Sex in the WoT adaptation

[Guire]

So something about relationships on show popped into my head after watching final episode.  The writing of the show wants a completely judgement free set positive view of sex and sensuality.  We haven't seen any cultural taboos, no male gaze, everyone does whowever they want whenever and however they want.  The occasional dad joke about not having enough holes even feels odd considering how sex seems to be completely a fully positive thing. No pregnancy concerns, no taboo relationships, no venereal disease.  And when it's shown it's very PG 13 and chaste.  Even Lanfear and Rand scenes which should be mind blowingly dirty and spicy just feel kind of like normal married for 20 years sex.

 

Basically I think they have managed to make sex boring while also wanting to show and imply lots of it.  I will admit that this show is not made for mid fifties straight guys but come on there is just nothing cooking in this kitchen.  Feel free to to disprove me.

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[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

What, lol? Nothing taboo? Not mindblowingly dirty? No male gaze? 

 

Do you mean that they have presented sex as normal and healthy between willing partners and this is not up your alley? And this is a genuine question BTW not an accusation. I really don't get what you are trying to say. 

 

Why would it need to cover any sort of taboo subject? Or anything negative about it? Especially why do you seem to be making a connection between these negative aspects and non-"boring" sex? 

 

I really don't understand what it is you are trying to say. 

[Mailman]

  On 4/22/2025 at 7:27 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

What, lol? Nothing taboo? Not mindblowingly dirty? No male gaze? 

 

Do you mean that they have presented sex as normal and healthy between willing partners and this is not up your alley? And this is a genuine question BTW not an accusation. I really don't get what you are trying to say. 

 

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Might want to think about a rewording of that and I am not referring to the possible double meaning.

Edited April 22 by Mailman

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

  On 4/22/2025 at 10:01 AM, Mailman said:

Might want to think about a rewording of that.

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I think in context what I am saying is clear enough. I'm not making any accusations, or kink-shaming, or anything else, I'm asking for clarification why presenting sex as positive is boring or a bad thing. Why does there have to be some sort of edgy cheap thrill? Compare it to 80s sword and sorcery which were chocabloc full of scantily clad people with some also being full of nudity and sexual violence (Barbarian Queen springs to mind in that regard, the way Lana Clarkson escapes from the dungeon is, well, an eye opener to say the least). Is the argument that that is the only way sex should be presented in the media? 

 

Someone getting a vicarious thrill from non-consent or otherwise kinky fantasies does not make them a bad person and I'm not accusing anyone of having those kinks. What I'm asking is why should there needs to be some edge to the sex shown, why mention taboo, people doing what they want, male gaze, etc? 

[Mailman]

  On 4/22/2025 at 10:14 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I think in context what I am saying is clear enough. I'm not making any accusations, or kink-shaming, or anything else, I'm asking for clarification why presenting sex as positive is boring or a bad thing. Why does there have to be some sort of edgy cheap thrill? Compare it to 80s sword and sorcery which were chocabloc full of scantily clad people with some also being full of nudity and sexual violence (Barbarian Queen springs to mind in that regard, the way Lana Clarkson escapes from the dungeon is, well, an eye opener to say the least). Is the argument that that is the only way sex should be presented in the media? 

 

Someone getting a vicarious thrill from non-consent or otherwise kinky fantasies does not make them a bad person and I'm not accusing anyone of having those kinks. What I'm asking is why should there needs to be some edge to the sex shown, why mention taboo, people doing what they want, male gaze, etc? 

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You absolutely failed to do that if you want to compare your first response that I highlighted and this second one.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

  On 4/22/2025 at 10:20 AM, Mailman said:

You absolutely failed to do that if you want to compare your first response that I highlighted and this second one.

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Thanks for your useful contribution to the discussion. Always willing to pick an argument on these subjects, are you not? The original post makes very clear that I am asking a question and not making an accusation. 

 

But thanks for the opportunity to make that even more clear. 

[Mailman]

  On 4/22/2025 at 10:44 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Thanks for your useful contribution to the discussion. Always willing to pick an argument on these subjects, are you not? The original post makes very clear that I am asking a question and not making an accusation. 

 

But thanks for the opportunity to make that even more clear. 

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Always one to issue the accusation and then attempt to hide from it. If you cannot see how the initial post does this seek help.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

If I was making an accusation why would I back down from it? What would be the point of accusing someone but not really? So I could go away and say "oh accused that user of something and then I pretended I didn't, heehee".

 

How does that make any sense in your world? I don't understand Guire's point, I've asked for clarification. Why would I change my story because you entered the chat? I'm trying to discuss the point raised by someone else. Your chip on your shoulder is your own responsibility. 

 

Make it make sense, Mailman. 

[Mailman]

@HeavyHalfMoonBlade

You could have fixed your initial post which at very best is very poorly worded instead you have again doubled down on it. You have form on this front. I have made my position clear as apparently have you. I will not discuss it further.

[notpropaganda73]

I liked in S1 how they just showed Rand and Egwene kissing and the next scene the understanding is there with what's happened. I don't really want to see anything like GoT for example, I find it very gratuitous and OTT. 

 

By the same token the romance/passion in most sex scenes is not particularly engaging, but that might just be because I never believed Lanfear and Rand in any of those scenes, so I just wanted to move on. 

 

Romance generally in the show, I've liked how they have done Nynaeve and Lan, and Perrin and Faile (though the kiss was a little rushed I thought). I'm happy enough if the show want to stick what they did in S1 with Rand and Egwene to be frank. 

[king of nowhere]

  On 4/22/2025 at 10:14 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I think in context what I am saying is clear enough. I'm not making any accusations, or kink-shaming, or anything else, I'm asking for clarification why presenting sex as positive is boring or a bad thing. Why does there have to be some sort of edgy cheap thrill?

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it reminds me of some philosopher of the XX century who claimed that by freeing society, we made it more oppressive, because people no longer could feel cool by doing something forbidden. Perhaps it's the same kind of argument.

i studied that at school. i always thought it was a pile of rubbish.

mind you, i get the point of the argument: to a certain mindset, breaking rules feels liberatory.

however, i find the whole argument brought to this extreme incredibly immature and irrational.

"I want to do X, but X is forbidden, so I'll do X regardless, **** the system!"
"ok, we realized there's really nothing wrong in X and so from now on it's allowed"

"nooooo how dare you! now doing X is no longer satisfactory!"
🤨🤨🤮 

 

 

On the other hand, i'm also taking the chance to say that this sex-positive representation of a preindustrial society is absurd. In general, most media representing ancient societies project our values on them, and I know enough history to realize how dumb is the notion.

there are two very good reasons all major ancient societies were bigots, and it's not religion or nosy neighboors. they are venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies. despite near-constant warfare and rampant crime, disease was still the main cause of death. and they had no way to prevent it, and only herbal remedies of limited effectiveness. being promiscuous back at the time was only a short step from suicidal. pregnancies were almost equally dangerous, because there was no welfare state - not because they were evil, but because society was always a bad harvest away from starvation and couldn't spare many resources - so good luck finding money to raise the chold. good luck finding a husband that would pay your bills and accept someone else's child into it.

however, explaining all that to the uneducated ancient farmer is complicated. much simpler to teach them that sex outside marriage is bad, and you should not question it. or maybe they saw that the promiscuous ones got sick more often, and saw that as divine punishment. or maybe some civilization remained sex-positive despite the cost, but then it got invaded by a sex-negative civilization that won because they had more soldiers, having lesser mortality rates from venereal disease... regardless, it became part of common morality without a reason.

today, condoms and modern medicine take care of both, so we can afford to be relaxed about sex. it's a luxury of our times. just like the freedom to choose your job is a luxury that we have thanks to public schools, which we have because we have enough surplus food to pay a bunch of people to do nothing but teach all the kids a bunch of skills they won't use, just so they will be able to pick one they want to use.

and we tend to think of those as universal inalienable rights, that are good and just simply because, and we forget that we must pay a cost to have those right, a cost that is small for us, but that an ancient society could never have afforded.

 

long story short, the aes sedai, with their healing, could afford to be carefree about sex. the people of tar valon, who could take a short walk to get healed by an aes sedai, could afford to be carefree.

everyone else would expose himself to mortal risk every time they exchanged bodily fluids with someone else. they should be bigots, for the very practical reason that bigotry raises your life expectancy. wisdoms can do wonders with herbs, but there are limits. and most places don't have good wisdoms anyway.

seeing a preindustrial society with a sex-positive attitude is like seeing an ancient roman filming the gladiatorial games with a smartphone.

not that robert jordan was much better. he modeled the gender dinamics around those of the 80s in rural america.

 

[Kaleb]

  On 4/22/2025 at 7:28 PM, king of nowhere said:

On the other hand, i'm also taking the chance to say that this sex-positive representation of a preindustrial society is absurd.

 

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For preventing pregnancy, Randland has the widely-available prophylactic heartleaf tea to head off this risk. And as far as venereal disease, I can't think of a time Jordan even hinted at them existing. Despite the conceit of this being our world in the distant future, he wrote a fantasy world where STDs are not a meaningful issue.

Edited April 22 by Kaleb

[Kaleb]

  On 4/21/2025 at 10:01 PM, Guire said:

Basically I think they have managed to make sex boring while also wanting to show and imply lots of it. 

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Didn't Jordan do this too? The non-Andoran characters are pretty sexual and look at our heroes as prudes, and sex seems pretty matter-of-fact throughout the series except for the explicit deviants like Graendal. The Cairhienin and other nobles use sex as a scheming device, but nothing about the way they have sex is really hinted to be particularly noteworthy. I guess the Tylin scenes are pretty kinky. For all the hot and sweaty flirting in the common rooms of inns and taverns, I'm not remembering anything more than the occasional implication of this or that woman's very vague talents. Imagination is a powerful tool though!

 

Anyway, I think they'll stay pretty fade-to-black with sex scenes and the sexiest implications will be made through costuming like Lanfear's.

Edited April 22 by Kaleb

[king of nowhere]

  On 4/22/2025 at 9:16 PM, Kaleb said:

For preventing pregnancy, Randland has the widely-available prophylactic heartleaf tea to head off this risk. And as far as venereal disease, I can't think of a time Jordan even hinted at them existing. Despite the conceit of this being our world in the distant future, he wrote a fantasy world where STDs are not a meaningful issue.

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well, i can't think of any fantasy book hinting at the exhistance of venereal disease. however, even if they had managed to eradicate all such disease in the age of legends, 3000 years of evolution are more than enough time for virus and bacteria to start exploting that wonderful opportunity offered by a large human population with low disease resistance.

 

that said, my suspension of disbelief chafes with big inconsistencies, but can accept small ones.

therefore, "randland has no major STD because they were all eradicated in the age of legends" is my new headcanon.

thank you for giving me this plausible excuse for enjoying more the show

[Mailman]

  On 4/22/2025 at 7:28 PM, king of nowhere said:

 

On the other hand, i'm also taking the chance to say that this sex-positive representation of a preindustrial society is absurd. In general, most media representing ancient societies project our values on them, and I know enough history to realize how dumb is the notion.

there are two very good reasons all major ancient societies were bigots, and it's not religion or nosy neighboors. they are venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies. despite near-constant warfare and rampant crime, disease was still the main cause of death. and they had no way to prevent it, and only herbal remedies of limited effectiveness. being promiscuous back at the time was only a short step from suicidal. pregnancies were almost equally dangerous, because there was no welfare state - not because they were evil, but because society was always a bad harvest away from starvation and couldn't spare many resources - so good luck finding money to raise the chold. good luck finding a husband that would pay your bills and accept someone else's child into it.

however, explaining all that to the uneducated ancient farmer is complicated. much simpler to teach them that sex outside marriage is bad, and you should not question it. or maybe they saw that the promiscuous ones got sick more often, and saw that as divine punishment. or maybe some civilization remained sex-positive despite the cost, but then it got invaded by a sex-negative civilization that won because they had more soldiers, having lesser mortality rates from venereal disease... regardless, it became part of common morality without a reason.

today, condoms and modern medicine take care of both, so we can afford to be relaxed about sex. it's a luxury of our times. just like the freedom to choose your job is a luxury that we have thanks to public schools, which we have because we have enough surplus food to pay a bunch of people to do nothing but teach all the kids a bunch of skills they won't use, just so they will be able to pick one they want to use.

and we tend to think of those as universal inalienable rights, that are good and just simply because, and we forget that we must pay a cost to have those right, a cost that is small for us, but that an ancient society could never have afforded.

 

 

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I don't think this is necessarily true. For one you are being very generous to religion in not attributing it a large seat at the bigot table.

 

I am far from an expert but Ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian societies do not fit well in your definition either.

[king of nowhere]

  On 4/22/2025 at 10:55 PM, Mailman said:

I don't think this is necessarily true. For one you are being very generous to religion in not attributing it a large seat at the bigot table.

 

I am far from an expert but Ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian societies do not fit well in your definition either.

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but religion was shaped by seeing promiscuous people struck by strange disease.

 

Tribal people also are religious, and those religions we know - practiced by isolated tribed still living in remote jungles today - tend to be more liberal. Because a small isolated tribe doesn't get many disease. 

Meanwhile, the larger a society is, the more disease can circulate, and all religions of such societies are various levels of prudish.

Romans and greeks were more liberal - at least regarding men - but they changed with time.

 

I asked a couple of friends who graduated in history if this is factual, or i'm making a bunch of wild deductive leaps. They said the theory has merit, but they see no way to prove or disprove it for certain.

But the fact remains that there are several sex-positive (or close enough to it) tribes, but there has never been any sex-positive major civilization, and that's unlikely to be a coincidence

 

 

[Mailman]

  On 4/23/2025 at 12:57 AM, king of nowhere said:

but religion was shaped by seeing promiscuous people struck by strange disease.

 

Tribal people also are religious, and those religions we know - practiced by isolated tribed still living in remote jungles today - tend to be more liberal. Because a small isolated tribe doesn't get many disease. 

Meanwhile, the larger a society is, the more disease can circulate, and all religions of such societies are various levels of prudish.

Romans and greeks were more liberal - at least regarding men - but they changed with time.

 

I asked a couple of friends who graduated in history if this is factual, or i'm making a bunch of wild deductive leaps. They said the theory has merit, but they see no way to prove or disprove it for certain.

But the fact remains that there are several sex-positive (or close enough to it) tribes, but there has never been any sex-positive major civilization, and that's unlikely to be a coincidence

 

 

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I feel it will be hard to use examples comparing small isolated tribes and large civilizations as there are too many variables to account for.

 

Religion is largely about power and control and I feel that a large % of their "teachings" in regards to sex is more concerned with this than STD's. Have they used STDs to further their goals and aims almost certainly but I doubt that it is the main reason. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

It is also worth pointing out that civilisation is further complicated by the patriarchy. And I'm not meaning that all men are mean and horrible, but the inheritence of property through the male line. The more advanced your civilisation, the more property you have. In a patriarchal inherentence model, female fidelity becomes incredibly important to ensure property remains in the "right" hands. Laws were introduced to protect property, not liberty, I believe is the accepted truth in sociology. 

 

When we are looking at customs in ancient civilisations we are generally looking at the upper classes, not the peasantry or the lowest social orders. And I have certainly never seen anything to suggest that poor, ill-educated people in any age don't rut like bunnies. 

 

It is definitely an interesting theory, but I think it would be difficult to estimate the impact of STDs in a world with no antibiotics, no germ theory, no access to clean water etc etc. Anyone surviving childhood is going to be as tough as nails. 

[king of nowhere]

  On 4/23/2025 at 7:40 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

 I think it would be difficult to estimate the impact of STDs in a world with no antibiotics, no germ theory, no access to clean water etc etc. Anyone surviving childhood is going to be as tough as nails. 

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in the Divina Commedia, Dante meets a lot of his friends and rivals in the afterlife; most of them were around his same age. Dante is 35 in the year he set the divina commedia. those people survived childhood, else they could not have become dante's friends or rivals. and yet, for dante to put them in hell or purgatory, they all died between age 20 and 40. and they were all rich people, they were properly fed and had access to what little medicine was available at the time.

It gives a feeling for how frail was human life at the time. something else that no book has ever attempted to capture

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

  On 4/23/2025 at 12:12 PM, king of nowhere said:

in the Divina Commedia, Dante meets a lot of his friends and rivals in the afterlife; most of them were around his same age. Dante is 35 in the year he set the divina commedia. those people survived childhood, else they could not have become dante's friends or rivals. and yet, for dante to put them in hell or purgatory, they all died between age 20 and 40. and they were all rich people, they were properly fed and had access to what little medicine was available at the time.

It gives a feeling for how frail was human life at the time. something else that no book has ever attempted to capture

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Obviously people died young and unexpectedly. But looking at average life expectancy can be misleading - as in a time of extremely high infant mortality, anyone surviving childhood was likely to live well past the mean age - due to mode, or er, median, or something, cannot be bother to look it up, lol. 

 

If everyone was dying in their early thirties, how would such a thing as the Triarii in the Roman army exist where a good third of the army was made up of veterans who I cannot find quickly a source on how old they were - I had thought 40 and above but taking a number off the top of my head is hardly much evidence. 

 

Something which is perhaps more telling is that a leading cause of death in Ancient Egypt were teeth abscesses as everyone had to eat bread, and Egyptians had not only grindstone grit to deal with by a high volume of fine particulate sand, which resulted in abnormally quick tooth wear. Ramses II was insane from the pain from his teeth and high on opiates for the last decades of his 92 years on this planet.

 

I'm not saying any of this disproves what you say, but I think the picture is incredibly complex and not something that we modern people can understand, either in how fragile and disposable life was in those days as you point out, but also how tough those that survived it were. 

[king of nowhere]

  On 4/23/2025 at 12:34 PM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Obviously people died young and unexpectedly. But looking at average life expectancy can be misleading - as in a time of extremely high infant mortality, anyone surviving childhood was likely to live well past the mean age - due to mode, or er, median, or something, cannot be bother to look it up, lol. 

 

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as i said, the divina commedia shows people who lived to their 20s, but died shortly later. of course, many people did not die, several got old, but it's for the "mortality was high even among healty adults".

this is no longer about sex, just about life expectations in old times.

 

for numbers, i have three pieces of hard data on mortality in ancient times: unfortunately, i cannot provide references, they are numbers i remember reading somewhere but can't place.

- in the roman empire, adult life expectancy (that is, average life span AFTER you already survived childhood) was 55 years for men, 40 for women. women died a lot of childbirth

- in the late roman empire, people enlisted for 25 years military service. of those that did, roughly half of them survived to be honorably discharged.

- in the XVII century, in a small village in the italian mountains (population uncertain, estimated between slightly less than 1000 and a few thousands) there was roughly one murder per year. that's the same level of murders per inhabitant of el salvador at the peak of the gang wars.

 

again, this has no longer anything to do with the sex arguments. just thought it would be interesting to share some data on how frail was human life before the modern age

[Elglin]

Throughout history, humans generally screwed each other like rabbits. Because that's what people do. Silphium (if we believe the ancient authors, a pretty efficient contraceptive/abortifacient) got wiped out across the entire Mediterranean because everyone jumped at the opportunity of screwing each other without getting the female pregnant. Oh, and that heartleaf tea seems to be a Randland equivalent.

On another note, have you seen Renaissance paintings? Did it strike you as odd that the Roman soldiers arresting Jesus are wearing pretty accurate 16th century armor... as opposed to 1st century one? The same rings true with the current show and many other artistic works - they use their contemporary rather than historically accurate convention. And the contemporary convention, at least here in continental Europe, is that consensual sex is good, lots of sex is also good, sex is no big deal and sex-ed is a part of the school curriculum.

On to the topic. You see, portraying romantic tension, a blossoming relationship etc. takes quite some writing, directing and acting effort. A "screw one another" scene requires... much less. The accusations that "the writers know only one way to write a romantic relationship: make the characters bang" are sadly pretty close to home. Oh, and those stolen gazes, half-touches etc. will be lost on the mass audience with a bag of popcorn and a six-pack of beer, but a bang scene - that will be appreciated. So it's the not-so-skilled creators trying to give a mass and not-too-sophisticated audience what they think it appreciates. Game of Thrones and its successors made sex on TV ubiquitous - "It's not porn, it's HBO" (search on YouTube, NSFW)

Onward to kinkier things. Jordan was writing fantasy after all, so a lot of romance/sex (incl. implied) is safe, sane, and consensual. Which is kind of a good thing, really. However, boy did he like kinky things...

The books are pretty rich in nice women harassing men with pretty obvious intentions, but, say, Berelain got cut. Next season, Rand should have a fairly mad passionate sex scene, which I expect to be pretty bland if we get it at all. If we ever get Ebou Dar, I wonder how on Earth they will portray the Mat-vs-Tylin arc.

But as I've said already, the showrunners are targeting a wide, generic and average audience, so they are very unlikely to experiment, and we are getting "PG-13 rated sex" as a result. Which isn't that bad.

The only really bad thing is what I've written above: we are getting "A and B bang" as a substitution of proper romantic subplots. This works in porn (although memetic masterpieces like "warum liegt hier Stroh" or "Alarm, Alarm" beg to differ), less so in regular series.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

I'm not sure if showing implied physical intimacy is a worse way of having a relationship in story than Min telling people they are going to fall in love. So better be doing that then, love of my life I've never met before. 

Edited April 23 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Guire]

  On 4/22/2025 at 7:27 AM, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

What, lol? Nothing taboo? Not mindblowingly dirty? No male gaze? 

 

Do you mean that they have presented sex as normal and healthy between willing partners and this is not up your alley? And this is a genuine question BTW not an accusation. I really don't get what you are trying to say. 

 

Why would it need to cover any sort of taboo subject? Or anything negative about it? Especially why do you seem to be making a connection between these negative aspects and non-"boring" sex? 

 

I really don't understand what it is you are trying to say. 

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Sorry for delay in response.  I had a bad plumbing leak in rarely used upstairs bathroom.  I have been tearing out most of upstairs bathroom and ceiling of downstairs laundry room.  

 

So for background.  I am mid fifties, hetero, in 35 year monogamous relationship. No kinks, I dated extensively as teen, married young, and have adult to teen children.  I was fine with relationships in books.  To me it was a military fantasy hero journey.   I didn't have the problems with romance that many fans seem to have with way book handled it.  I am probably one of few people on boards that has had intimate relationships and witnessed relationships in a war zone setting.  I consider most of books arc to be in a war setting. Relationships can be odd to say the least.

 

My complaint from a straight guy perspective was that time is the resource in show most important.  The very positive inclusive everything goes sex scenes didn't add much emotionally or cause any visceral feelings of stress or danger to show.  The time could have been better spent on certain characters development that lead to better emotional payoff later.  

 

I do recognize I am not gay, lesbian, or female.  That is Rafes preferred audience.  So fight training scenes seem to be gay male eye candy.  To me it has seemed more cutesy than sexy.  The vibe they have embraced also seems to reinforce the walking into Vegas male review vs real soldiers training to murder.  I really liked the Nyn and Lan initial romance but the family meal and then  quicky before the showdown didn't do anything for me to advance their relationship.  So I guess my point is that are gay men, lesbian women, or women in general getting excited by shows presentation of sex?  

 

I understand lots of television and movies may steer away from or into the weighty issues associated with sex but the underlying reality is always there to color our reactions to what we are seeing.  Rafe has said he wants this show to paint non hetero, non monogamous relationships in a positive light to normalize them.  Much of the sex and adjacent screen time feels like this.  I am pretty tired so this might be incoherent but considering how many fans of books rag on romance in series I don't think this turning has been much better.

[Kaleb]

  On 4/24/2025 at 4:09 AM, Guire said:

Rafe has said he wants this show to paint non hetero, non monogamous relationships in a positive light to normalize them.

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That's true, and he wants to do that because that's what Robert Jordan did in the books. 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/wheel-of-time-queer-universe-season-3-rafe-judkins-interview-1236173757/

 

"We made a conscious decision in the first season writers room to make sure homophobia didn’t exist in The Wheel of Time. I think a lot of our audience won’t notice it, but some of the audience does notice and feel it — that it is fantasy,” says Judkins. “We go to worlds different from our own, and people think about the world and the people in it differently than our own. We don’t need homophobia to exist. It doesn’t really in the books. Very rarely does anyone ever make any negative commentary about any queer relationship in the books.”

 

I linked that same interview in another thread, and I added the additional point that presenting this sex-positive inclusive world in this way really highlights how different it is from the expectations we as viewers bring to the show ourselves, from our sex-negative homophobic world. So, you're not wrong to notice the difference at all. Part of the general queer/feminist sex-positive perspective is that sex can be whatever the people involved want it to be, as long as there is consent from all parties. A big part of traditional patriarchal "sexiness" is the lurking threat of non-consensual sexual violence, playing with fire and getting burned and all that, whether it be a jealous rage from a rival lover or a sex-hating god sending you to hell for the sin of lust. Lanfear is definitely playing the jealous lover trope and it's no coincidence that she's the most obviously sexual character. But nobody in the books outside of the Two Rivers seems to have any original sin type guilt over sex... and of course you know I have doubts about those Taren Ferry folk.