One reporter reacts to JKR's revelations

[Annemehr]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> 
wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie"
> <sistermagpie@> wrote:
> >
> > > > > Tonks:
> > > > > 
> > > > > I don't think [sexuality] has any place in a children's 
book.
> > > > > And even if adults are reading it and the reading level has
> > > > > changed since book 3, it is still a book read by children of
> > > > > age 8 and up. 
> > > > 
> > > > Magpie:
> > > > Well, HP is pretty obviously YA at this point ..., but I 
> > > > assume this part doesn't have to do with DD being gay and 
> > > > instead you're disapproving of all the sexuality that's 
> > > > actually in the books? 

<snip>

> Carol responds:
> Not even the Victorian objected to the implicit sexuality involved 
in
> marriages that produced children (though they used euphemisms to get
> around the word "pregnant") and even Dickens' characters engaged in
> flirtation and an occasional chaste kiss.
> 
> You seem to be using "sexuality" to mean "sexual attraction" (and,
> occasionally, sexual preference). Others are apparently using it to
> mean the depiction of sex itself (or anything beyond "snogging" and
> fully clothed groping). FWIW, here's the Merriam-Webster definition 
of
> the term:
> 
> sex·u·al·i·ty <snip> 
> Function:
>     noun 
> Date:
>     circa 1800
> 
> the quality or state of being sexual: a: the condition of having sex
> b: sexual activity c: expression of sexual receptivity or interest
> especially when excessive
> 
> It seems to me, though I could easily be mistaken, that the use of 
the
> term by bboyminn, Tonks, and others is closer to the dictionary
> definition than your use of it, or at any rate, certainly equally
> correct. We're just having a problem with semantics here.

<snip>

Annemehr:

Yes... but it seems to me that Magpie is the one who's being 
consistent.

Tonks's response to the idea of having a gay DD in the books (if I 
read her correctly) is to say there shouldn't be sexuality in the 
books.  But *no one* has ever suggested that DD ought to have been 
portrayed as having any actual sex in the books.

So, if by Tonks' usage of the word, there's no sexuality in the books 
as they are now, there still needn't be any even if DD, or anyone 
else, had been revealed in the text to be gay.

I mean, just have Snape blast a rosebush at the Yule Ball, and 
there's Anthony Goldstein and Justin Finch-Fletchly.  Now the 
existence of gays is established in the WW.  Then, slip in something 
subtle but clear about DD and Grindewald in DH, and there you go.  
Whatever definition you use for "sexuality," now we're applying it 
evenly to everyone.

Annemehr