First off, I must make a full disclosure: I love this show. When it’s running I scramble to my TV on Sundays (*cough and by TV I mean computer Cough*) and, if you listened to me, you’d hear various grunts of “Oh snaaaaaap!” or “no way!” or “heck yes Khaleesi!” filtered, of course, by moans and the odd squeamish yelp when someone loses a limb (or other notable appendage).

I have not read the books (geeks please don’t hate me!) and I don’t plan to, for the sole reason that HBO has done such a fantastic job of writing out George R. R. Martin’s story. The politics - though less dense I’m told than the books - are brilliantly enacted, without treating the audience like they’re unable to follow. The characters are, for the most part, as nuanced as time allows in such a large cast. The pacing is set just perfectly to make me explode at the screen every time the credits pop up.

But here’s where I find myself at a bit of an impasse. I want to sing the praises of the show for all to hear, but I can’t seem to get beyond HBO’s obsession with, well, boobs. Now to be fair, it’s not like the source material doesn’t support this. However, there’s a big leap between a written sex scene between two or more participants and showing, repeatedly, naked female body after naked female body. By comparison, what little we see of their male counterparts is few and far between. For the most part, men are far more likely to remain entirely clothed.

Is this the biggest problem the show has? Decidedly not – that particular honour goes to the Stockholm syndrome Daenarys seems to have following her rape (and yes, it is rape) by Khal Drogo. Second place might go to the reduction of Cersei to the role of “crazy-mother” (although I actually think Lena Headey does an amazing job making Cersei a riveting character).

So the boobs are comparatively innocuous. But here’s why I bring up the issue. Lately there’s been this wonderful meme circulated of George R. R. Martin on the George Strombolopoulos show. Strombo, I’m assuming, had a very stupid question fed to him by his producers, and the exchange goes like this:

Bravo! Wonderful answer! Feminist-nerds rejoice! Except, wait a minute, what George (who is an Executive Producer on the show) and HBO are doing is, in fact, not treating the female characters like people at all. Not when a rite of passage for a new female character is stripping down, usually before we’ve even had a chance to get to know her character.

To avoid accusations of being a prude, I have to say I have zero issue with nudity in and of itself, and it can sometimes be used to great effect. In fact, one of the very first scenes with Daenarys and her creepy older brother uses her nakedness to show how helpless she is, and it works. But later, we get Margary Tyrell displaying everything, Melisandre (otherwise a very fascinating character) walking around in the buff, Robb Stark’s new wife stripping for him, and countless scenes in Littlefinger’s brothel which are wholly unnecessary.

So my question for you, reader, is do you agree that the overt sexualization of the women of GoT obfuscates any progress Martin/ HBO have made in depicting nuanced and varied female characters?