Game of Thrones Author Gets Requests for Male Sex Scenes

[Alex Co]

Game of Thrones Author Gets Requests for Male Sex Scenes

George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels where Game of Thrones is based,, reveals he gets requests from people asking for explicit male sex scenes, and most of these come from women.

It's safe to say that A Song of Ice and Fire books -- and the Game of Thrones TV show its based on, isn't lacking when it comes to gratuitous sex scenes. However, most -- if not all -- of these said sex scenes normally show female nudity. Recently, author George R.R. Martin [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/george%20rr%20martin] appeared during the Edinburgh International Book Festival to talk about his work in the novels. In the discussion, Martin revealed that he often gets requests from fans for male gay love scenes -- something he's not going to shy away from doing, but only if the situation calls for it.

I do get letters from fans that want me to present an explicit male sex scene. Most of these letters come from women. I don't pretend to understand this, I merely read my emails. I'm not going to shy away from doing it if it has to happen, but I don't think you can just insert things because everyone wants to see them.

In the same session, Martin said that he's OK being called the "American Tolkien," which is, of course, in reference to J.R.R. Tolkien, writer of The Lord of the Rings books. However, Martin also thinks that Tolkien imitators "cheapened" the fantasy genre over the years.


I revere Lord of the Rings, I reread it every few years, it had an enormous effect on me as a kid. In some sense, when I started this saga I was replying to Tolkien, but even more to his modern imitators.

But they cheapened it. The audience were being sold degraded goods. I thought: "This is not how it should be done." Writers would take the structure of medieval times - castles, princesses, etc - but writing it from a 20th-century point of view. I wanted to combine the wonder and image of Tolkien fantasy with the gloom of historical fiction.


In other George R.R. Martin news, you can read up on his pressure from both fans and HBO to finish the books affect him. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136711-Game-of-Thrones-Author-Comments-on-Lack-of-Racial-Diversity-in-Series]

Do you want to see more male love scenes in Game of Thrones [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/game%20of%20thrones]? And do you agree with Martin's statement that Tolkien imitators has cheapened the fantasy genre over the years?

Source: The Guardian [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/11/george-rr-martin-in-quotes-i-love-writing-about-bastards]



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[Thaluikhain]

Tolkien imitators most definitely have cheapened the genre over the years, though then again so have oodles of people wanting to be the next anti-Tolkien.

As for male love scenes...eh. If you are going to have lots of sex, doesn't it stand to reason that there'd be a lot of male-male sex (and every other combination)?

 

[Dark Knifer]

He talks like this hasn't happened. While not as frequent as sex involving females, sex between men has happened, at least in the show.

Is it different in the books?

 

[UberPubert]

I actually complained to my friends that the series could do with a bit less gratuitous sex and nudity (yes, even with females involved), but I wouldn't have batted an eye if it were replaced with gratuitous gore and violence.

Different strokes, I suppose.

As for the segment on Tolkien... I haven't read Martins books, so I can't really verify, but based on the t.v. show I think his stories are a lot more grounded and weighty than LOTR. Magic seems confined to old legends and isolated occurrences rather than being central to the plot; fantasy creatures are extremely rare and there really aren't any heroes to speak of. Even with elements such as the dragons, minor magic/miracles being performed and whitewalkers, it's still easy to understand the stakes in GoT; when a sword is pulled an important character may die, and they won't come back, just like in the real world.

I would greatly agree that a lot of contemporary fantasy - or medieval fantasy, to be precise - is watered down Tolkien, which is essentially just a lot of folklore re-written as a cohesive setting, but there's a distinct lack of attention to detail and world-building in these newer properties that leaves a lot to be desired. Tolkien would go so far as to describe the food, dress and songs of a group of people, establishing a cultural narrative that most other games simply take for granted.

 

[Ferisar]

Tolkien-esque fantasy is kind of funny. It's a branch of fantasy that became pretty much the popular definition of "fantasy". The actual genre is literally fantastical fiction. You can do almost anything and fall into it, but we keep on coming back to orcs, elves and dwarves.
But then again, you can't be too mad at the imitation. There is plenty of fiction that imitates other fiction, (I'm looking at you space operas and science fiction that has to do with space), but as long as the new work has a purpose and is a good read, it shouldn't be scrutinized too harshly, outside of just making comment on its lack of innovative setting choice. End of the day, Martin's books are a commentary on Tolkien fantasy, the thing is that they're an actual decent read, imitation be damned. The problem is going to be when in a couple of years/decades we're going to have a bunch of "Martin-esque" low fantasy that just tries to get in on that hype-train. No idea how I feel about that.

Oh, yeah, male sex scenes.

Sure whatever, they banged with their penises, it was totes great. They had coffee in the morning. Get excited.

 

[Exterminas]

Is it different in the books?

Yes.
In general there is much less explicit sex in the books and usually in different places. The homosexuality that is played pretty open in the series is usually just hinted at in the books in the forms of very well-known rumors.

 

[Jinjer]

Female readers want male on male sex scenes - this isn't news, that's like saying the sky is blue! I'm pretty sure about 80% of fanfics is m/m slash of various degrees of explicit

 

[Kargathia]

I actually complained to my friends that the series could do with a bit less gratuitous sex and nudity (yes, even with females involved), but I wouldn't have batted an eye if it were replaced with gratuitous gore and violence.

Different strokes, I suppose.

As for the segment on Tolkien... I haven't read Martins books, so I can't really verify, but based on the t.v. show I think his stories are a lot more grounded and weighty than LOTR. Magic seems confined to old legends and isolated occurrences rather than being central to the plot; fantasy creatures are extremely rare and there really aren't any heroes to speak of. Even with elements such as the dragons, minor magic/miracles being performed and whitewalkers, it's still easy to understand the stakes in GoT; when a sword is pulled an important character may die, and they won't come back, just like in the real world.

I would greatly agree that a lot of contemporary fantasy - or medieval fantasy, to be precise - is watered down Tolkien, which is essentially just a lot of folklore re-written as a cohesive setting, but there's a distinct lack of attention to detail and world-building in these newer properties that leaves a lot to be desired. Tolkien would go so far as to describe the food, dress and songs of a group of people, establishing a cultural narrative that most other games simply take for granted.

Apart from the implementation of magic I'd argue the biggest difference is in character motivation. Lord of the Rings has a massive good-evil divide, with Sauron pretty much writing the "Evil Overlording For Dummies".

Meanwhile most characters in Game of Thrones aren't busy saving the world - the vast majority of their motivations is inherently selfish. Even Bran really isn't busy working on the greater good, he just picked the one road open to him that didn't involve him moping about the rest of his (likely very short) life as a destitute cripple.

 

[Ratty]

I don't know that I'd say Tolkien's imitators have "cheapened" the standard fantasy genre so much as done the bulk of the work in establishing and maintaining it.

Let's face it: for most people Tolkien is somewhere between boring and painful to read. He was good at world building but when it came to actually telling the story of Lord of the Rings he was a great philologist. I admit I haven't read some of his earliest and apparently most blatant imitators, like "The Sword of Shannara" and its sequels, which is said to basically just be the Lord of the Rings with the names changed around. But I know these later authors carried on with the business of sustaining and feeding demand for new standard fantasy fiction while writing in a style that is more accessible to a wider audience.

Besides it's a little unfair to discount the influence of Robert E. "Conan the Barbarian" Howard and all the fantasy authors who ripped him off. Especially since Howard's works predate Tolkien's.

I'd actually say low magic "sword and sorcery" settings with no clear good and evil like ASoI&F owe more to Howard than to flowery "every story is about a ragtag group of adventurers saving the world from ultimate evil" "high fantasy" which Tolkien popularized.

Also oh uh, yeah gay sex scenes sure why not.

 

[PunkRex]

Female readers want male on male sex scenes - this isn't news, that's like saying the sky is blue! I'm pretty sure about 80% of fanfics is m/m slash of various degrees of explicit

I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't picked up on this yet, why do they think the Mavel universe is as popular as it is. That shizz is like a pick'a'mix of male slash possibilities, granted we straight dudes and lesbians have Black Widow, Hill and now Gamora to look at but there's a reason tumblr's filled with Marvel gifs and it's not the epic stories/acting/cinematography.

 

[PirateRose]

Female readers want male on male sex scenes - this isn't news, that's like saying the sky is blue! I'm pretty sure about 80% of fanfics is m/m slash of various degrees of explicit

I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't picked up on this yet, why do they think the Mavel universe is as popular as it is. That shizz is like a pick'a'mix of male slash possibilities, granted we straight dudes and lesbians have Black Widow, Hill and now Gamora to look at but there's a reason tumblr's filled with Marvel gifs and it's not the epic stories/acting/cinematography.

I know! The whole thing is like being surprised that men want to see lesbian sex. I think the major reason can be found in youtube comments. Straight Young Male: "Why would girls want to see two guys get it on, men aren't sexy, only women are!" derp

It's interesting though, when I went to see Guardians, I don't recall seeing the topless scene of Gamora they were showing in the ads. Only Peter's/Star Lord. I think they took that out but left in a topless, dripping wet dude. Amazing.

 

[fletch_talon]

I revere Lord of the Rings, I reread it every few years

I think I've worked out why he takes so long to write new books.
Probably reads the Wheel of Time series in between.

 

[yamy]

That title is a little...misleading. I thought it meant that he personally gets requests for HIM to be put into sex scenes.

People requesting male sex scenes makes sense. Although not many of the (remaining) male characters seem to incline that way so I guess it would be quite difficult. May be more likely in the TV but in that case they should write to HBO instead.

 

[Ikajo]

First of, sex scenes between to men is as hot as it gets (I'm a woman). Most readers and authors of yaoi are women (with some exceptions of course). I'm not a GoT fan but I do understand why they would like sex scenes between men.

Regarding fantasy. I wouldn't agree that fantasy has been watered down and are just poor imitations of LOTR. I've read plenty of really good and diverse fantasy. Some are older, some are newer. Take Rick Riordan. He is nothing like Tolkien. Authors like Robert Jordan or David Eddings (bless their souls) who inspired authors like Brandon Sanderson.
And let's not forget the ladies. Elisabeth Moon writing typical high fantasy with typical elements (dwarfs and elfs) yet not feeling like LOTR in the slightest. Jennifer Roberson who weaved a story that threaded through generations while addressing stuff like racism.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Though I didn't really grow up with these authors...

 

[Frankster]

As someone who discovered GoT only recently and marathoned the whole series in a few days...

Eh? There was some guy on guy scenes in there all right, nowhere near as much as guy on girl granted but certainly more then a few, and from way this is written you'd think these readers were asking for something new instead of asking for more of what is already there.

Oh well I'm all for more rumpy pumpy scenes if they fit the story, no matter the inclination.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Oh, so many potential references to the South Park GoT parody! Screw it, I'll just watch them again.


Maybe one day this will become an actual reference.

 

[lacktheknack]

but I don't think you can just insert things because everyone wants to see them.

Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehue.

OT: People send letters to popular authors requesting word sex? Weeeeeeeeeird.

 

[RandV80]

He talks like this hasn't happened. While not as frequent as sex involving females, sex between men has happened, at least in the show.

Is it different in the books?

In the books each chapter is from a specific character point of view, with about 8 characters per book getting a POV. Sometimes it's not who you'd think, as Robb's military campaign is always seen through the eyes of Catelyn, and Stannis you see through Davos' perspective. So in the books you don't get to 'read' Robb or Stannis having sex. And coincidentally, Renly and Loras were never POV characters. Hell it never even says they're gay in the books, though it certainly hints at it.

So really this article topic is kind of nonsense, as rather being anything progressive it's just the weird set of female fans who want their 'slash' fiction.

 

[Verlander]

I think Martin gives the perfect response to the sex thing - if it happens, it happens. I think people are confused, thinking that the gratuitous sex happens in the books when it doesn't really.

Even though I'm a fan of the books myself, I think it's a bit rich Martin lashing out at post-Tolkein fantasy writers. A Song of Ice and Fire is the perfect example of those that he dismisses, cheap, meandering fantasy. Martin was a television writer before, and used to making serial, compulsive storylines, which is what's launched these books (or rather, made them naturally adaptable to television, the series of which launched the books more than they ever did on their own). It's easy reading, "fantasy lite".

Really, if people are calling him the American Tolkein, it's because of popularity and not much more. The guys have different backgrounds, writing styles, and content. That's not a dig at Martin, his books are great in their own right, but I'd not go around agreeing with that title personally.

 

[Vegosiux]

What, has a week passed already, and we need another GRRM thread?

but I don't think you can just insert things because everyone wants to see them.

Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehue.

OT: People send letters to popular authors requesting word sex? Weeeeeeeeeird.

Goddamit, you passes up a perfect opportunity to do something with the use of the word "insert" there!

I'm with you on this, though, if people want slash action of their favorite franchise, they should write fanfics instead of trying to make the author cater to their personal preference.

...I personally just skip over the sex scenes in most stuff. They bore me.