[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Coochie liquor

Holy shit. I don't even understand why he would put that in there. Never read the book, and what a horrific ending.

It's not actually the ending. It's towards the end of the part that takes place in 1958 when the main characters are still children. The actual ending takes place when they are all adults.

Here's what King says about that part:

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.

I found another post by someone that expanded on that and I tend to agree with his ideas:

The force which is helping the Losers (in very much a Heaven helps those who help themselves kind of way) selects them as the perfect vessels to fight Pennywise (It) because of their youth and imagination. This other force provides them with an unnatural clarity a fast forward on their resolve and calculation as adults. They aren't just little kids (which is useful as king because isn't a little kid when he writes it); they are kids who have been bolstered by a force which allows them to straddle the line of adulthood and kids more fully than is normal. The magic of this other, protective force is allowing them to be kids with some adult strengths at the same time. This is true when they return as adults. It allows them to be adults with some of the strengths of kids. This magic is a very fragile thing which withdraws immediately as they wound and drive off It the first time. There are clearly some kind of cosmic rules in play for how much the "Other" can help them versus how much they can help themselves. This brings us to reason #2. When It is beaten (but not killed) by the Losers as children, the bolstering force departs. They are becoming just kids again, which means that the situation is overwhelming. They have lost an adult's focus and resolve. Panic is setting in. The bond that binds them together is falling apart. There is another bond between them all, as strong. It is their love for Bev and hers for them. What they need (require in fact) is to somehow maintain that adult clarity until they are out of the sewers so they don't die down there. Beverly channels that bond between them (and she has her own reasons as well) in a primitive, primal way. It is old magic. For better or for worst, we must not forget that children as young as ten to twelve were considered adults during the Middle Ages and having/raising children (if they survived). Our modern sensibilities are simply that, i.e. modern. Biology and magic transcend sensibilities. Beverly grabs hold of that magical force by overlaying it with one of her own. It works in the same way ancient sex rituals the world over were believed to have worked. King wasn't writing the episode just to write it. There is specific meaning and history to the magic. More to the point, had he censored it and had Bev go around and give them all a kiss like the Prince that wakes Cinderella, we the Constant Readers would have sensed the dishonesty immediately. You need more than kid's stuff to keep the adult part awake. So #2 ties in with #1 in that you need an appropriate magical ritual to achieve an appropriate effect that comes across honest to the reader. Censoring it would smell ripe in Denmark.

Seeing how I like to exhaust a topic, I'll go for a third reason. Three is, after all, one of the magic numbers. I'm going to play with rhetoric just a bit because I like being specific. Their antics in the sewer aren't an orgy. They are not all mutually involved at the same time. It isn't about that kind of sex for sex's sake act. Your portrayal of it in that manner is both incorrect and calculated. An orgy as part of magical ritual would be more appropriate historically in a fertility ritual like they had in ancient Mesopotamia. That wasn't going on in Derry's sewers. There was nothing dirty about the act. There was nothing in it which was intended to be lascivious either. In fact, their actions were emotional and clean even while everything outside and around them was dirty (they were in a sewer after all). There is that old saying, "where ever you go... there you are," and whenever someone reacts in a purely negative way to this scene in the book I always have to wonder about them. Why are all the other, profound implications and meanings invisible or irrelevant? It says far more about those who react with revulsion than those who seek to find greater meaning in it. No one is reading that section of the book for a sexual thrill. Bev has two reasons for her actions, and she is the instigator (make no mistake). She seeks to save their lives using a tool she alone has come to understand because of her disjointed home life. Her second reason is to wipe away the unclean stain that Pennywise (It) has placed on her sexuality when it manipulated her father. To be fair, her father was staining it by himself even before the monster pushed it further. Bev is saving their lives and trying to wipe her own slate clean by empowering herself. There is no degradation in her act. She isn't being used by the others. There are a lot of layers to this scene and I think we cannot discount that Bev, who hasn't lost that adult resolve as fast as the others, is doing some cold calculation to achieve several ends. That is, after all, what all the Losers discovered about adulthood. Bev takes the genuine love felt by the group and channels it in a way which all of them understand is purely adult. It is a ritualistic act intended to hold on to their receding adult magic. She empowers herself and through that act she empowers them. Again, going back to reasons #1 and #2... would a simple kiss have sufficed? What watered down, Leave It To Beaver replacement would have rung true to our ears?

I re-read the book recently and the endings (1958 and present) actually seemed more cohesive than I remembered from when I read the book when I was younger. I had missed a lot of the mystical parts with the Turtle, apparently.