Sex and Harry Potter ?

[aamonn2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 77686


Here it is. As time is running, the kids are no longers *kids* 
anymore. In book 7, Harry will be something like seventeen years-old. 
As we live in a real world and so does Harry too (at least this is 
what J.K. Rowling wants us to believe - thanks to the Dursleys !), he 
will perhaps engage into love-affairs that will lead him to 
experience intimacy with a woman(1) (I don't really know if such an 
euphemism sounds odd or not in english, so correct me if it's not an 
appropriate way of setting things forth). 

Now my question is : do you think that it should be possible or even 
desirable for an author like J.K.R. who, to be sure, not only writes 
for children but also writes for them, to introduce such a topic 
(and, why not, descriptions - for example his first experience with a 
woman ; after all we already got the description of what really seems 
to be his very first kiss) in her future novels ? [Let me precise 
something : When I talk about descriptions, what I have in mind are 
not pornographic or crude descriptions, of course, but something that 
remains to be found out : it seems almost easy for an author who 
writes for children to write about such a topic as death, but 
incomparably harder to talk about love, physical love].

I for one think that it would really be interesting. Not interesting 
in a libidinous sense, but it would be something like a challenge for 
a writter (how to achieve such a prowess with all the legitimate 
constraints pertaining to this genre ?), one that Rowling should take 
up. After all, when she writes her story she also has in mind the 
fact that, just like Harry, her readers are growing up and her books 
definitely reflect that (Harry in OoP, for example, behaves like many 
teenagers actually do - something that many readers found to be a 
problem for, owing to that, OoP can easily be described as a 
psychological book which describes and analyses some typical 
teenagers' attitudes(2)). 

Thus said, my main point, if I have to summarize it, would be : so 
far Rowling has gone a bit of the way with her (less and less) young 
readers. Do you believe she will keep on following her readers' 
evolution by describing what concerns them  - or, at least, for those 
who began reading HP in 1997, what *will* concern them when the 6th 
or 7th books are published - because they are bound to experience it. 

After all, she has already written about such topics as death, 
murder, betrayal, injustice, greed, cowardice, etc. I don't believe 
that, as an essential part of love, sexual relationships should be 
automatically considered as being more obscene - in a book - than 
those topics (at least, this is MHO).

AAm.

(1) You can replace *woman* by *man* if you believe that it better 
fits Harry's taste.
(2) See for instance chapter twenty-three ("Chrismas on the Closed 
Ward"): 

[Phineas Nigellus's portrait is talking to Harry]
"You know" sais Phineas, this is why I loathed being a teacher ! 
Young people [AAm : notice that this lesson not only applies to Harry 
but to young people in general - dare I say some of Rowling's 
readers ? Yes.] are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely 
right about everything. Has it not occurred to you , my poor puffed-
up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the 
Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confinding every tiny detail of his 
plan to you ? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to 
note that following Dumbledore's orders has never led you into harm ? 
No. No, like all young people, you are quite sure that you alone feel 
and think, you alone recognise danger, you alone are the only one 
clever enough to realise what the Dark Lord may be planning -"
 
and chapter thirty-seven ("The Lost Prophecy") :

[Phyneas Nigellus's portrait is commenting Harry's behaviour] 
"You see Dumbledore ?" said Phineas Nigellus slyly. "Never try to 
understand the students. They hate it. They would much rather be 
tragically misunderstood, wallow in self pity, stew in their own-"
"That's enough, Phineas", said Dumbledore.
These remarks are very important in order to understand one of the 
main interests of the book namely, the psychological descriptions it 
contains.

Each time it's the same character who teaches the lesson. This was 
not done on account of pure luck if you believe me : it rather sounds 
like what I would call a "narrative intervention" intended for a 
peculiar category of readers (one that may very well remain deaf to 
the lesson which it has been inculcated upon, just as Harry did).