[HPforGrownups] Re: Sexuality in HP

[Chelsea2162 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 40137

In a message dated 6/20/2002 9:45:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
editor at texas.net writes:

<< 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. >>

    I have a younger brother who's going into the 8th grade, who's read all 
of the books. After all the debating, I was curious to see what he thought of 
the situation regarding the sexual tones (not that I asked him like that..he 
would've thrown something at me). I asked if he thought Ron and Hermione 
liked eachother, and if people that age (which is his age, 13/14) act like 
that. He said that some of his friends still think girls have cooties, while 
others are already on the prowl. I think that while not all kids are into 
dating, many are. I know that when I was 13 and 14, I had plenty of crushes, 
and plenty of games of Spin the Bottle, which seemed like the most exciting 
thing at the time. To me, Harry and Co. do seem a bit more naive than I was 
at that age, but JKR might just be focusing more on Good vs. Evil than 
sexuality...although there is innuendo which I picked up right away. 
    My brother readily agreed that there was something between Ron and 
Hermione, because, he admitted, when he liked a girl, he sometimes teasted 
her, just to get her attention.  
    Interestingly, my brother did pick up a little bit of the 'innuendo' at 
the end of GoF, and wondered exactly why Voldie was caressing his wand so... 
although he told me that his other friends didn't pick up on anything. I'm 
guessing that to most children, it doesn't seem like anything, but to us 
older folks, there IS innuendo there....either that or we all have dirty 
minds :)

*Chelsea* (hopefully this makes a bit of sense, and isn't me just rambling)