Steve's explanation for Losers' sex scene

**ChickenStu** · April 1st, 2011

Twas weird. Really didn't understand how this part of the book was supposed to make me feel. Good to get a satisfying explanation!

**broadwaygonnabe** · April 3rd, 2011

I've also somehow liked this scene as well. I never saw it as a group of 12 year olds in a group orgy (since that's how a lot of people probably saw it, hence their repulsion) because there was an actual meaning that King was trying to get across. But instead of the connection from childhood to adulthood, I got the basic idea that she was just trying to strengthen their bond (because everyone knows that after sex you always feel closer to the person you had sex with. It's basic biology)

At the same time I also agree with the relation to Bev's feminine power, as well as her father's fear of Bev realizing that power. He kept a really tight leash on her and was obsessed with keeping her a virgin and away from other boys, because he knew that once she realized what she was capable of doing, and more importantly what she was capable of having (AKA better than him) he would lose his control over her, and she would leave. So I guess in a way it does help Bev grow up, especially considering she's the one that called the shots in this part of the book.

But I did think this was a good part. Could it have been handled differently, maybe, but I don't think that it would have had the same effect. And considering that it was only the kids, instead of an adult having sex with a kid, I didn't think it was that bad. It was just an intimate.

**weetee** · April 4th, 2011

I always thought it was a very important part of the story, not the sexual element but the connection of the losers as both children and adults, they had to be both in order to do what they did

**riverdog** · April 26th, 2011

Thanks for explanation. I have thought versions of all these comments and always thought people who were upset with it were missing the point. I also thought that you kind of needed that scene to help resolve a lot of sexual tension that had built up around Beverly, particularly with Ben and Bill and her father.

The Losers spent all summer battling this horrific nightmare and were faced daily with a level of terror and gore that most 'adults' couldn't handle -- by the time of this scene, they were hardly the maturity level of your average 11 year old. The scene made total sense to me when I was only a few years older than the characters and it still makes sense now, even with a daughter that exact age.

Haters gonna hate.

**bluesology** · August 5th, 2011

Thank you for seeking out that information and sharing it with us. It was very enlightening to read Mr. King's thoughts as this certainly has been a controversial scene. This is a fantastic forum and I'm glad I found it.

It's also interesting to think of the glass tunnel between the two libraries in this way - I hadn't considered this before. My recollection from the book is that at some point, that glass tunnel is destroyed is it not? If so, that would give the event interesting metaphorical significance from the perspective of how everyone's childhood becomes harder to find once left behind.

**jchanic** · August 15th, 2011

In the book, the tunnel between the two libraries was destroyed in the storm.

John

**Jo Johnson** · May 7th, 2012

It never actually struck me how young they were, I was too wrapped up in the scene ... sadly, perhaps this is more realistic an age for such things than we would like to believe ... and all of them had been propelled by their life circumstances to "old before their time", or old souls. That being said, I felt gut-punched when my kids became sexually active, and happily, they were older than eleven.

It just totally felt like it was about love, and not about sex. And when I was eleven, that's all we thought about because we knew nothing about it!
Which made us think about it more ...

**Fjodor Ixidas** · July 23rd, 2012

The answer to the question I am about to ask is not really important, but it would surely still my curiousity (I am Swedish, so please forgive me if I misspell).
There is i Youtube video from 1982 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G56PLn5RV0o) where King talks at University of Dayton. Here he tells his audience that a 1300 pages long novel, to be titled It, is already written. In a podcast made by Time Magazine (I think), King claims to have written the book in 1983 or 1984. My question is, exactly when did King write the novel IT and why did it take so many years for him to publish it? Actually, I have one more question regarding to book, almost a rethorical one... King explains from time to time that It is a response to people asking him why he writes about monsters, a book that originally was even supposed to be the last one about monsters. But if King had written the book already in 1982, he had not published many books about monsters, really. ´Salem´s Lot is about vampires and some of the stories in Night Shift are populated with monster-like things, but I really don´t think that Carrie, The Stand, The Dead Zone, Different Seasons or Firestarter are monster novels. It would have made more sense of It was written after the publication of Christine, Pet Sematary, and Cycle of the Werewolf... What do you think?
/David

**GeorgiesArm** · July 24th, 2012

Originally Posted by Fjodor Ixidas

The answer to the question I am about to ask is not really important, but it would surely still my curiousity (I am Swedish, so please forgive me if I misspell).
There is i Youtube video from 1982 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G56PLn5RV0o) where King talks at University of Dayton. Here he tells his audience that a 1300 pages long novel, to be titled It, is already written. In a podcast made by Time Magazine (I think), King claims to have written the book in 1983 or 1984. My question is, exactly when did King write the novel IT and why did it take so many years for him to publish it? Actually, I have one more question regarding to book, almost a rethorical one... King explains from time to time that It is a response to people asking him why he writes about monsters, a book that originally was even supposed to be the last one about monsters. But if King had written the book already in 1982, he had not published many books about monsters, really. ´Salem´s Lot is about vampires and some of the stories in Night Shift are populated with monster-like things, but I really don´t think that Carrie, The Stand, The Dead Zone, Different Seasons or Firestarter are monster novels. It would have made more sense of It was written after the publication of Christine, Pet Sematary, and Cycle of the Werewolf... What do you think?
/David

"The Bird and the Album" was published in 1981, so I think 1982 would be the right year for the first draft to be finished. Of course it had to be rewritten and edited in the years after, and we know King likes to put a manuscript away for months, so he was working on It in 1983, 1984 and 1985 aswell. This process is the same for his other books, so the ones you mention were probably written a few years before their publication aswell. I guess he was getting tired of writing monsters by himself, although it doesn't take much to stereotype someone as 'only writing monsters'.

The Bird and the Album is labeled as chapter 13. In the book, "The Album" is chapter 14. I'd guess he took the Bird part out and made it into chapter 6: "One of the Missing". So you can see some big changes happen through the process. It would be really, really interesting to read the whole first draft of the book to analyse the process.

**Moderator** · July 24th, 2012

The information about when he wrote the book is in the hardcover edition (don't have a paperback handy to check if it's there as well), but here's what it says:

"This book was begun in Bangor, Maine, on September 9th, 1981, and completed in Bangor, Maine on December 28th, 1985."

Those dates would include from first draft (begun in 1981) to final edited version (completed in 1985). I don't know how many edits it went through before publication.