So hear me out on this please. Yesterday I was talking with a friend who has not read IT by Stephen King, and I mentioned the infamous sewer sex scene in the novel. I sent it to her so that she could read it, and planned for her to laugh at the absurdity of it like the rest of us did. However, she brought something to my attention that I had not previously even considered before: when reading the scene over, it strongly sounds like Beverly has sex with Eddie with him strongly showing he doesn’t want to– it sounds almost like rape. It seems that, of course, her initial intention was not that, but it really seems like it turned out that way.
I know this theory is controversial but after reading the scene over MANY times again and discussing it with @eddiesbadbreak, @stanleyuriis, and several other friends, there’s little doubt in my mind about it and I’m gonna post the text with highlights to show what I mean.
So the parts I’ve highlighted in yellow are the parts that show the parts where Eddie is against what’s happening, and the parts in green show Beverly’s feelings of power she has over the situation. These are taken straight from the book.
To start with the most obvious: Eddie verbally says that he doesn’t want to have sex with her. First, when she first brings up the fact that he’d have to “put [his] thing in [her]”, he says “‘Bevvie, I can’t do that.’” After Bev says to take off his pants, he again says “No, I can’t!, and later says he can’t do it yet again after she tries to take off his belt.
King also describes how Eddie’s lack of consent shows itself physically, with him trying to get away from her, trembling, and crying.
The last thing that weirds me out about this is Beverly’s feelings of triumph and power over the situation, especially at the points where she is with Eddie and Ben (but Ben is a bit of a different situation). She doesn’t feel ashamed or scared about what she’s doing but rather she’s enjoying her sense of control over everything. She says that “she knows [Eddie] can” have sex with her because he gets an erection. The thing is though, sexual arousal doesn’t excuse rape. Ever. Most people– especially 12 year old boys– can’t control arousal in sexual situations, even if they do not want to be in that sexual situation. Just because she felt him get hard doesn’t mean that he wanted to have sex with her at all.
If someone physically and verbally shows that they don’t want to have sex with someone, it’s rape. I’m not at all saying that Bev raped the other boys, in Ben and Bill’s situation they wanted to have sex with her and King kinda skips over the parts with Stan, Richie, and Mike, but in this situation a lot of things point to it being that way.
I know a lot of people are going to defend Bev in this. Rape against males is never taken as seriously as it’s taken against females, and I’m assuming that’ll be the case here. If any of the boys had said any of this to Bev and she responded how Eddie did, it would NEVER fly in a million years. People would be saying it was rape from the second they read it.
Of course, as stated before, it’s highly likely that it wasn’t intended that she wanted to rape Eddie. However, she did pressure him into having sex with her when he did obviously not want to. if Eddie said, multiple times, that he does not consent, Beverly is taking advantage of him. Rape is NEVER okay. And honestly, if it wasn’t intended to be taken that way, why would King write it that way?
I’d love to hear what everyone thinks about this because I haven’t heard it been talked about once before this.
