the scene doesn’t somehow impinge upon King’s moral character

He justifies it, just clumsily, ugly. Beverly thinks it’ll bring them together, that sex can act as a form of bonding. It’s about 8 pages, not a chapter but not short (a subsection of a longer chapter).

“It’s in print because the writer put it in his book, and last time I checked, writing something isn’t the same as doing it. Books are full of all kinds of fucked up shit, sometimes well written, sometimes not. This one wasn’t particularly well written, it was King’s sort of ham-fisted attempt at some kind of…

He lives in Maine, so...probably not?

No, he’s not. There’s nothing in the book that suggest platonic friendship between women and men is impossible. She’s not just unifying a bunch of guys, she’s unifying herself AND the guys. This take is his opinion and he’s projecting some fucked up stuff onto it, he’s obviously got some kind of hangup(or specific…

“Acceptable” doesn’t enter into this “discussion”. A writer wrote something. You can debate whether it’s bad or good. There’s no debate about whether it’s acceptable. There is no such thing as acceptable speech. There is free speech or there is not. You say what you want and face the consequences that come to you.

“This utilitarian view of sexuality, despite operating in something as utterly wild as a group sex scene amongst kids, is ultra conservative in its reinforcement of the idea that female sexuality is meant to serve men, that sex for women operates for the greater good, like making babies or unifying a bunch of…

It’s not terrible for writers to write about terrible things. But it is terrible when it comes out of nowhere and doesn’t seem at all believable. Readers got to know Bev in hundreds of pages before this jarring scene. This did not ring true to Bev at all. Extremely disappointing for many, many reasons.