my love/hate relationship with the greatest horror writer of all time.

I'm still in Halloween mode, and I probably will be until December, when I am sitting across from rustic little building with a cinnamon scented hot chocolate radiating warmth through my stiff cold, gloved hands. And recently, I've been revisiting my favourite Stephen King horror movies. I'm a big fan of The Shining and its new sequel Doctor Sleep - they're probably my go-to classic horror movies, it's just enough of the 80s that I can handle. Primarily because of the cultural differences between then and now. And - I can't believe I almost forgot to mention it - It Chapters 1 & 2 are masterpieces, they can make you feel nostalgic, terrified, and so relieved and touched that you cry, all in a couple of movies about a clown. It's incredible what the directors have done, and it's incredible the ideas King has. But, I still can't read the books. I've tried, but the way King writes makes me feel icky.

And I know exactly why.

I understand it's his job as a horror writer to slightly push the boundaries of making a reader feel gross with his words, but everything he writes makes me feel gross, regardless of intent. And it's completely because of the way he writes women.

I'm sure most of us have heard of the Madonna-Whore complex. For those who aren't familiar, it's a categorisation system that men are taught through our society to have in relation to women, however conscious or unconscious this system is. Women fall into one of two categories: the Madonna or the whore. The Madonna is a sister, mother, a daughter, a wife. She is morally and socially virtuous, a self-sacrificing and respectable woman that comes across as saintly. And then there is the whore - a woman driven by sexuality and lacks in morality and humanity, because the concept of virtue has been forced on our society so hard that men struggle to break out of a very solidified categorical system. It's the basis for dating preferences that refuse to include women who have slept with more than a couple of people, it's the reason it's significantly more common not only for men to cheat than women, but for men to cheat with someone that they view as 'lower' than their wives. Because they respect their wives so much as a Madonna that they can't fulfil any of their sexual desires, and therefore they seek out a woman they don't respect to live their true fantasies, because sexuality and respect for women are not truly synonymous. There are exceptions to the rule, but this is a very common complex. I don't think I need to add my opinion for this. It's obvious.

You may wonder why I bring this up, however. Well, that's because Stephen King almost exclusively writes women in his books as, I would go as far to say, caricatures of this complex. Women in his books are either written as beautifully virtuous or gross, inhuman women who would abandon their own new-born children for another hit of whatever sin they indulge in. There's a scene in the Doctor Sleep book of a woman, sleeping in after the protagonist has emerged from a night of drugs and sex with her. Her description is sickening, it feels greasy, and when he steps out of the room he finds her starving child on the floor, wanting food, reaching for her cocaine thinking it's candy. This scene sticks out because it's a driving force for a lot of the guilt Danny feels through the rest of the novel. But the thing is - most of the women are described as very similar. Either they don't express themselves sexually at all, or they're throwing their sexuality around like a drunk with an overflowing solo cup of alcohol. It's boobs this, the way she walks that - she doesn't have anything of true value to contribute besides sexually, and when she does, she's a very dislikeable and entitled character. Every woman in his books can be placed into one of these two categories. Though, sometimes it passes over. Such as in the case of Beverly Marsh.

Beverly is a sweet girl. She's vulnerable, bullied at school and accused of having committed all these sexual acts (which of course 'she didn't! What an innocent girl' is the narrative). Then she meets the Losers Club and she finally fits in. She's the apple of two of their eyes ('she's so different' and doesn't have any kind of sexuality, and is wonderfully unaware of everyone's affections for her - naïve), and she's strong, courageous and tomboyish. And by the end she has some kind of 'transition into a woman' and has sex with all of the losers to escape the sewer system that they got lost in. Which is really weird, unsettling and doesn't make any kind of sense. Even then it's just plain uncomfortable to read, as I'm sure anyone would, what with the one-and-a-half pages of straight up child porn. By the second part, Beverly has-uh-deteriorated. She's lost all of her courage, everything that made her fit in with the losers and now she dresses up nice and has an abusive husband. And suddenly she goes from this perfect 'Madonna' to a hopeless 'whore'. And all of her scenes become incredibly uncomfortable to read. I couldn't make it to the end of the book.

You know why? Because it feels gross, because when you read what someone has written, it's like putting yourselves in their thoughts, their perspective, the way they see things. I enjoy looking at new perspectives, but reading hundreds of pages through the lens of a man who can't seem to write a single dynamic female character is exhausting after a while.

I think the ideas King has are really cool, I love when they're translated into movie form because they go through a filter of the director's perspective. But the way he writes women is kinda a deal-breaker for me. Actually, that's why I don't read much horror at all, because this is a bit of a common theme among a few popular male horror writers (I'm looking at you, Shawn Hudson). I think I'll continue with just watching the movies, personally.

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