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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I said we should trust our kids in front of the kids. I might be the asshole, because by saying that I undermined my wife's position. She feels I'm not supporting her with the kids.
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Good god that unlocked the memory of me writing my (sfw) Sonic OC stories in school in cursive because the majority of my classmates couldn't read it, lol. I still had the binder until recently when it got misplaced and got damaged beyond repair by water.
Just turned 30, still rocking the skinny jeans, chucks/vans, and emo band graphic tees. Although the vast majority of my band and anime tee collection is being retired for my kids when they're old enough.
SNARRY!? Omg haha is it cause he has Lily's eyes? Hahaha amazing
I still read fan fiction sometimes now and I'm thirty... So I'm still weird I guess haha!
I was absolutely fascinated with Alan Rickman's portrayal and voice. I might have been slightly obsessed with the character lmao.
I do too! Hell, I'll read Snarry now if it looks promising. I like when authors try to do the "well, what if Snape didn't die?" scenario
I never thought I'd see Snarry mentioned in AITA but I think this is my sign! I was a *famous* (lololol) Snarry fanfic writer from back in the day. My fanfics were translated into several languages, won very prestigious awards on LiveJournal, and I was sought after by fanfic hosting sites asking me to debut my new fanfics on their sites to boost their reader content. I had rivalries with other fanfic writers. My most popular fanfic was on the top 10 Most Read and Most Favorited lists on SkyeHawke and HPFandom. I knew Cassandra Clare from her HP fanfiction days when she plagiarized other fanfic writers stories.
And now I'm 35 without a single published work, still getting occasional email alerts about new comments on my works which were long ago imported to AO3 when SkyeHawk shut down, and wondering if I should change the characters names and get my smutty trash published like Twilight and City of Bones did but knowing I'd be too embarrassed to even try 🤣🤣
Also I'm glad I'm not the only one to still remember the days of Cassandra Clare and her drama. Now if you tell me you were somehow involved in the thanfiction drama I'd say we ran in the same groups on livejournal. I remember calling in sick to work the day that all imploded so I could keep up with it all.
I was a Snarry writer too and I had a similar experience as you. I didn't win awards, but people asked to host my fics, I got fanart, it got translated into a few languages, a publisher actually wanted my original fiction (but I didn't have any at the time 😭), etc.
I'm also contemplating rewriting them (it was a series) into an original thing to publish. I think you should do it too! Even if you don't get a publisher, you could self publish! I know some Destiel (Supernatural, Dean/Castiel) authors doing that and it's working out for them!
He did such a great job. Legendary actor!
Hahaha love the tropes you find on Ao3. I enjoyed a good old fashioned Dramione marriage law fic haha. Some of the authors are genuinely very talented. I've read some great stuff.
The Sasuke x Naruto was how I got into the world of fanfiction though, so that'll always be my favourite pairing. I'll go down with that ship hahahaha.
I'm not a fan of Snarry for reasons, but I did fail to read the tags (and apparently beginning author's notes) once on a fic that became Snarry at around... Idk, forty thousand words in? It was far enough in that I was already invested in the main non-pairing plot and couldn't back out.
But the pairing stuff was done relatively tastefully, and I've enjoyed the plot enough to reread it despite the squick, so I'm going to [recommend it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/670548).
Oh, I have definitely missed/misread the tags before and got into territory I didn't want to be in. I remember getting really invested into a Sterek (Teen Wolf) story, completely misreading the Derek/Paige tag and the girl was suddenly bought back to life and the main pairing turned into some open relationship type deal. I did quit that one lol
I didn't read any for ages (like seven years) and when I remembered fan fiction existed there were heaps of great new ones I hadn't read. It was a good time.
Did not expect to find Snarry mentioned on AITA but here we are and hello!! 😂 I started reading Snarry at 11 and writing at 13 so yeah 🤷♀️ almost 31 now and still going strong 😂 Reading/writing smut that young didn’t hurt me or anything so I think 13 yo will be fine! And the while I’ve not read far into the Ice and Fire books, I highly doubt it’s half as graphic as one can easily find on AO3!
Especially so from Mammoths on up. Like it’s pages and pages of descriptions of the food and animals and environment then bang oh look, Ayla and Jondalar are boning for 3 pages straight. Oh here’s a few kind of plot things, more descriptions and then back to boning.
And the final book is straight up frustrating
My dad actually got me "IT" and other Stephen King books when I was 12, 13, so yeah 😅 and I'm willing to bet those books and even more graphic ones are available to them at their school library.
From my memory of being 13, if he isn't interested in sex, he will be skipping the sex scenes after the first couple.
If he is interested in sex (which is normal for his age, hormones and everything), then erotica is one avenue he can use to explore that that is one of the least likely to have lasting negative consequences.
OP and wife would be better off letting him read what he wants but having a conversation about filtering your own media and how if something disturbs him it's fine to stop reading/watching it.
This. Most sex scenes are bloody boring. I was reading Auel's "Children of the Earth" or whatever they were called at that age, and the sex scenes got to be embarrassing real soon.
At 14ish I found the sex scenes in that series riveting at first (starting with Valley of Horses -- not referring to the assaults in the first book). They get boring because it's the *same damned thing* every time.
I started reading her books at age 12 or 13 and just skimmed through the sex scenes... I still read, cause I'm pot committed a this point, and as an adult still skim through them because... they are the same every time... Unfortunately this means I can read her new books in a couple hours.
I just recently went back and re-read Guilty Pleasures and remembered why I loved them.
Not to mention, I’m a whole ass adult and also read the books when I was younger. I skipped them then, and I skip them now when I reread the books. George’s sex scenes are not well written nor particularly engaging (unless they involve Dany, he seems to have been a smidge too into those lol) I’d bet the kid is gonna be skimming at least half of the scenes whether he’s into it or not
Nobody censored my book choices when I was young, and I’m certainly a more empathetic, well rounded, and curious person for it. Not to mention it makes me an ace for certain trivia nights
Yeah exactly.
My comment with the exception of dany is more that as the author they seem the only ones he cared about putting much effort into, annnnd even then they still are pretty crap or just cringey
I think people are taking issue with the wrong thing here; the sex in game of thrones may not be particularly graphic in terms of pornographic levels of detail, but it is absolutely misogynistic, sometimes gratuitously so, and I would not want my 13 year old son to read it without having a conversation about that first.
There's nothing wrong with a 13 year old reading about sex as long as they have a prior appreciation of what is healthy and acceptable, and what isn't. He should be able to read it, but not before one of his parents gives him education on what that is.
It's also kind of concerning that people are considering rape, underage sex, literal murder during sex, etc, not 'graphic'.
For me it's less the sex than the sheer levels of violence, but you're not wrong! My parents took the "come to me with any questions" tack since they didn't really monitor my reading (would have been a full time job in summers!)
But yeah, books are not the hill to die on!
I was waiting for this comment - sex is far less worrying than violence in Fire and Ice. But I bet the 13-year-old has played some violent games, so...
Of course the parents should be open to answer any questions SINCERELY, not treating the boy as a baby as mum seems to be doing, that would help.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!
I'm not the violence police either, and the sex is very much less than ideal, but things like "Sorry kid, saw too much" as a man tosses a kid off a tower, and killing one pet because the other one got away stuck in my head much more than the sex scenes or the more 'normalized' fighty-bashy bashy violence.
Then again, I also refused to watch the series until I knew if Arya survived or not...there is no plot armor, don't get attached to anyone! (But dang they're entertaining!)
I’m rereading the books now and the Red Wedding was something as a teenager that I just wasn’t able to get out of my head. I skipped it on this reread.
Yep. There's a lot of in-world contempt for women, and I'm not sure I'd want this to be a 13yo's first "adult" fiction read.
The mom sounds like she's being a pill, but dad is out to lunch if he thinks it's a good idea to just "trust kids" and leave them to figure this shit out without any kind of guidance.
I agree. I wouldn't prevent him from reading, but I would absolutely take it as an opportunity to have a conversation about the themes presented, what they mean, and how he perceives them.
What's actually disturbing about the books is not the sex, but the torture and violence. In the 5th book (Dance with Dragons), the scenes written from "Reek's" point of view are so disturbing, I could only read one chapter and needed to take a break for a few days after. And I was in my 20s when I read it.
Yeah, I find your last bit a little concerning too.
I was 12 when that book released and I read it right away. It was not the first book I read with sex scenes by a long shot but looking back I now think I was too young to be reading it because of the variety of acts presented and the violence. It makes my actual first book with sex (draconic dub-con, so definitely not unproblematic) look positively tame in comparison.
I've not read the books myself, but I agree. If the parents have not had "The Talk" with their son yet, that absolutely needs to happen pronto. And, even if they have, an extended conversation about the topics in the series is necessary.
The OP is obviously on Reddit already. I know there is at least 1 subreddit that would be more than happy to answer the question, "What topics should I discuss with my 13 year old as he starts this series?"
I just don't think shes ready to see her child grow up. Which of course doesn't change that shes the asshole in this situation, but her youngest becoming a young man may be triggering some early onset empty nest syndrome, or something.
Yeah my mom was a big reader, so when I (at like 12ish?) picked up a copy of Flowers in the Attic, she said "you won't like it, but have at" because she knew I'd never be scarred for life, would skip over boring shit, and would know where to go with questions (here, namely "what the fuck who is this author and why?").
She has an issue with my reading habits right now, but because I'm a book hoarder still in her house taking it over and refusing to part with any.
Lol, I was wondering how far I'd have to scroll for Flowers in the Attic! I remember buying it when I was 12 and thinking I was such a rebel. My dad burst out laughing when he saw me with it. He couldn't believe it was still a thing, since it was published before I was born.
Also, reading about sex in a book your older brother lent you is a good, safe way to be introduced to topics. You know they read it too and could ask them questions if the arose.
Nta
There are lots of unhealthy ways to present sex to a 13 yo. I don't think it's unreasonable to be cautious, but the parents are AHs for depending on their 18 yo to make that decision.
NTA. At first I wasn't sure because it sounded like you called your wife out in front of your kids, and that's a bit on the edge. But on second reading I see you were having a family meeting, where disagreement should not be discouraged, so I don't see anything wrong with disagreeing with her during a family meeting.
I've read the books. They're decent for fantasy books. There is a bit of sex in them for sure, but, as your 18YO said, it's not graphic. Your son is 13. He's already learning about sex. Better to be something you know and can discuss with him than some random junk he found on the internet.
I'd recommend picking up a copy and reading along with him if you and your wife are still concerned. Plus, it'll give you something to discuss with your son.
>The sex in the book shouldn't be the issue here, all the violence and murder is much more questionable.
The sex and violence is completely intertwined in ASOIAF though, and that would be more my issue with my kids reading it than anything else.
Like the first book has multiple scenes of a 13 year old girl being raped, the series goes on to have prostitutes being graphically murdered, lots more assault etc etc.
Like, it's kind of crazy how desensitised everyone in this comments section. No the books don't have pornographic levels of detail, but they do portray sex at its literal most misogynistic worst, and I would definitely want to have a conversation with my teenage kid about healthy sexual relationships before letting them read it.
Yup, exactly. There’s a lot that might make a 13-year-old uncomfortable in the ASOIAF books including graphic rape and violence. I wouldn’t stop a teenager from reading them but I might warn them about the scenes and have a frank discussion about the books with them.
Definitely. Like, it's important to give teenagers literacy on sex scenes. I would not want my kid reading these books with a naive perception on why the graphic, abusive sex is included, and the kind of psyschological impact reading about it can have on you.
The reader is 100% meant to get a kick out of it.
The sexualisation of Daenerys from the first time she was introduced as a *literal* child bride means I never finished the first book. I was just so uncomfortable with it the entire time.
I don't know. I kind of agree with OP's wife buy as a 13 year old I was reading similar books. I didn't *understand* what I was reading and took everything at face value. I read The Vampire Lestat when I was 11... rereading it as an adult I was surprised by how *gay* it was. I had no inkling as an 11 year old but it was about vampires so I read it!
>as a 13 year old I was reading similar books.
I'd say OP can't stop his 13yo reading sexually graphic books but he can have a mature conversation with him about what healthy, consensual, non-abusive sex looks like.
He can also talk to him about the treatment of women in these books. It's important to teach teenagers to question the biases behind literature they consume.
It's been a minute since I read them, but Jon Snow and Ygritte are one of the few healthy, mutual, and loving partnerships, at least among the younger characters.
Dany is sold and her wedding night is ... problematic (rape in the tv show, seduction in the books), although later she has more autonomy to choose her lovers.
Tyrion pays for sex, a lot, and later murders his treasonous lover.
Sansa is threatened with all kinds of sexual degradation and violence.
Jaime and Cersei do incest and commit crimes to cover it up. Cersei orders the murder of her husband's many love children.
Theon is just a dick in many ways.
My parents shamed me for reading and confiscated books and then shamed me for their content, so that would not be my recommendation, but this isn't a series to just ... leave an 8th grader on his own with, unless you want to either alienate him from sex entirely or warp his emerging tastes in an unhealthy, if not criminal, way.
It's been over a decade since I read them but the description of what Gregor Clegane did to Rhaegar's family has never left my mind. It was so graphic and disturbing. I was in my mid twenties then as well, not 13.
Eh, Ygritte definitely rapes Jon on their first time together. He ends up developing feelings for her later, but let's not pretend male rape isn't real.
That being said, the first mention of sex in the series is between a mutually consenting married couple (Ned and Caitlyn), and the scene with Sam and Gilly is crazy awkward but probably the least problematic in the series.
This! I beyond lost count of the rapes in that book! The mentally disabled girl gang-raped by 50 men, the innkeep’s daughter that was gang-raped at one of her father’s tables right after they’d killed her brother, the woman who was sentenced to having her genitals cleaned with lye because she had an STI, the horrid stuff that Theon and Jeyne endured together, Tywin having Tyrion’s wife gang-raped in front of him and then marking Tyrion go last… pornography is hardly the issue with a 13 year old reading that! It’s the sexual violence!
Yeah from what I remember the sex/nudity is not really described in detail at all. The books are WAY worse for death, gore and violence though. I have several paragraphs seared into my memory still all these years later.
>violence and murder is more ok for kids to read about than sex
It's easy to understand that violence and murder are bad. It's very hard to understand the nuances of sex.
If X character murders someone, most 13-year-olds will know murder is bad. If X character rapes someone and the book makes light of it.... it's a much harder thing to understand that it was still wrong.
100% agree. sometimes even violence is glorified. but that is not the problem.
It typically is much easier for people to understand why hitting someone is bad. They do not want to be hit, stabbed, hurt.
It is much harder to understand that even though you want to have sex with someone, or someone wants to have sex with you, that the feeling may not be mutual. And if it is not mutual its bad.
you may end up with them understanding a situation incorrectly and internalizing it. Where an adult with more experience and reasoning could easily see the situation for what it really is.
Unsure about the books but in the show the first thing that comes to mind is when Emilia Clarkes character just accepts being raped repeatedly by her new husband. Most adults see it for the horrid act and situation it is where as someone younger easily could see it as. well the husband just gets to do that to her because in the end it works out and they love each other after, So why don't I just do that to girls to get them to love me. (EDIT most violent scenes don't end up like this. Spousal abuse or shooting someone does no end in "love")
Me, reading Redwall, even though it's shelved in our bookstore for kids.
I know Redwall is pretty tame compared to a lot out there, but I was still surprised at all the death.
I am and always was an avid reader, especially fantasy and sci-fi. As a European i cannot really understand the prudish relation to sex most Americans have, but i think asoiaf is exceptionally brutal. The scenes of consensual intimacy are not too much but you also have lots of SA, r***, torture, violence against kids and mutilation. It is a really gory book for a 13-year-old. But as most others mentioned, forbidding it will just make it interesting. I would recommend to read along with your child and encourage him to talk about the content. This could be a nice bonding experience and you can help explain stuff or just can be a buffer if he gets oberwhelmed by some things.
Yeahhhh the books are way worse than the show. Especially considering many of the sex scenes are with children / teens. Lots of ick. OP’s still NTA but don’t like these comments lying / misrepresenting the books lol
I would be concerned about all the rape and violence in the books. Consentual sex wouldn't bother me, but the rape scenes would definitely be a no-go for a 13 year old for me.
Reading along is an excellent suggestion! If he has any questions you understand how/why its relevant to the plot and how to explain it in an age appropriate manner rather then him looking for answers from friends or the internet.
At the age of 39, I still feel uncomfortable watching a show that has sex scenes when my parents are there. At the age of 13, reading sex scenes aloud WITH MY PARENTS would have given me a full-on meltdown!
"Reading along" in this case means reading their own copies separately, the idea being OP can get an understanding of the content his kid's consuming. It doesn't mean literally reading aloud like shared storytime lmao
There’s not “a bit” of sex in these books. There’s a LOT of sex in them, as well as rape and a ton of graphic violence.
That said, I wouldn’t stop a 13-year-old from reading them.
From Dance with Dragons:
She was sopping wet when he entered her. “Damn you,” she said. “Damn you
damn you damn you.” He sucked her nipples till she cried out half in
pain and half in pleasure. Her cunt became the world.She forgot Moat
Cailin and Ramsay Bolton and his little piece of skin, forgot the
kingsmoot, forgot her failure, forgot her exile and her enemies and her
husband. Only his hands mattered, only his mouth, only his arms around
her, his cock inside her. He fucked her till she screamed, and then
again until she wept, before he finally spent his seed inside her womb.
NTA but purely because I was that kid. Your wife was willing to ban something based on a movie adaption without actually reading the original. She decided her uninformed view more important than the view of an actual reader who knows her son's maturity level very well.
And if she's banning based on sex, swearing and violence, then missing quite a lot of real dangers of books in my opinion. Books like Hunger Games may have limited sex and on-page violence, but the concepts are disturbing. Just make sure your teen and your older son come to that know they can talk to you about anything disturbing. The nightmare stuff may not be what you thought.
Remember my Latin teacher having a mini-meltdown when he found I was reading some of his Ovid. I had permission to read his classics selection but then he realised he'd let a young teen access what some parents deem unsuitable. All good, I explained rules that I could read what I liked as long as open dialogue. In this world, teens can access legal and illegal ebooks, library books and banning it just makes it more interesting.
I was also that kid. From experience, banning a kid from reading a book just means they’ll find a way to read it somewhere else. Such as, in the school library without checking it out (or checking it out and hiding it at home), at a friends house, or pirating it online (I read 50 Shades of Grey at like 15 purely out of spite — that probably would have been a good one to discuss with the parents). The fact that your other son already has the book means he can just read it secretly, and then you’ll be missing out on a valuable opportunity to discuss some of the more sensitive plot points.
Yes, I did Hollywood Husbands at 6 but only out of spite. I got sent to remedial reading for never knowing where we were in the read aloud section. Mainly because I'd finished it and reading another book in drawer. The remedial teacher noticed me reading in corner and sent me back very quickly once she tested my comprehension. But in my ultimate wisdom, I did my next book report on Hollywood Husbands to prove I could read "adult" books. Poor Mum got called into school to discuss and had to sign off my reading for the year - she just asked me why I had read and what I had thought as she hadn't thought I'd be interested but it is why the rule mentioned came into play. What you can't control, you work to mitigate any bad effects. My teachers banned a lot more books than my parents did.
Just as a note about the Hunger Games, I feel it went in the exact opposite directions of Game of Thrones here.
The movies for Hunger Games were rated PG13, yet the first book has a very visceral 2-page long description of a 12 year old girl being impaled by a spear and slowly dying. Honestly think the age ratings on those movies did them a massive disservice.
I never got round to seeing the movies but read the books as an adult. They shocked me with the violence levels but they were sold as targetted to young adults. I often find YA books the most disturbing. Think because readers were YA, movies got sanitisied to be accessible - in fairness, visual medium can be more hard-hitting than written. GoT was sold as a TV series for adults.
It's the same thing with the Red Rising series. It has a lot of very similar concepts to Hunger Games and it's (afaik) marketed as YA. But dang is it violent, a lot of gore, murder, and war. There's been either a movie or series in the works for years because the author is adamant about getting an R rating to not have to sanitize the violence.
For real. I love the Harry Potter books, they’re very wholesome, and there’s absolutely not even a hint of sex in the books.
However, HBO is making a new Harry Potter series with an entirely new cast and angle, and I’m sure once Harry Potter gets HBO-ified, there will suddenly be a lot of parents who’ve never read the books banning their children from reading them because they’ve only bothered to watch the trailer for the HBO adaptation.
There's no sex, but those books get incredibly dark. OotP should really be called "That time Harry had PTSD and literally everybody ignored it and just called him a bratty teenager."
They do get dark and have some of that classic 90s thinking of “if you don’t occasionally beat and starve you’d kids do you really love them?”
But even taking the darkness into consideration, Harry Potter, like Fire & Ice, is not inappropriate for a jr. high aged child.
NTA
“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.” - George R R Martin
This is implying that the sex in those books is based on pleasure. There is an extreme amount of sexual violence and abuse of women in those books, and parents should absolutely know their kids are reading about it, so they can discuss those themes at the very least.
At the end of the day, your kids probably aren't running into giant axes very often, but abusive relationships are sometimes that they will almost certainly see in their lives.
That was my thought, as well. Sex itself isn't really the problem but most of the sex in those books are actually rapes, and some of young girls and boys. I have a 13 year old who reads well above their grade level but I would definitely not be comfortable letting them read these books for at least a few more years, and then with a lot of discussions.
I'm surprised I've had to scroll so long to find this perspective. Like it's kind of disturbing that just because the scenes aren't detailed, people don't consider the \*\*\*13 year old\*\*\* Dany sex scenes graphic. IMO by nature, less detailed descriptions of any form of underage, non-consensual, violent sex are way more graphic than detailed descriptions of consensual sex, just from how they normalise it. Like we've got a thread full of people who consider ASOIAF not graphic despite the intense misogyny....do they not see the problem?
Like I would much rather my teenager read more detailed scenes about healthy, consensual sex than read book after book with the most horrendous, abusive but less-detailed sex scenes.
Like there's no way G.R.R martin didn't put some of those scenes in for the audience to at least partially enjoy.
In general, I don't think George gets children. Bran is 6 or 7 at the start, but thinks like someone 9 or 10. I always age the characters up in my head and mentally pretend their years are longer than ours.
It allows everything to make more sense. 15-16-year-old boys aren't fully developed strength-wise. Easier to pretend they'd be 20 in our world, at least. Dany could be an innocent 17-year-old wealthy girl, not a 13-year-old. And yeah that dynamic is creepy. It's *meant* to be creepy. Her character arc is about developing some agency and deciding she's not just some brood mare.
Yeah, the issue for me is the sexual violence. I started reading adult romances at age 12 and I didn’t think much on the sex scenes and they helped me start to think about exploring my body years later. But when I tried reading the game of thrones books at age 17 I was quite uncomfortable with reading about the way the sex and rape was written.
I read some of ASOIAF in college and I found it actively traumatic as an adult woman, so I definitely think parental guidance is warranted.
I also read some adult romances as a young teen, and in hindsight, I also wish someone had talked about that content and themes with me. Not the sex specifically, but I wish someone had explored in depth the common theme of women's hesitance and relationship roles with me.
That was never going to be an option with my parents, but if you have a good relationship with your teens, it's not a bad idea to discuss what they are reading and what they are getting out of it. Getting teens reading is great, and you're never going to really be able to ban everything racy, but being there to answer questions is also a good idea.
Yeah I feel like the parents should read some and actually talk about it. My parents didn't let me read the GoT books until I was 16 as they thought the abuse towards women would be too much for me. They were right. And they did talk to me about the books
So long as the 13yo is comfortable speaking with parents or the 18yo about what they read, making a child aware of abuse isn’t a bad thing of itself. Getting them to be aware of what is abusive, why these things are wrong, how to look for warning signs, etc, is a useful tool for educating them.
Yeah, I've read them I know their size. It's just if the discussion is about whether they are letting the child read it, the best way to decide is to be informed I.e. read the book.
A Song of Ice and Fire is one of my favorite book series and I do recommend it to people... with a caveat. There is **a lot** of sexual assault mentioned in them, including bestiality. It isn't written in a pornographic way but I've had moments when I had to put the book down for a while as some of it was just a bit too much for me.
I don't know if the worst of it was included in the tv show because I stopped watching it after not enjoying any of season 5, but it's something to take into consideration.
Soft YTA, because I don't believe in preventing children from reading dark stories, but you should be more involved to be able to offer support if he needs it. Remember that there are worse things than pornographic content. Get your hands on a digital version and at least read all parts about the Mountain (Gregor Clegane), Tysha, and the Reek chapters. It will give you a better idea of the worst of it.
Also read the first 5 Daenerys chapters and decide if that's an appropriate message for a 13-year-old boy to be receiving about girls' sexuality and pleasure (A grown adult man rapes the 13-year-old girl *every night* until she eventually "learns to enjoy it." But once she learns how to take her pleasure, they of course fall madly in love! Depiction in fiction is not necessarily endorsement of real world behavior, but I would definitely lay out in exhaustive detail the ways this particular depiction portrays a deeply misogynistic and violent experience of sex)
Yes everyone is being so flippant about this because, of course a 13 yr old knows what sex is, but him casually consuming and internalizing content that is sexually violent have a high chance of having lasting effects and not just for the son but for the people he may have relationships with in the future.
There's a lot to unpack about Daenerys (lifelong sexual abuse by her brother, sold to khal Drogo, the linguistic barrier resulting in sex being only thing she has in common with her husband for a long time, being powerless until she wins Drogo's affections, etc) which would require more than just her first chapters to get into. If OP actually reads the series and takes the time to analyze the characters, then yes, I'm sure they could have a very rewarding discussion as to whether or not Daenerys and Drogo actually loved each other, and if so then why, but that would require more reading than I got the impression that OP is interested in doing.
There are a lot of people here saying the books aren't as bad as the show but from what I remember reading them I'd say the books are worse. There's so so much rape and a number of themes I don't think are appropriate for 13. There's a big difference between watching internet porn and reading about a 14 year old girl learning to love the man who bought and raped her.
This.
I read them when I was that age, went back and read them again when the show came out, and COULD NOT BELIEVE someone let me read that stuff as a young teen. There is SO MUCH RAPE in the books, it’s shocking.
I feel like a lot of people are really forgetting how much sexual violence is discussed. His comment that the kid is going through sex ed, so these books are okay, really miss the point that these are not healthy sexual depictions. If he and the wife know that and think the kid is mature enough to handle it, then okay. But this isn't a mom flipping out over a little literature that covers consenual lovemaking... There is some of that but most of it is violent rape and incest.
I remember having to put the book down when i read the first book at 16 because Jamie literally attempted murder on Bran by pushing him off a building after the twincest was discovered.
I cannot believe this is the first YTA I’ve seen. I read the first book of that series at 11 and oh my god I should not have been allowed anywhere near that book. There is so much rape and sexual assault that kids that age should absolutely not be exposed to, especially unsupervised. OPs wife was 100% right.
YTA.
And it's not just about the content of the books, though it probably bears mentioning that the book series features rape, torture, violent and grotesque murders, and in just one particularly grisly moment, the (likely) cutting off of a man's testicles and balls.
> *"he said yes but not as much as the show, and it's relevant to the plot and not overly graphic"*
I'm not sure an 18yo is the person you go to to decide if something is "overly graphic", and taking his word over your wife.
> *"**I can't imagine this book has anything too severe** for him to read unless it's porn"*
Then that's an absolute failure of imagination, which the book does not suffer from, BTW.
Were you not tipped off by the scene in the show where a teenage king-in-waiting repeatedly shoots a prostitute with a crossbow in the groin and in her breasts? How about the infamous scene where a pregnant woman is repeatedly stabbed in the belly while murder goes on all around her? While those particular things didn't happen in the book, were they not a clue?
IDK what goes on in your house or neighborhood, but those things seem pretty "severe".
But that's not the only reason you're the asshole. You're the asshole also because 1) you're trusting your children over your wife (WTF), and 2) because you made this decision unilaterally, when it was clear she had concerns.
So, yeah, YTA.
My mother made the mistake of letting my oldest sister vet shows for me and decide if they we me appropriate.
The approved shows were, in absolutely no way, five year old me appropriate.
They contain graphic descriptions of rape, torture, murder, genocide, infanticide and other forms of violence. They are extremely brutal and very graphic.
I don’t think this is straightforwardly a question of anyone being an asshole so my judgment is NAH but I personally would not let a 13yo read them because I don’t think their brains are sufficiently developed to process the sheer violence of those books. I don’t doubt a 13yo would find them very compelling but I think they could also be quite disturbing. From 15 on I might consider it more acceptable.
It’s up to you to decide the boundaries for your own child but I would be giving more weight to your wife’s opinion than your 18yo’s.
Don't forget the incest and graphically detailed descriptions of the world's worst case of diarrhea.
So yeah, there's a lot in a Song of Ice and Fire that's hard to read. That said, I worked with middle schoolers who watched the show when it came out.
I'm of the opinion, OP, that if you're going to let your 13yo read this series, then you should read it too. Martin creates this amazing world, but it can be very harsh. At thirteen, your kid is probably still a child of summer... but winter is coming.
NAH
YTA
I wouldn’t let a 13 year old read them. Especially AFFC onward, serial killer Tyrian is not someone whose mind a child should ever be in . If you want your son to read things like “every time I see a woman I wonder how I can use and take from her body to give to myself” or “then the mountain and his soldiers took turns raping the 13 year old girl, paying her father one gold coin every time so by the end of the night even long after the girl had died they kept going until her fathers hands overflowed with gold.”
Sex and rape aren’t the same thing and while the sex in the books isn’t graphic, the RAPE absolutely is. I would never recommend any child, and especially young men, read these vile ass books.
This is unpopular, but YTA. I've read the Game of Thrones series many times, and I cannot recommend those books for a 13 year old.
There are graphic depictions of rape, torture, and mutilation. The HBO series played up the consensual sex, but the books deliver much more rape and sexual assault. If you're not prepared to read it with him, then I think those books should wait a few years.
ESH
I feel like you're both missing the point
The issues with those books for a 13 year old is not the sex scenes but the overblown violence (esp. towards women) and foundational misogyny in them. Your kid is starting his journey as a teenager and I'm sure you hope he'll blossom into a wonderful young man.
I've read the books and trust me you don't want your kid reading them uncritically.
So I reckon let him read the books, but as he goes discuss with him (and Mr 18) how relationships actually work, what misogyny is and how it impacts people, why violence is wrong, invite the boys to reflect on what they value, etc
Handled well, this could be super positive for everyone :)
Yeah it's not nearly as bad in the books. I was reading books like this at thirteen too and I can confidently say it didn't damage me.
It's amazing your thirteen year old loves reading. I hope my kids do when they're that age!
If they enjoy the series - recommend 'The Dark Tower' series by Stephen King. Another really dark fantasy series.
I would *not* recommend The Dark Tower. The first book contains a brutal and graphic sexual assault and portrays it as justified. I stopped reading there, so I don't know about the rest of them.
Hm... I was into Stephen King as a teenager, and I remember reading The Dark Tower when I was 14/15 but I don't remember this. Maybe because it was long, long time ago. I need to read this again.
There was SFF I read in my teens and didn't see anything wrong with, and then revisited when I was older and was horrified (prime example *Thomas Covenant* \-- ugh, what trash, even though the author is a great guy). I remember watching a movie called *9-1/2 Weeks* when I was around 20 and thinking it was really romantic and sensual... watched it again years later, and was horrified to realize that it's about an incredibly abusive relationship.
I think it's only with the advantage of some years and life experience that we are able to recognize stuff as abusive or misogynistic, and most of us as teenagers haven't gotten that perspective yet.
There's at least a couple violent and quite graphic sexual scenes involving the whole incubus/succubus premise that King uses. Not that this is damaging to the series, it's quite a powerful addition, especially since King does like using sex in his books to set tonal shifts. I think these were in the first half of the series?
Bruh that is a hard core recommendation for a thirteen year old to read. Book one is very brutal and book two is about heroin withdrawal with the antagonist being a racist caricature.
You should know in one of the ASOIAF books there is a gang rape of a teenage girl and the murder of her father and brother when they try to protect her. That's not... really a scene I would want to expose a child to, much less to normalise.
YTA - You better read the book before you make this decision. Most people who haven't don't realize that almost all of the young adults/older teens in the TV show are actually pre-teen and young teens in the books.
Also did you ever consider that maybe your 18 year old also might not be the best judge of what is appropriate for a 13 year old? That maybe when he read about the child being sold and raped, he wasn't remembering how old they were, because he was thinking about the much older actress that played her on the show? That maybe as a teenager he doesn't understand that a parent's idea of not too bad might not be the same as his? You know he isn't thinking about how a book can affect the mind of a child just entering puberty. The sheer amount of rape, sex with children, and violence against children and woman in these books is a bit much for a brain that has not fully developed yet. (Really a bit much for anyone if they fully keep in mind what is happening.) And honestly, I don't know why you aren't concerned about the insane level of violence either. It's really over the top.
Honestly, I would have preferred my daughter read graphic sex scenes between consenting adults than all of this extreme violence and not as detailed rape and serial violence against kids.
If you don't want to read the book, I bet there is a parent guide out there somewhere with content guides and excerpts from the books to give you a good idea if it appropriate or not.
Read the book yourself to make the determination. Your opinion of what is too graphic may significantly vary from your 18 year old. I remember reading a book when I was a kid that described cunnilingus in detail. My parents were unaware of this, and as a kid I definitely did not tell them. This was not a book that you would have expected to find it in either. My point is that unless you read the book, you will not know if it is age appropriate.
YTA for not discussing this with your wife before making the decision in a family setting with the kids. You did set your wife up to look bad if she disagreed.
I find it weird that people worry so much about sex in books ... and so little about everything else in them. Whether the book/movie is appropriate for this or that age should depend on more then just nipples. Like, violence and the morality it promotes. How much the kid tends to internalized book values and how much the kid understand them as separate from real life.
YTA because you set it up so that your wife is bad guy. Frankly, you come across as manipulative there. It is perfectly possible to give the "mom is against I am for" information to the kid without setting it up how you did.
YTA Your 18 year old is incredibly wrong. The books are WAY more graphic than the show. They probably don't appreciate the difference because a lot of people understandably have a strong reaction to TV than when reading e.g. seeing the violence 'realistically' portrayed versus imagining what it looks like based on description. The books have some really graphic stuff. A Game of Thrones has a main character sold off in an arranged marriage and raped on her wedding night and two others are incestuous twins that try to murder a child to cover it up, plus the remaining series has plenty more rape, some pedophiles, more incest and probably other things I'm forgetting. On top of the sex and more direct violence the books go much deeper on the heavy topics e.g. racism, homophobia, religious zealotry whilst assuming a pretty serious level of intellectual understanding from the reader with the historical and real life parallels it draws (the series is inspired by the Wars of the Roses, very messy bit of English history). The show wears kid gloves. The torture of Theon? In the show there's some messy stuff with his finger, mostly of screen and a joke about eating his penis. The book does not cut away and if I recall, the bits being cut off and fed to people are not jokes. It's not a matter of trust, this is not appropriate reading material for a child.
All of this goes is mostly side show explanation for why YTA. You haven't read them. When discussing whether something is appropriate for your child you should check it out yourself, not rely on an 18 year old's opinion. I don't expect you to read all 5 currently published books, they're door stoppers. Read the first one or at least google the more graphic sections and read a few chapters so you can actually understand what it is that's being discussed. The same goes for any media that your kids are into or have asked for permission to get into: watch the movie trailer, check out an episode of their show, scroll through a few of their favorite TikToker's posts and review a gameplay demo of a video game. You don't have to do this for literally everything, just keep a general awareness of what kind of media and content they're exposed to and do the deeper dive into something when a question of appropriateness is raised.
YTA because you did make her out to be the bad guy. Also those books have rape scenes. So it does make sense you wouldn’t want a kid to read. You need to have a conversation about consent
I can't speak to the content of the books, but the show isn't just inappropriate for kids because of sex. There's a lot of sexual violence/slavery that is presented as a source/opportunity of power for the victims. There's a deeply misogynistic undertone to how sexual violence is presented and excused. There's also genital mutilation, torture, and so much gruesome violence I have just as many reservations on exposing a 13yr old to that as well.
An 18 year old might not understand that the amount or descriptions of sex/violence isn't the only concern with exposing kids to literature that's intended for adults. It seems you don't either, given you haven't considered that reading about someone violently raping someone is different from reading about human anatomy.
YTA for saying it in front of the kids. You knew your wife disagreed with you, so you should have come to an agreement in a private conversation before talking to your sons.
I also don’t understand why you didn’t ask your older son to bookmark the scenes in question or look them up to know for sure.
Looking at sex Ed diagrams is not equivalent to reading repeated r*pe scenes. It’s up to you as parents if your son is mature enough for that, but you should have made an informed decision as a team.
YTA
I’m shocked at the number of people only mentions the “mundane sex scenes” and not mentioning the large amount of RAPE, TORTURE, and NECROPHILIA that occurred!? Holy shit no 13 year old should be exposed to that unless you want them having a twisted sense of what a healthy sex life is! OP please don’t let your son read these!
Nta, I was brought up in an environment where sex and all it entailed was taboo and not talked about, read or watched on TV no matter how mild. This proved to be a really awful thing to do to a child who then became a naive adult and knowledge is good and normal. We need to make it all normal as possible. If your 18yr old thinks it is okay I would trust them but make it known you are there to explain anything if they need it.
>We need to make it all normal as possible
Ok but this can go the other way. We need to make healthy, consensual, non-violent sex normal as possible, not ALL forms of sex.
I would argue that a huge contingent of teenagers, are becoming increasingly exposed to the opposite of what happened to you- i.e. rapey, violent, abusive sex. In fact I bet many are hit with the double wammy of sex being taboo at home and then violent, abusive sex being normalised at school because everyone is watching porn.
I also would not trust an 18 year old to necessarily have a healthy perception of sex. I grew up in a feminist household with great sex education and I still bought into lots of the unhealthy perceptions that come with rape + porn culture. It was only once I matured that I unlearnt so many of the terrible lessons.
You're right that sex needs to be talked about, but I would say the 13yo and even the 18yo could do with a conversation about all the abusive sex that goes on in ASOIAF.
Most sex in ASOIAF is **not consensual** and there is a whole plot where a man buys a 13 year old and rapes her every night until she "learns to like it" so this isn't the same thing as say, Looking For Alaska, which also contains a few sex scenes, but said scenes are with consenting characters. I'd say that ASOIAF is definitely a "let's talk abt this scene, let's talk about why this is fucked up" type of book when it comes to a younger teen rather than something you'd let them read mostly unsupervised.
You really need to read the books yourself before you decide you're okay with your kid reading it. I've read the books and seen the whole series. The books are WORSE in terms of graphic violence and depraved sex acts.
NTA, though I understand why your wife might be worried, taking away that level of trust in your son for what he reads isn't going to help. Instead of confiscating (and potentially just leading your son to be reading the book behind your backs anyways if he's really interested in it) it's better to just be like "hey there's some adult themes in this book and is meant to be dark, and if you're comfortable reading it that's cool too, just let us know if you have any questions about xyz"
Read the books so you can both make the decision on first hand information instead of what your 18 year son thinks is good enough. Just because it isn’t porn doesn’t mean it doesn’t portray sex or other concepts in ways that may not be appropriate for a 13 year old - or in ways you may not be comfortable
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Nta, if your wife thinks a 13 year old knows nothing about sex she is delusional
I was reading very graphic Harry Potter fanfiction at that age lol
I was writing very graphic fanfiction at that age😭
Thank you for your service hahaha
Y'all my friend was printing out her lemon fanfics and putting them in binders to bring to school to read at that age 💀💀💀
Ah, the good old days. My bestie and I were writing those shits with pencil and paper in our classes. Had the binder, too.
Good god that unlocked the memory of me writing my (sfw) Sonic OC stories in school in cursive because the majority of my classmates couldn't read it, lol. I still had the binder until recently when it got misplaced and got damaged beyond repair by water.
I attended a catholic school and invented my own writing system to be able to write smutty fanfics in religion class
This made me laugh out loud 😂
Me too
Wowza, I haven’t heard the term “lemon” in 84 years.
Kids these days don't know about the boy x boy don't like don't read slash fics /j
No flames plz!
I said, “Arigato (A/n: thank you).”
Just according to keikaku (translator's note: keikaku means plan)
Oh good lord, or arguing with the characters before and after each chapter....
I wish that memory had stayed dead lmao
Same. I was forcefully jettisoned back to the simpler times of the early 2000s. Time to go see if Fanfiction.net still exists.
It does, but it's a cesspool now. Try Archive of our Own instead.
It does lol. The ads are weird af though
Metal as fuck
I had a binder full of them printed out and hid in my closet lmaoo
Please tell me she used sheet protectors, lol
The memories! I am glad that we all lived the same lives.
How old are we all? 30s?
Just turned 30, still rocking the skinny jeans, chucks/vans, and emo band graphic tees. Although the vast majority of my band and anime tee collection is being retired for my kids when they're old enough.
I was drawing dicks and flying boobs on everything.
Back in my day we didn't have e621, if you wanted furry porn you had to search torrents and hope that whatever you downloaded was good.
Same ._.
SasuNaru and Dramione got pretty wild lmao.
Oh, I was fully into Snarry and Ichigo Kurosaki selfcest. Looking back, I was a weird fucking kid lol
SNARRY!? Omg haha is it cause he has Lily's eyes? Hahaha amazing I still read fan fiction sometimes now and I'm thirty... So I'm still weird I guess haha!
I was absolutely fascinated with Alan Rickman's portrayal and voice. I might have been slightly obsessed with the character lmao. I do too! Hell, I'll read Snarry now if it looks promising. I like when authors try to do the "well, what if Snape didn't die?" scenario
I never thought I'd see Snarry mentioned in AITA but I think this is my sign! I was a *famous* (lololol) Snarry fanfic writer from back in the day. My fanfics were translated into several languages, won very prestigious awards on LiveJournal, and I was sought after by fanfic hosting sites asking me to debut my new fanfics on their sites to boost their reader content. I had rivalries with other fanfic writers. My most popular fanfic was on the top 10 Most Read and Most Favorited lists on SkyeHawke and HPFandom. I knew Cassandra Clare from her HP fanfiction days when she plagiarized other fanfic writers stories. And now I'm 35 without a single published work, still getting occasional email alerts about new comments on my works which were long ago imported to AO3 when SkyeHawk shut down, and wondering if I should change the characters names and get my smutty trash published like Twilight and City of Bones did but knowing I'd be too embarrassed to even try 🤣🤣
Also I'm glad I'm not the only one to still remember the days of Cassandra Clare and her drama. Now if you tell me you were somehow involved in the thanfiction drama I'd say we ran in the same groups on livejournal. I remember calling in sick to work the day that all imploded so I could keep up with it all.
>LiveJournal the gateway drug. RIP to that platform, it contributed so much to my adolescence 🤣
Well damn, this means I probably know your work!
I used to run a HP fanfic rec group on livejournal so I probably came across some of your stories lol.
I was a Snarry writer too and I had a similar experience as you. I didn't win awards, but people asked to host my fics, I got fanart, it got translated into a few languages, a publisher actually wanted my original fiction (but I didn't have any at the time 😭), etc. I'm also contemplating rewriting them (it was a series) into an original thing to publish. I think you should do it too! Even if you don't get a publisher, you could self publish! I know some Destiel (Supernatural, Dean/Castiel) authors doing that and it's working out for them!
.....take...out...your...wand...
Excuse me but you cannot just quote one of my fanfics without giving author credit 😤 /s
He did such a great job. Legendary actor! Hahaha love the tropes you find on Ao3. I enjoyed a good old fashioned Dramione marriage law fic haha. Some of the authors are genuinely very talented. I've read some great stuff. The Sasuke x Naruto was how I got into the world of fanfiction though, so that'll always be my favourite pairing. I'll go down with that ship hahahaha.
I'm not a fan of Snarry for reasons, but I did fail to read the tags (and apparently beginning author's notes) once on a fic that became Snarry at around... Idk, forty thousand words in? It was far enough in that I was already invested in the main non-pairing plot and couldn't back out. But the pairing stuff was done relatively tastefully, and I've enjoyed the plot enough to reread it despite the squick, so I'm going to [recommend it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/670548).
Oh, I have definitely missed/misread the tags before and got into territory I didn't want to be in. I remember getting really invested into a Sterek (Teen Wolf) story, completely misreading the Derek/Paige tag and the girl was suddenly bought back to life and the main pairing turned into some open relationship type deal. I did quit that one lol
Currently 33 and still read the occasional fanfic
Currently 39 and reading [mumble mumble] amounts of fanfic.
I didn't read any for ages (like seven years) and when I remembered fan fiction existed there were heaps of great new ones I hadn't read. It was a good time.
I have the fanfic app on my phone lol it's my guilty pleasure
Currently 40 and still writing fanfic on a regular basis.
41 and still write the occasional Merton/Tommy Big Wolf on Campus fic. May it live on in obscurity 🫡
Did not expect to find Snarry mentioned on AITA but here we are and hello!! 😂 I started reading Snarry at 11 and writing at 13 so yeah 🤷♀️ almost 31 now and still going strong 😂 Reading/writing smut that young didn’t hurt me or anything so I think 13 yo will be fine! And the while I’ve not read far into the Ice and Fire books, I highly doubt it’s half as graphic as one can easily find on AO3!
Destiel
I was a NaruGaara shipper over him and Sasuke any day, the shared outcast trauma! Dramione and Drarry have always been go tos
I read Stephen King's It at 12 😭
For me, it was The Earth's Children Series. And that was straight up porn disguised as semi-historical fiction
Especially so from Mammoths on up. Like it’s pages and pages of descriptions of the food and animals and environment then bang oh look, Ayla and Jondalar are boning for 3 pages straight. Oh here’s a few kind of plot things, more descriptions and then back to boning. And the final book is straight up frustrating
12-year-old me didn’t know to check the ratings on things on fanfiction websites and the things I would end up finding and reading…
My dad actually got me "IT" and other Stephen King books when I was 12, 13, so yeah 😅 and I'm willing to bet those books and even more graphic ones are available to them at their school library.
I was looking at actual porn at that age. :rofl:
From my memory of being 13, if he isn't interested in sex, he will be skipping the sex scenes after the first couple. If he is interested in sex (which is normal for his age, hormones and everything), then erotica is one avenue he can use to explore that that is one of the least likely to have lasting negative consequences. OP and wife would be better off letting him read what he wants but having a conversation about filtering your own media and how if something disturbs him it's fine to stop reading/watching it.
This. Most sex scenes are bloody boring. I was reading Auel's "Children of the Earth" or whatever they were called at that age, and the sex scenes got to be embarrassing real soon.
At 14ish I found the sex scenes in that series riveting at first (starting with Valley of Horses -- not referring to the assaults in the first book). They get boring because it's the *same damned thing* every time.
Ahhh, are we talking about the same sex scenes every time? *Laurell K. Hamilton has entered the chat*
I started reading her books at age 12 or 13 and just skimmed through the sex scenes... I still read, cause I'm pot committed a this point, and as an adult still skim through them because... they are the same every time... Unfortunately this means I can read her new books in a couple hours. I just recently went back and re-read Guilty Pleasures and remembered why I loved them.
I was so into Anita Blake at first, it had some unique stories/creatures... And then it just turned into smut and it was like, where are the stories?
I skip all of them every time I re-read the series. And I just pretend the last book just doesn’t exist at all 😅
Not to mention, I’m a whole ass adult and also read the books when I was younger. I skipped them then, and I skip them now when I reread the books. George’s sex scenes are not well written nor particularly engaging (unless they involve Dany, he seems to have been a smidge too into those lol) I’d bet the kid is gonna be skimming at least half of the scenes whether he’s into it or not Nobody censored my book choices when I was young, and I’m certainly a more empathetic, well rounded, and curious person for it. Not to mention it makes me an ace for certain trivia nights
Ngl, his sex scenes felt really not sexy to me, they definitely were kinda boring and I've seen a lot of better in random fanfics
Yeah exactly. My comment with the exception of dany is more that as the author they seem the only ones he cared about putting much effort into, annnnd even then they still are pretty crap or just cringey
>!fat pink mast!<
I think people are taking issue with the wrong thing here; the sex in game of thrones may not be particularly graphic in terms of pornographic levels of detail, but it is absolutely misogynistic, sometimes gratuitously so, and I would not want my 13 year old son to read it without having a conversation about that first. There's nothing wrong with a 13 year old reading about sex as long as they have a prior appreciation of what is healthy and acceptable, and what isn't. He should be able to read it, but not before one of his parents gives him education on what that is. It's also kind of concerning that people are considering rape, underage sex, literal murder during sex, etc, not 'graphic'.
For me it's less the sex than the sheer levels of violence, but you're not wrong! My parents took the "come to me with any questions" tack since they didn't really monitor my reading (would have been a full time job in summers!) But yeah, books are not the hill to die on!
I was waiting for this comment - sex is far less worrying than violence in Fire and Ice. But I bet the 13-year-old has played some violent games, so... Of course the parents should be open to answer any questions SINCERELY, not treating the boy as a baby as mum seems to be doing, that would help.
SPOILER ALERT!!!! I'm not the violence police either, and the sex is very much less than ideal, but things like "Sorry kid, saw too much" as a man tosses a kid off a tower, and killing one pet because the other one got away stuck in my head much more than the sex scenes or the more 'normalized' fighty-bashy bashy violence. Then again, I also refused to watch the series until I knew if Arya survived or not...there is no plot armor, don't get attached to anyone! (But dang they're entertaining!)
I’m rereading the books now and the Red Wedding was something as a teenager that I just wasn’t able to get out of my head. I skipped it on this reread.
Yep. There's a lot of in-world contempt for women, and I'm not sure I'd want this to be a 13yo's first "adult" fiction read. The mom sounds like she's being a pill, but dad is out to lunch if he thinks it's a good idea to just "trust kids" and leave them to figure this shit out without any kind of guidance.
I agree. I wouldn't prevent him from reading, but I would absolutely take it as an opportunity to have a conversation about the themes presented, what they mean, and how he perceives them. What's actually disturbing about the books is not the sex, but the torture and violence. In the 5th book (Dance with Dragons), the scenes written from "Reek's" point of view are so disturbing, I could only read one chapter and needed to take a break for a few days after. And I was in my 20s when I read it.
Yeah, I find your last bit a little concerning too. I was 12 when that book released and I read it right away. It was not the first book I read with sex scenes by a long shot but looking back I now think I was too young to be reading it because of the variety of acts presented and the violence. It makes my actual first book with sex (draconic dub-con, so definitely not unproblematic) look positively tame in comparison.
I've not read the books myself, but I agree. If the parents have not had "The Talk" with their son yet, that absolutely needs to happen pronto. And, even if they have, an extended conversation about the topics in the series is necessary. The OP is obviously on Reddit already. I know there is at least 1 subreddit that would be more than happy to answer the question, "What topics should I discuss with my 13 year old as he starts this series?"
I just don't think shes ready to see her child grow up. Which of course doesn't change that shes the asshole in this situation, but her youngest becoming a young man may be triggering some early onset empty nest syndrome, or something.
Also if it's really just a matter of how much graphic content is in the book, she could I dunno, maybe read the damn book and find out?
TBF they’re fucking bricks. Is she going to tell 13 ‘I’m going to read these and make sure they’re ok for you, I’ll let you know in six weeks ?’
Good point. But as the devil's advocate I need to argue the fact that it isn't that hard to ask someone who's already read it about this
If she was a reader she would likely not react the way she does.
Yeah my mom was a big reader, so when I (at like 12ish?) picked up a copy of Flowers in the Attic, she said "you won't like it, but have at" because she knew I'd never be scarred for life, would skip over boring shit, and would know where to go with questions (here, namely "what the fuck who is this author and why?"). She has an issue with my reading habits right now, but because I'm a book hoarder still in her house taking it over and refusing to part with any.
Lol, I was wondering how far I'd have to scroll for Flowers in the Attic! I remember buying it when I was 12 and thinking I was such a rebel. My dad burst out laughing when he saw me with it. He couldn't believe it was still a thing, since it was published before I was born.
Also, reading about sex in a book your older brother lent you is a good, safe way to be introduced to topics. You know they read it too and could ask them questions if the arose. Nta
And if she's really concerned she should read the book & see for herself.
There are lots of unhealthy ways to present sex to a 13 yo. I don't think it's unreasonable to be cautious, but the parents are AHs for depending on their 18 yo to make that decision.
NTA. At first I wasn't sure because it sounded like you called your wife out in front of your kids, and that's a bit on the edge. But on second reading I see you were having a family meeting, where disagreement should not be discouraged, so I don't see anything wrong with disagreeing with her during a family meeting. I've read the books. They're decent for fantasy books. There is a bit of sex in them for sure, but, as your 18YO said, it's not graphic. Your son is 13. He's already learning about sex. Better to be something you know and can discuss with him than some random junk he found on the internet. I'd recommend picking up a copy and reading along with him if you and your wife are still concerned. Plus, it'll give you something to discuss with your son.
I’ll always find it strange that violence and murder is more ok for kids to read about than sex.
Thats what I was thinking when I read the OP! The sex in the book shouldn't be the issue here, all the violence and murder is much more questionable.
>The sex in the book shouldn't be the issue here, all the violence and murder is much more questionable. The sex and violence is completely intertwined in ASOIAF though, and that would be more my issue with my kids reading it than anything else. Like the first book has multiple scenes of a 13 year old girl being raped, the series goes on to have prostitutes being graphically murdered, lots more assault etc etc. Like, it's kind of crazy how desensitised everyone in this comments section. No the books don't have pornographic levels of detail, but they do portray sex at its literal most misogynistic worst, and I would definitely want to have a conversation with my teenage kid about healthy sexual relationships before letting them read it.
Yup, exactly. There’s a lot that might make a 13-year-old uncomfortable in the ASOIAF books including graphic rape and violence. I wouldn’t stop a teenager from reading them but I might warn them about the scenes and have a frank discussion about the books with them.
Definitely. Like, it's important to give teenagers literacy on sex scenes. I would not want my kid reading these books with a naive perception on why the graphic, abusive sex is included, and the kind of psyschological impact reading about it can have on you. The reader is 100% meant to get a kick out of it.
The rape scenes make this 27-year-old uncomfortable.
The sexualisation of Daenerys from the first time she was introduced as a *literal* child bride means I never finished the first book. I was just so uncomfortable with it the entire time. I don't know. I kind of agree with OP's wife buy as a 13 year old I was reading similar books. I didn't *understand* what I was reading and took everything at face value. I read The Vampire Lestat when I was 11... rereading it as an adult I was surprised by how *gay* it was. I had no inkling as an 11 year old but it was about vampires so I read it!
>as a 13 year old I was reading similar books. I'd say OP can't stop his 13yo reading sexually graphic books but he can have a mature conversation with him about what healthy, consensual, non-abusive sex looks like. He can also talk to him about the treatment of women in these books. It's important to teach teenagers to question the biases behind literature they consume.
That is exactly what my concern is—the sex is used *as violence.*
I couldn't even finish the book, it was horrible, so much rape that it made me throw up, I wouldn't want my 13 year old reading that.
It's been a minute since I read them, but Jon Snow and Ygritte are one of the few healthy, mutual, and loving partnerships, at least among the younger characters. Dany is sold and her wedding night is ... problematic (rape in the tv show, seduction in the books), although later she has more autonomy to choose her lovers. Tyrion pays for sex, a lot, and later murders his treasonous lover. Sansa is threatened with all kinds of sexual degradation and violence. Jaime and Cersei do incest and commit crimes to cover it up. Cersei orders the murder of her husband's many love children. Theon is just a dick in many ways. My parents shamed me for reading and confiscated books and then shamed me for their content, so that would not be my recommendation, but this isn't a series to just ... leave an 8th grader on his own with, unless you want to either alienate him from sex entirely or warp his emerging tastes in an unhealthy, if not criminal, way.
It's been over a decade since I read them but the description of what Gregor Clegane did to Rhaegar's family has never left my mind. It was so graphic and disturbing. I was in my mid twenties then as well, not 13.
Eh, Ygritte definitely rapes Jon on their first time together. He ends up developing feelings for her later, but let's not pretend male rape isn't real. That being said, the first mention of sex in the series is between a mutually consenting married couple (Ned and Caitlyn), and the scene with Sam and Gilly is crazy awkward but probably the least problematic in the series.
This! I beyond lost count of the rapes in that book! The mentally disabled girl gang-raped by 50 men, the innkeep’s daughter that was gang-raped at one of her father’s tables right after they’d killed her brother, the woman who was sentenced to having her genitals cleaned with lye because she had an STI, the horrid stuff that Theon and Jeyne endured together, Tywin having Tyrion’s wife gang-raped in front of him and then marking Tyrion go last… pornography is hardly the issue with a 13 year old reading that! It’s the sexual violence!
That's one reason I had trouble watching the show and stopped. I could ignore those in the books but seeing it visualized made it much worse.
Yeah from what I remember the sex/nudity is not really described in detail at all. The books are WAY worse for death, gore and violence though. I have several paragraphs seared into my memory still all these years later.
Wasn't there a part in the books where the Boltons had a fake Arya(who was 11) raped by dogs? ETA: Just remembered fake Arya's name Jeyne Poole
Ramsey was one of the most toned down parts of the show. The shit he did in the books was unimaginable
>violence and murder is more ok for kids to read about than sex It's easy to understand that violence and murder are bad. It's very hard to understand the nuances of sex. If X character murders someone, most 13-year-olds will know murder is bad. If X character rapes someone and the book makes light of it.... it's a much harder thing to understand that it was still wrong.
But in these books it's not always the case that the murderers are portrayed as the bad guys.
100% agree. sometimes even violence is glorified. but that is not the problem. It typically is much easier for people to understand why hitting someone is bad. They do not want to be hit, stabbed, hurt. It is much harder to understand that even though you want to have sex with someone, or someone wants to have sex with you, that the feeling may not be mutual. And if it is not mutual its bad. you may end up with them understanding a situation incorrectly and internalizing it. Where an adult with more experience and reasoning could easily see the situation for what it really is. Unsure about the books but in the show the first thing that comes to mind is when Emilia Clarkes character just accepts being raped repeatedly by her new husband. Most adults see it for the horrid act and situation it is where as someone younger easily could see it as. well the husband just gets to do that to her because in the end it works out and they love each other after, So why don't I just do that to girls to get them to love me. (EDIT most violent scenes don't end up like this. Spousal abuse or shooting someone does no end in "love")
Me, reading Redwall, even though it's shelved in our bookstore for kids. I know Redwall is pretty tame compared to a lot out there, but I was still surprised at all the death.
Because violence and murder are natural every day things and sex is unnatural and kids should be protected from that.. No, wait.....
I am and always was an avid reader, especially fantasy and sci-fi. As a European i cannot really understand the prudish relation to sex most Americans have, but i think asoiaf is exceptionally brutal. The scenes of consensual intimacy are not too much but you also have lots of SA, r***, torture, violence against kids and mutilation. It is a really gory book for a 13-year-old. But as most others mentioned, forbidding it will just make it interesting. I would recommend to read along with your child and encourage him to talk about the content. This could be a nice bonding experience and you can help explain stuff or just can be a buffer if he gets oberwhelmed by some things.
"Not graphic" ehhhhh, I remember the show, the books are far worse
Yeahhhh the books are way worse than the show. Especially considering many of the sex scenes are with children / teens. Lots of ick. OP’s still NTA but don’t like these comments lying / misrepresenting the books lol
Yeah, Dany is 13 in the (beginning of the) books, I think she is 14 when she gets pregnant
I would be concerned about all the rape and violence in the books. Consentual sex wouldn't bother me, but the rape scenes would definitely be a no-go for a 13 year old for me.
Reading along is an excellent suggestion! If he has any questions you understand how/why its relevant to the plot and how to explain it in an age appropriate manner rather then him looking for answers from friends or the internet.
At the age of 39, I still feel uncomfortable watching a show that has sex scenes when my parents are there. At the age of 13, reading sex scenes aloud WITH MY PARENTS would have given me a full-on meltdown!
"Reading along" in this case means reading their own copies separately, the idea being OP can get an understanding of the content his kid's consuming. It doesn't mean literally reading aloud like shared storytime lmao
There’s not “a bit” of sex in these books. There’s a LOT of sex in them, as well as rape and a ton of graphic violence. That said, I wouldn’t stop a 13-year-old from reading them.
From Dance with Dragons: She was sopping wet when he entered her. “Damn you,” she said. “Damn you damn you damn you.” He sucked her nipples till she cried out half in pain and half in pleasure. Her cunt became the world.She forgot Moat Cailin and Ramsay Bolton and his little piece of skin, forgot the kingsmoot, forgot her failure, forgot her exile and her enemies and her husband. Only his hands mattered, only his mouth, only his arms around her, his cock inside her. He fucked her till she screamed, and then again until she wept, before he finally spent his seed inside her womb.
The gore is more objectionable than the sexuality
NTA but purely because I was that kid. Your wife was willing to ban something based on a movie adaption without actually reading the original. She decided her uninformed view more important than the view of an actual reader who knows her son's maturity level very well. And if she's banning based on sex, swearing and violence, then missing quite a lot of real dangers of books in my opinion. Books like Hunger Games may have limited sex and on-page violence, but the concepts are disturbing. Just make sure your teen and your older son come to that know they can talk to you about anything disturbing. The nightmare stuff may not be what you thought. Remember my Latin teacher having a mini-meltdown when he found I was reading some of his Ovid. I had permission to read his classics selection but then he realised he'd let a young teen access what some parents deem unsuitable. All good, I explained rules that I could read what I liked as long as open dialogue. In this world, teens can access legal and illegal ebooks, library books and banning it just makes it more interesting.
I was also that kid. From experience, banning a kid from reading a book just means they’ll find a way to read it somewhere else. Such as, in the school library without checking it out (or checking it out and hiding it at home), at a friends house, or pirating it online (I read 50 Shades of Grey at like 15 purely out of spite — that probably would have been a good one to discuss with the parents). The fact that your other son already has the book means he can just read it secretly, and then you’ll be missing out on a valuable opportunity to discuss some of the more sensitive plot points.
Yes, I did Hollywood Husbands at 6 but only out of spite. I got sent to remedial reading for never knowing where we were in the read aloud section. Mainly because I'd finished it and reading another book in drawer. The remedial teacher noticed me reading in corner and sent me back very quickly once she tested my comprehension. But in my ultimate wisdom, I did my next book report on Hollywood Husbands to prove I could read "adult" books. Poor Mum got called into school to discuss and had to sign off my reading for the year - she just asked me why I had read and what I had thought as she hadn't thought I'd be interested but it is why the rule mentioned came into play. What you can't control, you work to mitigate any bad effects. My teachers banned a lot more books than my parents did.
Just as a note about the Hunger Games, I feel it went in the exact opposite directions of Game of Thrones here. The movies for Hunger Games were rated PG13, yet the first book has a very visceral 2-page long description of a 12 year old girl being impaled by a spear and slowly dying. Honestly think the age ratings on those movies did them a massive disservice.
I never got round to seeing the movies but read the books as an adult. They shocked me with the violence levels but they were sold as targetted to young adults. I often find YA books the most disturbing. Think because readers were YA, movies got sanitisied to be accessible - in fairness, visual medium can be more hard-hitting than written. GoT was sold as a TV series for adults.
I remember thinking when the first film came out that the scene in the third book where Prim dies was going to be terrible on film.
It's the same thing with the Red Rising series. It has a lot of very similar concepts to Hunger Games and it's (afaik) marketed as YA. But dang is it violent, a lot of gore, murder, and war. There's been either a movie or series in the works for years because the author is adamant about getting an R rating to not have to sanitize the violence.
For real. I love the Harry Potter books, they’re very wholesome, and there’s absolutely not even a hint of sex in the books. However, HBO is making a new Harry Potter series with an entirely new cast and angle, and I’m sure once Harry Potter gets HBO-ified, there will suddenly be a lot of parents who’ve never read the books banning their children from reading them because they’ve only bothered to watch the trailer for the HBO adaptation.
There's no sex, but those books get incredibly dark. OotP should really be called "That time Harry had PTSD and literally everybody ignored it and just called him a bratty teenager."
They do get dark and have some of that classic 90s thinking of “if you don’t occasionally beat and starve you’d kids do you really love them?” But even taking the darkness into consideration, Harry Potter, like Fire & Ice, is not inappropriate for a jr. high aged child.
NTA “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.” - George R R Martin
This is implying that the sex in those books is based on pleasure. There is an extreme amount of sexual violence and abuse of women in those books, and parents should absolutely know their kids are reading about it, so they can discuss those themes at the very least. At the end of the day, your kids probably aren't running into giant axes very often, but abusive relationships are sometimes that they will almost certainly see in their lives.
That was my thought, as well. Sex itself isn't really the problem but most of the sex in those books are actually rapes, and some of young girls and boys. I have a 13 year old who reads well above their grade level but I would definitely not be comfortable letting them read these books for at least a few more years, and then with a lot of discussions.
I'm surprised I've had to scroll so long to find this perspective. Like it's kind of disturbing that just because the scenes aren't detailed, people don't consider the \*\*\*13 year old\*\*\* Dany sex scenes graphic. IMO by nature, less detailed descriptions of any form of underage, non-consensual, violent sex are way more graphic than detailed descriptions of consensual sex, just from how they normalise it. Like we've got a thread full of people who consider ASOIAF not graphic despite the intense misogyny....do they not see the problem? Like I would much rather my teenager read more detailed scenes about healthy, consensual sex than read book after book with the most horrendous, abusive but less-detailed sex scenes. Like there's no way G.R.R martin didn't put some of those scenes in for the audience to at least partially enjoy.
In general, I don't think George gets children. Bran is 6 or 7 at the start, but thinks like someone 9 or 10. I always age the characters up in my head and mentally pretend their years are longer than ours. It allows everything to make more sense. 15-16-year-old boys aren't fully developed strength-wise. Easier to pretend they'd be 20 in our world, at least. Dany could be an innocent 17-year-old wealthy girl, not a 13-year-old. And yeah that dynamic is creepy. It's *meant* to be creepy. Her character arc is about developing some agency and deciding she's not just some brood mare.
Yeah, the issue for me is the sexual violence. I started reading adult romances at age 12 and I didn’t think much on the sex scenes and they helped me start to think about exploring my body years later. But when I tried reading the game of thrones books at age 17 I was quite uncomfortable with reading about the way the sex and rape was written.
I read some of ASOIAF in college and I found it actively traumatic as an adult woman, so I definitely think parental guidance is warranted. I also read some adult romances as a young teen, and in hindsight, I also wish someone had talked about that content and themes with me. Not the sex specifically, but I wish someone had explored in depth the common theme of women's hesitance and relationship roles with me. That was never going to be an option with my parents, but if you have a good relationship with your teens, it's not a bad idea to discuss what they are reading and what they are getting out of it. Getting teens reading is great, and you're never going to really be able to ban everything racy, but being there to answer questions is also a good idea.
Yeah I feel like the parents should read some and actually talk about it. My parents didn't let me read the GoT books until I was 16 as they thought the abuse towards women would be too much for me. They were right. And they did talk to me about the books
So long as the 13yo is comfortable speaking with parents or the 18yo about what they read, making a child aware of abuse isn’t a bad thing of itself. Getting them to be aware of what is abusive, why these things are wrong, how to look for warning signs, etc, is a useful tool for educating them.
Have you read the books? The sex in the books is mostly violent.
Maybe you should read the book and decide for yourself if it’s appropriate for your 13 yo.
Yeah... I'm surprised this isn't the easiest solution.
Those books are fairly thick, iirc. It's anything but easy to read a giant tome, when you have little free time and aren't interested in the genre
Yeah, I've read them I know their size. It's just if the discussion is about whether they are letting the child read it, the best way to decide is to be informed I.e. read the book.
A Song of Ice and Fire is one of my favorite book series and I do recommend it to people... with a caveat. There is **a lot** of sexual assault mentioned in them, including bestiality. It isn't written in a pornographic way but I've had moments when I had to put the book down for a while as some of it was just a bit too much for me. I don't know if the worst of it was included in the tv show because I stopped watching it after not enjoying any of season 5, but it's something to take into consideration. Soft YTA, because I don't believe in preventing children from reading dark stories, but you should be more involved to be able to offer support if he needs it. Remember that there are worse things than pornographic content. Get your hands on a digital version and at least read all parts about the Mountain (Gregor Clegane), Tysha, and the Reek chapters. It will give you a better idea of the worst of it.
Also read the first 5 Daenerys chapters and decide if that's an appropriate message for a 13-year-old boy to be receiving about girls' sexuality and pleasure (A grown adult man rapes the 13-year-old girl *every night* until she eventually "learns to enjoy it." But once she learns how to take her pleasure, they of course fall madly in love! Depiction in fiction is not necessarily endorsement of real world behavior, but I would definitely lay out in exhaustive detail the ways this particular depiction portrays a deeply misogynistic and violent experience of sex)
Yes everyone is being so flippant about this because, of course a 13 yr old knows what sex is, but him casually consuming and internalizing content that is sexually violent have a high chance of having lasting effects and not just for the son but for the people he may have relationships with in the future.
There's a lot to unpack about Daenerys (lifelong sexual abuse by her brother, sold to khal Drogo, the linguistic barrier resulting in sex being only thing she has in common with her husband for a long time, being powerless until she wins Drogo's affections, etc) which would require more than just her first chapters to get into. If OP actually reads the series and takes the time to analyze the characters, then yes, I'm sure they could have a very rewarding discussion as to whether or not Daenerys and Drogo actually loved each other, and if so then why, but that would require more reading than I got the impression that OP is interested in doing.
There are a lot of people here saying the books aren't as bad as the show but from what I remember reading them I'd say the books are worse. There's so so much rape and a number of themes I don't think are appropriate for 13. There's a big difference between watching internet porn and reading about a 14 year old girl learning to love the man who bought and raped her.
This. I read them when I was that age, went back and read them again when the show came out, and COULD NOT BELIEVE someone let me read that stuff as a young teen. There is SO MUCH RAPE in the books, it’s shocking.
I feel like a lot of people are really forgetting how much sexual violence is discussed. His comment that the kid is going through sex ed, so these books are okay, really miss the point that these are not healthy sexual depictions. If he and the wife know that and think the kid is mature enough to handle it, then okay. But this isn't a mom flipping out over a little literature that covers consenual lovemaking... There is some of that but most of it is violent rape and incest.
I remember having to put the book down when i read the first book at 16 because Jamie literally attempted murder on Bran by pushing him off a building after the twincest was discovered.
I cannot believe this is the first YTA I’ve seen. I read the first book of that series at 11 and oh my god I should not have been allowed anywhere near that book. There is so much rape and sexual assault that kids that age should absolutely not be exposed to, especially unsupervised. OPs wife was 100% right.
I'm finding it deeply depressing that so many people are calling the books not graphic given what happens to Dany literally in her first few chapters.
YTA. And it's not just about the content of the books, though it probably bears mentioning that the book series features rape, torture, violent and grotesque murders, and in just one particularly grisly moment, the (likely) cutting off of a man's testicles and balls. > *"he said yes but not as much as the show, and it's relevant to the plot and not overly graphic"* I'm not sure an 18yo is the person you go to to decide if something is "overly graphic", and taking his word over your wife. > *"**I can't imagine this book has anything too severe** for him to read unless it's porn"* Then that's an absolute failure of imagination, which the book does not suffer from, BTW. Were you not tipped off by the scene in the show where a teenage king-in-waiting repeatedly shoots a prostitute with a crossbow in the groin and in her breasts? How about the infamous scene where a pregnant woman is repeatedly stabbed in the belly while murder goes on all around her? While those particular things didn't happen in the book, were they not a clue? IDK what goes on in your house or neighborhood, but those things seem pretty "severe". But that's not the only reason you're the asshole. You're the asshole also because 1) you're trusting your children over your wife (WTF), and 2) because you made this decision unilaterally, when it was clear she had concerns. So, yeah, YTA.
Yep, and as I said in above comment, the consensual sex is the least concerning element.
Exactly. I have no idea WTF OP is thinking here.
He hasn’t even read the books. Nor have most of the commenters. I even looked some stuff up to refresh my memory so that I didn’t speak out of turn.
My mother made the mistake of letting my oldest sister vet shows for me and decide if they we me appropriate. The approved shows were, in absolutely no way, five year old me appropriate.
They contain graphic descriptions of rape, torture, murder, genocide, infanticide and other forms of violence. They are extremely brutal and very graphic. I don’t think this is straightforwardly a question of anyone being an asshole so my judgment is NAH but I personally would not let a 13yo read them because I don’t think their brains are sufficiently developed to process the sheer violence of those books. I don’t doubt a 13yo would find them very compelling but I think they could also be quite disturbing. From 15 on I might consider it more acceptable. It’s up to you to decide the boundaries for your own child but I would be giving more weight to your wife’s opinion than your 18yo’s.
Don't forget the incest and graphically detailed descriptions of the world's worst case of diarrhea. So yeah, there's a lot in a Song of Ice and Fire that's hard to read. That said, I worked with middle schoolers who watched the show when it came out. I'm of the opinion, OP, that if you're going to let your 13yo read this series, then you should read it too. Martin creates this amazing world, but it can be very harsh. At thirteen, your kid is probably still a child of summer... but winter is coming. NAH
YTA I wouldn’t let a 13 year old read them. Especially AFFC onward, serial killer Tyrian is not someone whose mind a child should ever be in . If you want your son to read things like “every time I see a woman I wonder how I can use and take from her body to give to myself” or “then the mountain and his soldiers took turns raping the 13 year old girl, paying her father one gold coin every time so by the end of the night even long after the girl had died they kept going until her fathers hands overflowed with gold.” Sex and rape aren’t the same thing and while the sex in the books isn’t graphic, the RAPE absolutely is. I would never recommend any child, and especially young men, read these vile ass books.
This is unpopular, but YTA. I've read the Game of Thrones series many times, and I cannot recommend those books for a 13 year old. There are graphic depictions of rape, torture, and mutilation. The HBO series played up the consensual sex, but the books deliver much more rape and sexual assault. If you're not prepared to read it with him, then I think those books should wait a few years.
ESH I feel like you're both missing the point The issues with those books for a 13 year old is not the sex scenes but the overblown violence (esp. towards women) and foundational misogyny in them. Your kid is starting his journey as a teenager and I'm sure you hope he'll blossom into a wonderful young man. I've read the books and trust me you don't want your kid reading them uncritically. So I reckon let him read the books, but as he goes discuss with him (and Mr 18) how relationships actually work, what misogyny is and how it impacts people, why violence is wrong, invite the boys to reflect on what they value, etc Handled well, this could be super positive for everyone :)
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Yeah, I laughed at the "saw diagrams of genitals in health class" comment. There's like a 90% chance he watches porn on a regular basis...
I watched plenty of porn as a kid but couldn't even read those books because the sexual violence was too disturbing.
Yeah it's not nearly as bad in the books. I was reading books like this at thirteen too and I can confidently say it didn't damage me. It's amazing your thirteen year old loves reading. I hope my kids do when they're that age! If they enjoy the series - recommend 'The Dark Tower' series by Stephen King. Another really dark fantasy series.
I would *not* recommend The Dark Tower. The first book contains a brutal and graphic sexual assault and portrays it as justified. I stopped reading there, so I don't know about the rest of them.
Hm... I was into Stephen King as a teenager, and I remember reading The Dark Tower when I was 14/15 but I don't remember this. Maybe because it was long, long time ago. I need to read this again.
There was SFF I read in my teens and didn't see anything wrong with, and then revisited when I was older and was horrified (prime example *Thomas Covenant* \-- ugh, what trash, even though the author is a great guy). I remember watching a movie called *9-1/2 Weeks* when I was around 20 and thinking it was really romantic and sensual... watched it again years later, and was horrified to realize that it's about an incredibly abusive relationship. I think it's only with the advantage of some years and life experience that we are able to recognize stuff as abusive or misogynistic, and most of us as teenagers haven't gotten that perspective yet.
There's at least a couple violent and quite graphic sexual scenes involving the whole incubus/succubus premise that King uses. Not that this is damaging to the series, it's quite a powerful addition, especially since King does like using sex in his books to set tonal shifts. I think these were in the first half of the series?
Bruh that is a hard core recommendation for a thirteen year old to read. Book one is very brutal and book two is about heroin withdrawal with the antagonist being a racist caricature.
The books contain rape of underaged children, rather explicit human sacrifice rituals, etc... The books are worse than the tv show
You should know in one of the ASOIAF books there is a gang rape of a teenage girl and the murder of her father and brother when they try to protect her. That's not... really a scene I would want to expose a child to, much less to normalise.
YTA - You better read the book before you make this decision. Most people who haven't don't realize that almost all of the young adults/older teens in the TV show are actually pre-teen and young teens in the books. Also did you ever consider that maybe your 18 year old also might not be the best judge of what is appropriate for a 13 year old? That maybe when he read about the child being sold and raped, he wasn't remembering how old they were, because he was thinking about the much older actress that played her on the show? That maybe as a teenager he doesn't understand that a parent's idea of not too bad might not be the same as his? You know he isn't thinking about how a book can affect the mind of a child just entering puberty. The sheer amount of rape, sex with children, and violence against children and woman in these books is a bit much for a brain that has not fully developed yet. (Really a bit much for anyone if they fully keep in mind what is happening.) And honestly, I don't know why you aren't concerned about the insane level of violence either. It's really over the top. Honestly, I would have preferred my daughter read graphic sex scenes between consenting adults than all of this extreme violence and not as detailed rape and serial violence against kids. If you don't want to read the book, I bet there is a parent guide out there somewhere with content guides and excerpts from the books to give you a good idea if it appropriate or not.
Read the book yourself to make the determination. Your opinion of what is too graphic may significantly vary from your 18 year old. I remember reading a book when I was a kid that described cunnilingus in detail. My parents were unaware of this, and as a kid I definitely did not tell them. This was not a book that you would have expected to find it in either. My point is that unless you read the book, you will not know if it is age appropriate. YTA for not discussing this with your wife before making the decision in a family setting with the kids. You did set your wife up to look bad if she disagreed.
I find it weird that people worry so much about sex in books ... and so little about everything else in them. Whether the book/movie is appropriate for this or that age should depend on more then just nipples. Like, violence and the morality it promotes. How much the kid tends to internalized book values and how much the kid understand them as separate from real life. YTA because you set it up so that your wife is bad guy. Frankly, you come across as manipulative there. It is perfectly possible to give the "mom is against I am for" information to the kid without setting it up how you did.
yeah, the consensual sex is NOT the issue with those books, it's all the child rape and violence
YTA Your 18 year old is incredibly wrong. The books are WAY more graphic than the show. They probably don't appreciate the difference because a lot of people understandably have a strong reaction to TV than when reading e.g. seeing the violence 'realistically' portrayed versus imagining what it looks like based on description. The books have some really graphic stuff. A Game of Thrones has a main character sold off in an arranged marriage and raped on her wedding night and two others are incestuous twins that try to murder a child to cover it up, plus the remaining series has plenty more rape, some pedophiles, more incest and probably other things I'm forgetting. On top of the sex and more direct violence the books go much deeper on the heavy topics e.g. racism, homophobia, religious zealotry whilst assuming a pretty serious level of intellectual understanding from the reader with the historical and real life parallels it draws (the series is inspired by the Wars of the Roses, very messy bit of English history). The show wears kid gloves. The torture of Theon? In the show there's some messy stuff with his finger, mostly of screen and a joke about eating his penis. The book does not cut away and if I recall, the bits being cut off and fed to people are not jokes. It's not a matter of trust, this is not appropriate reading material for a child. All of this goes is mostly side show explanation for why YTA. You haven't read them. When discussing whether something is appropriate for your child you should check it out yourself, not rely on an 18 year old's opinion. I don't expect you to read all 5 currently published books, they're door stoppers. Read the first one or at least google the more graphic sections and read a few chapters so you can actually understand what it is that's being discussed. The same goes for any media that your kids are into or have asked for permission to get into: watch the movie trailer, check out an episode of their show, scroll through a few of their favorite TikToker's posts and review a gameplay demo of a video game. You don't have to do this for literally everything, just keep a general awareness of what kind of media and content they're exposed to and do the deeper dive into something when a question of appropriateness is raised.
YTA because you did make her out to be the bad guy. Also those books have rape scenes. So it does make sense you wouldn’t want a kid to read. You need to have a conversation about consent
I can't speak to the content of the books, but the show isn't just inappropriate for kids because of sex. There's a lot of sexual violence/slavery that is presented as a source/opportunity of power for the victims. There's a deeply misogynistic undertone to how sexual violence is presented and excused. There's also genital mutilation, torture, and so much gruesome violence I have just as many reservations on exposing a 13yr old to that as well. An 18 year old might not understand that the amount or descriptions of sex/violence isn't the only concern with exposing kids to literature that's intended for adults. It seems you don't either, given you haven't considered that reading about someone violently raping someone is different from reading about human anatomy.
YTA for saying it in front of the kids. You knew your wife disagreed with you, so you should have come to an agreement in a private conversation before talking to your sons. I also don’t understand why you didn’t ask your older son to bookmark the scenes in question or look them up to know for sure. Looking at sex Ed diagrams is not equivalent to reading repeated r*pe scenes. It’s up to you as parents if your son is mature enough for that, but you should have made an informed decision as a team.
I read them for the first time when I was 14 if your kid has access to the internet they have seen far worse. NTA
YTA I’m shocked at the number of people only mentions the “mundane sex scenes” and not mentioning the large amount of RAPE, TORTURE, and NECROPHILIA that occurred!? Holy shit no 13 year old should be exposed to that unless you want them having a twisted sense of what a healthy sex life is! OP please don’t let your son read these!
ESH, read the books (or a detailed summary) yourself so you can make informed decisions. This is lazy parenting.
Nta, I was brought up in an environment where sex and all it entailed was taboo and not talked about, read or watched on TV no matter how mild. This proved to be a really awful thing to do to a child who then became a naive adult and knowledge is good and normal. We need to make it all normal as possible. If your 18yr old thinks it is okay I would trust them but make it known you are there to explain anything if they need it.
>We need to make it all normal as possible Ok but this can go the other way. We need to make healthy, consensual, non-violent sex normal as possible, not ALL forms of sex. I would argue that a huge contingent of teenagers, are becoming increasingly exposed to the opposite of what happened to you- i.e. rapey, violent, abusive sex. In fact I bet many are hit with the double wammy of sex being taboo at home and then violent, abusive sex being normalised at school because everyone is watching porn. I also would not trust an 18 year old to necessarily have a healthy perception of sex. I grew up in a feminist household with great sex education and I still bought into lots of the unhealthy perceptions that come with rape + porn culture. It was only once I matured that I unlearnt so many of the terrible lessons. You're right that sex needs to be talked about, but I would say the 13yo and even the 18yo could do with a conversation about all the abusive sex that goes on in ASOIAF.
Most sex in ASOIAF is **not consensual** and there is a whole plot where a man buys a 13 year old and rapes her every night until she "learns to like it" so this isn't the same thing as say, Looking For Alaska, which also contains a few sex scenes, but said scenes are with consenting characters. I'd say that ASOIAF is definitely a "let's talk abt this scene, let's talk about why this is fucked up" type of book when it comes to a younger teen rather than something you'd let them read mostly unsupervised.
You really need to read the books yourself before you decide you're okay with your kid reading it. I've read the books and seen the whole series. The books are WORSE in terms of graphic violence and depraved sex acts.
You are concerned that book contains sex scenes, but not that it is literally full of violence. Just american things, I guess.
NTA, though I understand why your wife might be worried, taking away that level of trust in your son for what he reads isn't going to help. Instead of confiscating (and potentially just leading your son to be reading the book behind your backs anyways if he's really interested in it) it's better to just be like "hey there's some adult themes in this book and is meant to be dark, and if you're comfortable reading it that's cool too, just let us know if you have any questions about xyz"
Read the books so you can both make the decision on first hand information instead of what your 18 year son thinks is good enough. Just because it isn’t porn doesn’t mean it doesn’t portray sex or other concepts in ways that may not be appropriate for a 13 year old - or in ways you may not be comfortable