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The Boob Tube

Game Of Thrones’ George R.R. Martin On Sex Versus Violence

by Jill Pantozzi | 3:32 pm, July 27th, 2012


“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.” - A Song of Ice and Fire author, George R.R. Martin on American readers’ reactions to his sex scenes. 

Well, he’s got a point.

The author also went on to fill us in about his novel-writing future once The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring are released (sometime, in the next 100 years).

“I have many books that I want to write, I’d like to think that I’ll be around for another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels, probably some sort of imaginative literature,” he said. “Never again another seven volume saga.”

(via BoingBoing)

Previously in Game of Thrones

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  • Anonymous

    I dunno, some of the gratuitous violence in his books gets to me too. Most of the sex in his books is fairly boring or it’s obvious male fan-service (like the Cersei stuff in the fourth book). The violence doesn’t offend *as much* or provoke *as much* irritation because it’s not wrapped up in gender issues. The TV show unfortunately made it even worse by ramping up the sex and nudity out of proportion with the rest of the show (and the majority is aimed at straight male fans — not all, but most).

    I am a big fan of his books and the show. But he’s making the usual “if violence is OK, why isn’t sex” argument, and equating the two just doesn’t make sense.

  • Anonymous

    I got the feeling while halfway through the 3rd book that George wishes he would have ended it already.

  • John Wao

    As long as those penis’ are there by invitation it’s okay. I think people take issue with the ones that go where they’re not wanted.

  • Adam R. Charpentier

    I agree that the two shouldn’t be equal…but not that sex is worthy of being the more taboo. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/erebus.rubric Erebus Rubric

    It’s easier to buy a gun than a dildo/vibrator in certain states (e.g. Alabama Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1998, Alabama Code, Title 13A, Chapter 12, Article 4, Division 5)

  • http://twitter.com/KateDrewThis Katharine Tapley

    I shared this on facebook, and a friend said “I’ve heard that axes entering skulls actually brings a lot of pleasure to at least one of the people involved.”

  • http://wrongsirwrong.blogspot.com/ Magic Xylophone

    “another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels”

    0.6 novels per year? Christ, that’s optimistic.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=742530231 Amanda Jean Carroll

    The only sex scene that bothered me was the one where John Snow just CAME UP WITH ORAL SEX. Because he WANTED TO. Mary Sue much?  I take no issue with the sexism of the world, which is of course both unfortunate and realistic — but it’s proven wrong by the characters themselves, all those strong women. There are issues, of course — when will we see the perspective of one the prostitutes, those impoverished women who use the only power they have to create better lives for themselves? If you continually have all the other characters speak poorly of them, it would do you well to show that they’re individuals and capable of being brilliant just like everyone else. But the show is just awful. I wouldn’t even demand that they show less sex or less nudity — I just want more of it to be male, and for it not to be so contained by the need to keep all the straight men happy. 

  • Cláudia Abreu

    If you see it that way you have to say the same about the skull and the axe… The people who end up with an axe in their heads in his books did not ask for it either… he is just telling a story about things (except the paranormal things) that humans do, humans have in wars axed each other just as they have forced themselves on others, both are awful things, but both are real. There are various types of books, people who don’t like to read bad things done by humans should read fairy tales.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000118621663 Cody Krause

    George R R martin is a writer so why can’t people understand that hes going to write however he wants like seriously if you don’t like how he writes just honestly to god throw his book in a fire and never look at it again.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003037095323 Jerilyn Nighy

    Trust the Gorton’s Fisherman.

  • http://melancholywise.tumblr.com/ Sophie

    Yeah! How dare you criticize a piece of literary fiction? If you don’t like something it’s better to burn it than to analyse it critically.

  • Jamie Jeans

    And yet one more reason why I won’t be reading his garbage writing, because it sounds like it’d make me want to tear my hair out.

    Yeah George, lots of pleasure with that whole penis entering a vagina thing, so long as you ignore… you know, the history of colonialism and the rape of women who weren’t white, the rape of women who were due to the rape culture we live in, the women who were gay who didn’t want to have sex but had to else they’d be ostracized, the gay men who didn’t want to have sex but had to or else they’d be ostraciszed…

    So yeah, so long as you ignore all of that the and the heteronormative narrative that goes along with it, nothing but pleasure for a penis entering a vagina.

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