[HPforGrownups] Re: Sexuality in HP (WAS So, why did Snape turn on Voldermort?)

[Amanda Geist]

No: HPFGUIDX 40133

Elkins said

> I've deprefixed this thread, since it's really more about sexuality
> and homoerotic overtones in the HP books in general than it is about
> any particular relationship or romantic speculation.
>
> *However.*  This post does contain discussion of both homoeroticism
> and sexual sadism.  We don't have a prefix for that.  So consider
> this a warning: if that sort of thing bothers you, then you'd be well
> advised to skip now.

<rest of rather well-phrased and nicely analyzed discussion of various
sexual undertones, managing nicely to both put the point across yet not be
offensive>

Okay. The only reason I post this is because there is a tendency on the
list, caused by the "me, too" prohibition, for silence to be taken as
consent in some cases. I am not arguing the analysis at all, at all--it
looks like a perfectly valid interpretation.

The thing that I must say, though, is that none of this, no inkling or
trickle or faintest flicker of this, ever occurred to me in any of my many
re-readings, until I read Elkins' post. Am I the only one who never sees
things like this? Am I the only one who read this with total amazement?

I've been feeling a bit abnormal anyway, watching that thread on sexuality
and the age of discovery, and how our 13 and 14 year old hero/ines are
behind the curve. I must truly be some kind of dinosaur or have a hormonal
imbalance or something--I kissed a friend of my brother's just before my
seventeenth birthday, with no real feeling other than a desire to not have
spent my whole sixteenth year Sweet. But that's it, then, until college,
pretty much; I never even dated in high school.

So my question to the list is: how many of you really got the sexual
undertones that Elkins has pointed up? *As* sexual? Because I did notice the
particular word usage, and its effectiveness in creating a creepy
atmosphere, in all instances quoted--it just never struck me as sexual.

Of course, I'm one of the ones who thinks sexual by-play will get in the way
of a good story....but then again, I'm abnormal, aren't I?

--Amandageist