Stephen King
The book even specified that the intent was for them to be together and unified as a group again, like they had to be for the fight. And they instantly remember the way out after they're finished. Just because they don't spell out that their explicit intent was to escape him by having sex, doesn't exclude that meaning.
Except It eats adults. It just goes primarily after kids because it's easier to drive them to terror (adult fears are more complex)
Becoming adults won't give them an escspe from Its predations - the whole adults storythread wouldn't exist if it did.
It just goes primarily after kids because it’s easier to drive them to terror (adult fears are more complex)
They weakened it, and did something that changed how it can interact with them by transitioning to a different state. Unifying, just like with the fight, as a way to overcome the power. That's why they remember the way out after the act. Which shows that it was literally a way for them to escape the power, at least temporarily.
I like to imagine that he started from "adolescent sewer gang bang" and the rest flowed from there
There were a couple lines first.
Pretty sure he started with a decent bump of coke, but yeah, the gangbang is a logical successor to that:-?
Who is this and who is this "King" ?
Him ?
I love King's work, LOVE IT. Never read anyone who taps into what childhood was actually like so much as he does. Can't speak to the girls, but us little boys were exactly as described. OTOH, his child characters are always a few years ahead of their time.
*The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" was a perfect example. She's fucking 9 years old! Kids are basically retarded at that age. I have/had one of each sex. I could go on forever. King nails those childhood thoughts and actions, but he ascribes them to kids a few years shy of how they really be.
I would say that times were different for him growing up, and maybe that's my problem. I'm old enough to be his middle-aged son. And yes, we grew up far faster than kids do now days. And reflecting on that, yeah, maybe that's why I feel he's out of touch? Sometimes I find social media opinions on what constitutes childhood to be way out of whack. I was fucking like Armageddon was next Tuesday when I was 17, yet lemmy tells me I was a child?
Does that make sense?