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, its strongly sounds like Beverly has sex with Eddie with him strongly showing he doesnât want toâ 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, thereâs little doubt in my mind about it and Iâm gonna post the text with highlights to show what I mean.
So the parts Iâve highlighted in yellow are the parts that show the parts where Eddie is against whatâs happening, and the parts in green show Beverlyâs 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 doesnât want to have sex with her. First, when she first brings up the fact that heâd have to âput [his] thing in [her]â, he says ââBevvie, I canât do that.ââ After Bev says to take off his pants, he again says âNo, I canât!, and later says he canât do it yet again after she tries to take off his belt.
King also describes how Eddieâs 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 Beverlyâs 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 doesnât feel ashamed or scared about what sheâs doing but rather sheâs enjoying her sense of control over everything. She says that âshe knows [Eddie] canâ have sex with her because he gets an erection. The thing is though, sexual arousal doesnât excuse rape. Ever. Most peopleâ especially 12 year old boysâ canât control arousal in sexual situations, even if they do not want to be in that sexual situation. Just because she felt him get hard doesnât mean that he wanted to have sex with her at all.
If someone physically and verbally shows that they donât want to have sex with someone, itâs rape. Iâm not at all saying that Bev raped the other boys, in Ben and Billâs 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 itâs taken against females, and Iâm assuming thatâll 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, itâs highly likely that it wasnât 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 wasnât intended to be taken that way, why would King write it that way?
Iâd love to hear what everyone thinks about this because I havenât heard it been talked about once before this.
