RR Martin defends sexual assaults on GoT

George RR Martin knows people are not really happy with the sexual assaults on HBO's Game of Thrones, specifically with what happened to Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) in the recent twist (Sansa's assault was not in his books, something the show did differently).

However, Martin said to not depict rape would not be true to the story he's trying to tell. Martin said his books "reflect a patriarchal society based on the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were not a time of sexual egalitarianism." But he's not writing history, he's writing fiction. There are dragons! Yeah, he knows that argument.

"Just because you put in dragons doesn't mean you can put in anything you want…If you're going to do [a fantasy element], it's best to only do one of them, or a few. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction," he said.

Martin also said that his storytelling was a reaction to "Disneyland Middle Ages" with princes and princesses that don't reflect the true Middle Ages societies. The author cited he has millions of female readers who love the different women characters in his books.

"To be non-sexist, does that mean you need to portray an egalitarian society? That's not in our history; it's something for science fiction. And 21st century America isn't egalitarian, either," he told EW. "There are still barriers against women. It's better than what it was. It's not Mad Men any more, which was in my lifetime."