Stephen King’s ‘It’ To Be Rated R, But How Will It Tackle Its X-Rated Scene?


Did you know that It, the popular Stephen King horror novel being adapted into a movie this September, contains an extremely vivid child sex scene? It is so provocative, in fact, that it has in the past prompted libraries to try and ban it from their shelves for being “child pornography.” Now that the book is being made into a feature film, and especially since it has already been confirmed that the movie will be rated R, the question of whether Stephen King’s insanely controversial scene will be included in any capacity. And If so, how?

The scene takes place after the Stephen King tale’s climax, when the “Losers Club,” as is the self-proclaimed name of the book’s group of antagonists, are wandering the dark sewers beneath their hometown. Beverly Marsh, the only female out of the seven Losers (who are, at the time, children of around 10-years-old) decides that, for reasons too complex to explain to anyone who hasn’t read King’s book, it would be a good idea for each of the group members to strip naked and for each of the boys to take turns having sex with her.

Stephen King has never been one to shy away from difficult topics in his writing, and so he did not hold back prolonging the scene and making it more vivid by adding awkward dialogue and detailed descriptions of emotions. If you’re curious about the scene itself, take a look at the excellent explanation in the latter half of this post about Stephen King’s It from The Quappas.

Just writing briefly about the objectionable (even by Stephen King standards) scene in this article is not easy, and one can only imagining that broaching the subject in a visual form like the screen would be nearly impossible. As an earlier report from the Inquisitr stated, the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s dark masterpiece has secured an “R” rating, but even so, can it possibly touch something as contestable as what is essentially a children’s gangbang?

Obviously, director Andres Muschietti, an avid Stephen King fan himself, is not going to take the full on porno route, because it would be disgusting let alone illegal, given the age of the actors. Still, Muscietti’s fandom may very well cause him to include at least an implied version of the scene, as it is somewhat important to the overall vision Stephen King meant to achieve with the book.

Only strengthening the theory that the Losers will be filming something without clothes on at some point is a photo posted to Instagram by Barbara Muschietti, Andres’s wife and fellow Stephen King addict, nearly two weeks ago. The image shows five of the seven actors portraying the Losers, including Sophia Lillis, who plays Beverly, with their arms around each other eating ice cream. They are all wearing matching blue bathrobes, and one can tell by their bare legs and chests that they are not wearing a lot underneath — Lillis is holding the front of her robe closed.

Stephen King fans will recall there are no other scenes in the book where the Losers would be without clothes.

The scene does add something to the book’s message in hindsight, but even devoted King readers agree that it seems to come out of nowhere and almost seems a bit gratuitous, although questioning the storytelling integrity of a master author like Stephen King himself is definitely more than a bit blasphemous.

It should be noted that Stephen King did not mean for the scene to be so potentially offensive when he wrote it into the book which he, at the time, referred to as his “magnum opus.” In a response published on his website to why he felt the scene appropriate and necessary, King noted he “wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it” when he put it on the page.

Stephen King in 1986. [Image by Michael Tweed/AP Images]

He continues that “the sexual act connected childhood and adulthood,” and admittedly, the relation between those two stages of life is a major theme in the book.

Plus, King points out, the scene was seen as more benign at the time of the book’s 1986 publication.

“Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”

How will the infamous scene be included, if at all? Whether you’re a Stephen King fan who has read the book or simply a movie buff looking forward to the release of It on September 8, let us know in the comments section!

[Featured Image by Sdominick/AP Images]

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