Sophie Turner Reveals The Unexpected Lesson ‘Game Of Thrones’ Taught Her

Sansa Stark may have only begun to shed her innocence on “Game of Thrones” but her real-life portrayer Sophie Turner actually learned quite a bit more than her character about some things at a much younger age, thanks to the show.

In a new interview with The Sunday Times, (via Entertainment Weekly), Turner, now 21, admitted that she learned about oral sex, and received a portion of her sex education in general, by reading scripts for the show.

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“I’d be doing a read-through and we’d be talking about very graphic stuff,” she said. “The first time I ever found out about oral sex was from reading the script. I was like… ‘Wow! People do that? That’s fascinating!’… I guess that was my sex education. Being on ‘Game of Thrones.’”

Her comment is particularly fascinating since Turner was only 12-years-old when she first auditioned for the hit HBO series, and was just 15 when the show premiered. It’s unclear what season or episode she was referring to when it came to her learning about that particular act, though a sequence devoted to the subject famously occurred in the fifth episode of Season 3, when Sansa’s half-brother, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his wildling love interest, Ygritte (Rose Leslie) had an intimate encounter in a cave.

The pair’s coupling was one of a few on the show that was more tender when it came to the subject of sex, something that Harington admitted he loved about it at the time.

“It’s one of those rare moments in the series where you get quite a tender, happy moment between two people,” Harington told Vulture in 2013. “We were looking forward to filming it, because it was so beautifully written, and then when we did it, it’s so beautifully lit.”

Unfortunately for Turner, her character’s introduction to sex was much more graphic and not tender at all. After successfully avoiding sex with her first husband, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), Sansa was brutally raped on her wedding night by her second husband, Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon). That scene led to some backlash for the show because Sansa is still supposed to be a teenager on the show, but Turner defended the scene, saying it helped bring awareness to issues like that which still exist.

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In an essay for Thomson Reuters where she explained how the reaction to the scene turned her into an activist, Turner expressed that she was initially angered by the fact that the scene was received as being too taboo.

“At first I was angry. I was angry that there is such a taboo surrounding rape and that depicting it on screen was seen as vulgar,” she wrote at the time. “Sexual violence happens every day all around the world and yet for that to be represented on television, when other forms of violence are so often represented and more importantly, accepted and even welcomed in some cases, was considered disgusting instead of important. It made me think: why such a taboo?”

It’s unclear what might be in store for Sansa Stark on the upcoming season of “Game of Thrones,” but thankfully fans won’t have to wait too long to find out. The season 7 premiere airs Sunday, July 16 at 9 p.m. on HBO.