Inappropriate charms

[Haggridd]

No: HPFGUIDX 24794

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Katzefan wrote:
> 
> >(Susan: I had to wonder about that `practicing 
> >inappropriate charms on a goat' as well. Perhaps Dumbledore's 
> >brother comes from one of those places where men are men 
> >and the sheep are nervous ....)
> 
> I think JKR *is* offering an off-color joke to the adults with this 
> line, one that will go over the heads of children.  However, the 
> children's interpretation is probably actually the correct one:  
> inappropriate charms means just that, charms that are deemed 
verboten 
> by the Misuse of Magic Office because they're risky or cruel or 
> likely to attract the attention of Muggles.  E.g., Aberforth D. 
might 
> have charmed it to shoot sparks out of its horns or dance en
pointe. 
 
> There are lots of nonsexual possibilities, but JKR words it the way 
> she does (and chooses a suggestive animal like a goat) because she 
> knows adult readers' minds will go to the Muggle version of 
> inappropriate behavior vis a vis goats.

> Amy Z

I think that JKR was particularly careful.  Were she to have made 
Aberforth's unwitting subject a sheep, it would had had all those 
uncomfortable overtones of which you speak--although in light of the 
permissive nature of past posts on sexual preference, the "Ruminant 
Lovers Pride Association" might take offense at anyone ELSE taking 
offense. (In such cases you just have to take the bull by the horns, 
so to speak.) Making it a goat is just enough different from the 
cliche to skate by.

Haggridd