‘It’: Stephen King on the (In)famous Sex Scene From His Book That Didn’t Make It Into the Movie

Now that “It” has finally opened to favorable reviews from those coastal elites we call film critics and made beaucoup bucks at the box office, the question readers have been asking for months has finally been answered: Does it include that weird orgy scene from the book? No, reader. No it does not. Stephen King has addressed the omission of that key event, which takes place among a group of children.

Vulture unearthed King’s comments, which came from a message-board post a few years back:

“I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood –1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. None of us remember what we did as children–we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”

“That sounds like my statement,” said King when Vulture reached out to confirm that he had authored the post in question. “To it I’d just add that it’s fascinating to me that there has been so much comment about that single sex scene and so little about the multiple child murders,” he added. “That must mean something, but I’m not sure what.”