[HPforGrownups] Harry and Cedric, with a stab at definition

[Jen Faulkner]

No: HPFGUIDX 13418

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer wrote:

> My second point to the above is that we are an adult literary discussion
> group, so we needn't worry about whether a 12 yr old child would
> understand Jen's homo-erotic literary crit analysis of the Harry/Cedric
> dynamic (or what said 12 yr old might think of that analysis).  This
> group is for adults to discuss the books after all.  :--)

Thanks, Penny!  That's exactly how I feel about it.  And even a true
'children's book', if there can ever be such a thing, is susceptible to
literary analysis.  While the 12 yr old's reactions might be interesting
for, say, a reader-response based criticism, they're irrelevant, at
best, to the particular analysis I'm offering.

> I'd also second Amanda's request for a nice definition of
> homo-erotic, just for discussion purposes.  :--)

Amanda's request:
> Could someone define "homoerotic" for me, then? I'm perfectly capable
> of appreciating that another woman is beautiful, without any erotic
> content in the observation.

Since I didn't want this discussion to be too much my own (inevitably
idiosyncratic) point of view, I spent about half an hour in the library
yesterday looking at various handbooks and lexica of literary criticm
and theory and critical theory, and eventually found *one* definition of
homoerotic:

"Homoerotic denotes erotic (though not necessarily overtly sexual)
depictions that imply same-sex attraction or that might appeal sexually
to a same-sex reader, for example a sensually evocative description of
women in the process of helping each other undress or of nude men
bathing in a pond.  Such depiction can occur in any medium, such as
film, painting, sculpure, photography, and, of course, literature."  L.
Tyson, _Critical theory today: a user-friendly guide_ (New York and
London: Garland, 1999), 322.

It's not a definition I'm entirely happy with, as I hope to make clear
shortly, but it's a starting place.  I was completely unable to find any
sort of scholarly genealogy for the term (who coined it, who's used it,
etc.).  But it's part of the widely varied approaches that make up
what's known as queer theory, a type of critical theory which owes much
of its impetus and terminology to feminist criticism.  I had hoped that
Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick would have used it, but no, she doesn't.  
Nonetheless, I think most uses of the term are informed by readings of
her work (_Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire_;
_Epistemology of the Closet_, particularly).

Homoerotic is basically a term used in contrast with two others:
homosexual and homosocial.  It is used specifically to describe
portrayals (as in literature or film) of same-sex eroticism; you would
never say, "The poet Walt Whitman was homoerotic."  (I'm sorry if any of
this is obvious.)  You could, however, say that "Whitman's poetry is
highly homoerotic."  It does not necessarily imply same-sex sexual
behavior; one can argue that, for example, the letters of Pliny the
Younger to the historian Tacitus have homoerotic overtones without ever
suggesting that Pliny was having any sort of 'affair' with Tacitus.  (I
mention, only in passing, that Whitman once, after a letter from a
(male) admirer suggested that it might be, maybe, remotely possible that
Whitman himself had been with a man sexually, responded vehemently in
the negative, (feigning to be) shocked that anyone could make such a 
suggestion...)  Similarly, homosexual is generally reserved as a
description of behavior, rather than portrayals of the expression 
of emotion.  (I leave aside the question of whether it should be applied
as a label of identity rather than behavior.)  One would much more
regularly describe Michelangelo's David as homoerotic than
homosexual.  

IOW, despite the claim of my otherwise very reliable Webster's
Collegiate dictionary, homoerotic is not a synonym for homosexual.

A second distinction between these two words is in the use of the noun
'homoeroticism', which *is* used to refer to behavior rather than
portrayal, for the period before the word 'homosexuality' is appropriate
(in accordance with Foucauldian analysis of the construction of the
concept of homosexual/gay identity in the 20th century).  One thus will
see reference to, for example, 'female homoeroticism in ancient Greece',
where behavior is actually meant.  Such use should be avoided, however,
in my opinion.  I tend to go for the rather more cumbersome, but more
accurate, 'same-sex sexual behavior' or 'same-sex sexual/affectional
relationship' vel sim.  But this distinction is obviously tangential to
HP, which is a 20th/21st c. work.

Homoerotic can also be used to refer to behavior and emotions that,
while not sexual proper, are heading, as it were, towards the sexual.  
In these cases, homoerotic signals mainly the lack of any possibility of
genital contact, while not precluding other sorts of physical contact
(hugging, kissing, etc.).  This point is where there can begin to be
some fuzziness of the sort that Amanda was alluding to.  The erotic is
not the sexual, but it can be extremely difficult to say exactly what
the difference between the two is, as it can be very difficult to
distinguish the erotic from the so-called platonic.  Intensity and
exclusivity are two important markers of the erotic here.  This usage
definitely has heterosexual in mind as the contrast, actually, rather
than homosexual, and is, I think, mainly current in the social sciences.

The other term from which homoerotic is distinguished is homosocial,
which properly refers to same-sex relationships which are formally
lacking in sexual or erotic elements.  In reference to activities,
homosocial is used of what is more commonly termed, for instance,
male-bonding.  It can also be used (unlike homoerotic) of people, to
refer to those whose primary preference is to associate (as friends, as
colleagues, etc.) with their own gender.  It thus can also be opposed to
homosexual -- a gay man whose friends are primarily women could be said
to be homosexual, but heterosocial.  Institutions and such are often
described as homosocial.  

But again, the categories begin to overlap to some extent, and it is
completely unclear (particularly before the turn of the century, again
relying on Foucauldian analysis of the history of sexuality) where to
mark the boundary between homosocial and homosexual, which exist rather
(in Sedgwick's analysis in _Between Men_) on a continuum.  She
introduces the concept of 'homosocial desire', a term which is in many
instances synonymous, as I understand her, with 'homoerotic'.  
(Genital) sexuality / sexual activity is not at issue, but the *emotion*
which otherwise might give rise to sexual behavior is there in the text.

Homoerotic is also used particularly of texts that are 'non-gay',
whether because of time period (pre 20th c.), or because of their
homophobic main text, or because, as in HP, of the supposed absence of
gay issues.  

I hope that helped, and didn't just make things more confusing!  My own
field is Classics, so I also hope I've not made any misrepresentations
when making statements about the word's usage outside of Classics (which
is entirely possible).  I'm trying to be more general than just Latin or
Greek literature, and I might be losing a little of the specificity of
definition in so doing.

Amanda:
> To expand in rambling fashion--I think it's a mark of a great work,
> that it can be validly interpreted any number of ways. [Best
> example: the Bible.]

I agree, absolutely.  And I'm *definitely* not claiming that my reading
of the Harry/Cedric relationship is the only 'correct' one.  Most works
of literature can be interpreted through any critical method/theory,
though certain works lend themselves more easily to analysis by certain
methodologies.  One could offer all sorts of literary analyses of HP 
-- Freudian, Lacanian (the Mirror of Erised *g*), feminist, New
Critical, deconstructionist, reader-response, etc., etc... (And of
course, the relationship between David and Jonathan or Ruth and Naomi
in the Bible has been read as homoerotic...)

> So I'm certain the homoerotic reading of this scene has some
> validity, but this discussion seems to be edging the way of the
> theories of Marja Gambutas 
<snip of discussion of Gimbutas' theories about the prehistoric goddess>
> Thus I'm asking for a definition, for clarity's sake.

I hope I've made it a little bit clearer that the term does have a
fairly rigorous meaning, though it can sometimes be applied a little
loosely, particularly for polemic's sake.  To be more explicit --
aesthetic appreciation and erotic appreciation are certainly not the
same thing.  But neither are they entirely discrete categories.  There
can (must) be overlap between the two, just as there can (must) be
overlap between the erotic and the sexual.  In literary analysis there
will be at some point a subjective judgement call as to when something
is erotic and when it is not; language and context are the two most
important factors in this decision.  I've tried to show how I see both
language and context contributing to a homoeroticized portrayal of
Harry's feelings for Cedric in the Yule Ball scene, but I think one
would have a much more difficult time, for example, showing any
eroticism in Harry's feelings for Ron.  Though there are no fixed
criteria, all I can say is that there must be specific evidence from a
text that demonstrates eroticism to call a passage homoerotic.  But
precisely *what* such evidence consists of is a matter of debate.

Moving on...

AmyZ wrote:
> Girls follow him around as much as they do Viktor Krum; people wear
> "Support Cedric Diggory" badges (is this treating someone as an
> object of desire?  My lit-crit jargon is rusty); he is the stand-in
> for all Hufflepuffs in their usually-thwarted dreams of glory.  He
> is their champion.

I don't have my copy of GoF here, so I can't look at the text as I would
like to.  I suspect that there is some eroticism implicit in the
description of girls following him (opposite-sex eroticism is always
less problematic than same-sex eroticism)...  but I'd *really* have to
look at the text to know about the badges bit.  It's well within the
realm of possiblity that such a scene could be (homo)erotic, but it
could also not be.  Does anyone want to quote the text?  The mere fact
of his being a role model definitely doesn't make him an object of
desire.  Only if there is a slippage between a desire to be Cedric and a
desire for Cedric would there be eroticism.

--jen, heeing the cries of 'enough already'! :)

* * * * * * 
Jen's HP fics:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~jfaulkne/hp.html
Snapeslash listmom: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/snapeslash
Yes, I *am* the Deictrix.