- Position1 of 2›
- Yes, Stephen King's novels are sexist
- Argument1 of 4›
Stephen King's novels hyper-sexualize women
Whenever a female character is involved, there is almost certainly going to be something sexual.
The argument
Most Stephen King novels contain some kind of sex scene in one way or another, and the argument is careful to say that this is not in itself the problem. The issue is the amount of these scenes compared to the women within them. Where female characters are few and sexual situations are many, the two facts compound: a novel with one significant woman in it can place her in sexual scenes repeatedly without any single scene looking excessive, while the cumulative portrait is of a character whose function in the story is sexual. Many scenes are derogatory towards females everywhere, placing them as objects for affection and severely miscalculating female sexuality. The pattern is visible across the work. One example occurs in the famous book and movie It, whose main characters include six young boys and one girl, and their adult counterparts later in the story. The singular female character is placed in sexual situations many times throughout the novel, while her male counterparts are not unless it is specifically with her, so the asymmetry cannot be explained by the book's general treatment of sex. In Thinner, the female character incites the entire plot of the book through a sexual encounter with her husband, the protagonist: her role in the narrative is not something she does but something done through her. In Gerald's Game, the woman is traumatized by her pedophile father and abusive husband, and her entire situation, much like Thinner, is sparked by a sexual encounter. What links the three is causation rather than mere frequency. In each, the woman's presence in the plot is routed through sex, as its object, its occasion, or its aftermath. Stephen King writes well, but his development of female characters leaves much to be desired, and women have more of a purpose than their sexuality.
Premises
Counter-arguments
While this may be true, there are also many sexual scenarios which involve the male characters, and even some stories that do not contain any form of sexual innuendo. Every tale is not the same.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] His male characters are also placed in sexual situations.