The Game of Thrones conundrum

I love the Song of Ice and Fire series.  I will quite happily sit and talk for many hours about the awesomeness of Tyrion, whether Sansa is a sympathetic character or not (*cough* no *cough* ) and the fates of the various Starks, the Hands of Kings and who Coldhands is.  The series is engrossing, well written, and has some fantastic ties to discussions about morality and power that have fueled some amazing debates around the reading table.  Word of their greatness is spreading, and now some of our higher level readers in Year 9 (aged 13/14) have asked to reserve them.

My gut says yes.  But there's a little voice in my head that says 'hang on, aren't these books a little bit, well, rapey?'  The violence presented in these novels holds no problems for me in terms of loans.  They're massive bricks of books, and they're only being picked up by strong readers who are aware of their own limits in terms of violence tolerance and will return a book if they're uncomfortable with it.  And yes, I know it's a cheap analogy, but the violence that these students can both see and more importantly meter out in computer games matches or exceeds what's in these books*.  But there's an awful lot of rape.  It's not explicit, in fact it's so sparsely written when it happens that there's safely no chance of any charges of it being pornographic.  But it's always there and frequently used as a threat against female characters.

The thing that stops me deciding an instant no to granting these advanced but younger students access to the books though, is that within the context of the story, this rape is entirely not only realistic, but in a horrible sense, true.  In times of war, particularly the sorts of wars that aren't fought by Generals pushing buttons and firing missiles, rape is a weapon.  It's happening today, in The Democratic Republic of Congo.  It's probably happening in other places too.  At various times in our history, it would have happened here too.  The vulnerability of women (and men, please don't think that I dismiss the sexual violence against men too, but in the context of GoT, so far at least, the threat has been focused on women) in times of war is an important subject and not one that should be ignored.  It's the normalising of rape within the story that worries me for younger readers, but I do feel that with a discussion about it first, and the inevitable follow up to reading these books (our advanced readers always sit at lunchtime and discuss what they've read and I know that these books would be discussed to death, as they are already with our older readers) that it would be an important issue to acknowledge, but not one that should prevent them reading them.  

So, what do you think?  GoT for advanced Year 9 readers?  If anyone could point me in the direction of research or guidance in this area I'd be grateful.


*What isn't matched is the intention of violence and cruelty, which is something that George R.R. Martin does really well.  We know that there are battles, we know that it's kill or be killed and that people will get their arms, legs and noses hacked off. But the nasty, little bits of violence that really get to you.  (Theon's fate. Whatever is happening in the deepest dungeons under King's Landing...) and those are the bits that I approve of the most.  Because they do disgust you.  Because they are scary, unglamorised, without honour, and hold present a much truer picture of violence than knights in shining armour fighting for their liege lords.