Barbarians Do It Doggie Style

Please note I'm an avid fan of George RR Martin's Fire and Ice series. I wouldn't miss a second of the new HBO series Game of Thrones that just began this past weekend. I loved it. I loved the series on which it's based. Looking back at my formulative years of writing, I credit Martin and Robert Jordan with giving me the desire to write stories as wonderfully epic and sweeping as theirs.

So while this is a complaint of the series, it's done tongue in cheek.

There was a big stink in the NYT about how all the sex must have been thrown in "as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise." Lots of people tweeted and commented and blogged about all the women who love fantasy in general (self included), Martin's series in particular (ditto), and anyway, the criticism that the sex was "thrown in" for HBO audiences is ridiculous to anyone who's actually read the books. (The sex was already there!)


But that's not what I'm riled up about.

I'm simply so offended for barbarians everywhere because of their treatment in this series that I couldn't remain silent. I can't even blame it on HBO, because this dastardly failure to accurately convey barbaric sensuality occurs in the books too.


Seriously, who could possibly believe that barbarians *only* know how to perform sex in the doggie style position?


Of course, I can see the foundational thought process. If they're barbarians, they must be around livestock or wildlife a great deal, so naturally they emulate the creatures about them in their bedchambers. Wait a second, though. Doesn't that mean they should have animal dens instead of tents? Or why not just doze standing up out in the pasture?



In the book, Khal Drogo is seriously befuddled when Daenerys gently proposes that she turn around and face him during their nightly intimacies. Yes, a fourteen-year-old girl comes up with the idea to face each other during sex, but not her much older (and presumably experienced, thanks to all the public affection displayed by the Dothraki) barbarian husband. I guess all those battles he'd won seriously damaged his... Oh, never mind, I won't even go there.


Poor Drogo. I know several barbarian warriors who are laughing at him.


On the other hand, royalty in the Fire and Ice world tend to indulge in incest to keep the bloodlines pure. Maybe it's not so bad being a barbarian!

If you watched Game of Thrones this week, what did you think?