Sex! Love! Writing! (I just got tired of the old subject line)--> One reporter reacts to JKR's revelations

[Amanda Geist]

Del:  Can you point me to a single animal species where 
life-long exclusive same-sex couples are "normal"?

Amanda now:

Not to muddy the waters, but life-long exclusive pairings of any kind are
comparatively rare, except in a few species. When you include other species,
you have to recognize the distinction---which nobody seems to be making
here---between love (enjoying the company of) and sex (physical act).  Other
species generally have sex to reproduce, and pair-bonds of whatever duration
are usually temporary to further that end.  Pair-bonding for the enjoyment
of company is not unheard of, but doesn't usually involve sex. 

Because human behavior has such a strong cultural component, I don't think
you can look to other species. Unless you want to start looking at humans
from a primatologist's point of view, which can show certain adaptive
advantages to various non-reproductive sexual behaviors, both homo- and
hetero-sexual. And which points up life-long exclusive same-sex couples as
pretty clearly cultural and not a species behavior.

Del:  If she thought of DD as gay from 
back before she even started writing the books, how 
come she didn't actually write him AS gay?

Amanda now:

I have to ask--what would "writing him as gay" have looked like? I mean, if
she always thought of him as gay, and she wrote him, then she *did* "write
him as gay" because that was part of his character for her.  She could not
have written him as anything else.  Quite possibly she doesn't think being
gay has standard characteristics; quite possibly she thinks it's one of many
facets of character and personality.  I agree with whoever it was-and I'm
sorry I can't remember, because it made me laugh out loud-about the total
irrelevance of a side comment by Dumbledore to Harry, "Oh, by the way."
Dumbledore's orientation wasn't terribly relevant to the *story,* and so was
not explicitly mentioned.  No more is Snape's, McGonagall's, or several
other major characters.  

Del: Or maybe, oops, she was actually PANDERING to 
the unspoken wishes of a good deal of her readers, 
by keeping such a controversial issue as 
homosexuality out of her books?   .  Can you give me another reason?

Amanda now:

Well, I think the interaction of author and character had something to do
with it, too.  Characters can take on a character of their own after a few
years, and I'd bet the interaction of JKR with her main characters (the ones
we saw in any relationship) was simply that they didn't "feel" that way to
her, it wasn't part of the character as it developed.  I personally don't
think she would have had a problem depicting a gay relationship--but the
depiction of a relationship by the characters who were gay was not required
by the story.  This is all character and story-driven.

Conversely, in the comic strip For Better or For Worse, one of the main
characters started to "feel" as if he were gay to the writer, and because he
was a main character, she explored it.  She had a little more leeway to-her
story was not as prescribed, a comic strip can ramble.  My point is, after
characters become established, they are not simply clay to be molded any way
the author wants; it's a little more interactive. 

~Amandageist



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