The possibility of a gay character (WAS: Snape: The fact that he exists)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 70827

Laxer:
  >"the subject of Sirius being gay has been raised"  do 
you know how hard it is is to find a girlfriend when you are in 
Azkaban?  And besides, how many couples have we actually seen in the 
series? I can count 5.  Percy's, Ginny's 2, cho and michael, and 
Krum/hermiony.  besides, we cant even tell if Sirius had a 
girlfriend at hogwarts cause we have only seen it once.  Perhaps he 
was the ultimate ladies man.  And for the possibility of Snape being 
perceived as gay, what evidence do you have for that.  JKR up to 
this point has wisely avoided most sexuality, so why would she 
portray him as gay?>
 
Pickle Jimmy - in the same vein as Laxer:
> my question regarding Homosexuality in the series is - why would 
JK do it? Surely it would be suicide as a writer to alienate a 
percentage of your readers by including an unnecessary reference to 
someones sexuality. What relevance could it possible have to the 
plot. I am sure JK suffers enough from people with the whole witch, 
wizard, occult thing without opening the gay can of worms.>

Now me:
I found these two posts rather depressing (do people really still 
hold this sort of attitude?), at yet at the same time they confirmed 
suspicions (yes, I suppose they do) I had when I posted message 
65448:"Sirius as close as we're going to get to a gay character?". I 
particularly loved this little bit of non-reasoning:
"besides, we cant even tell if Sirius had a girlfriend at hogwarts 
cause we have only seen it once.  Perhaps he was the ultimate ladies 
man.  And for the possibility of Snape being 
perceived as gay, what evidence do you have for that. " The fact is, 
Laxer, we have as much evidence that Sirius was the ultimate ladies 
man as we do that Snape is a gay character. Sirius displays 
absolutely no interest in women throughout the entire series. Fair 
enough, it probably *is* very difficult to get a girlfriend in 
Azkaban, particularly when the only woman we've heard of in there is 
your insane and evil cousin. But then, Snape shows no sexual 
interest in anyone throughout the books either. You can't discount 
one and still have the other, I'm afraid.
Now, onto JKR's "wise" avoidance of "unnecessary reference to 
sexuality". Did both of you miss the whole Harry-Cho thing? That was 
sexuality. Sexuality watered down for presentation in a children's 
book, but sexuality nonetheless. What about the rosebush scenes in 
GoF? Oh, but I forgot. Those are *normal*. By " unnecessary 
reference to sexuality", I take it you both mean "homosexuality", 
that deviation from the norm, right... "What relevance could it 
possibly have to the plot?" What relevance does Harry's interest in 
Cho have to the plot? You could argue that Harry's interest in Cho 
is a normal, healthy part of growing up and coming into adulthood, 
and as the plot follows Harry's adolescence it's only natural that 
it should contain this element. However, I would offer you the fact 
that whether the two of you like it or not (and you obviously 
don't), teenagers nowadays are aware of all forms of sexuality. The 
age of homosexual consent in Britain is sixteen. This "suicide as a 
writer" bit I found quite funny - do you honestly believe that *JK 
Rowling's* books are going to stop selling because she puts in a gay 
character and thus "alienates" the homophobic part of her fan base? 
She hasn't really shied away from other contentious issues, has she? 
Couldn't you say  just as easily that in OoP she alienates that part 
of her fanbase who work in government or journalism? That the series 
as a whole exists to alienate the racist part of her fanbase, 
particularly those who don't believe in inter-racial relationships? 
Finally, I wanted to look at your comment that "JKR has suffered 
enough" with the criticism of the occult in her books. Yes, but she 
only experiences this response when she tours America. JKR spends 
most of her time living in Edinburgh, in Scotland, where the most 
violent response she's likely to get to the introduction of a gay 
character is a couple of wee old ladies shaking their handbags into 
her face. We are a generally lot more liberal over here. The second 
highest profile British kids writer is Melvin Burgess, who writes 
books aimed at 12-15 year olds exploring heroin addiction and 
sexuality in far more graphic detail than anything we are likely to 
see in the Pottersverse. These books attract a fair amount of 
criticism from parent's groups, but have certainly paved the way for 
discussion of this sort of thing in children's literature. If JKR 
did decide to take this step, I don't believe it would cause nearly 
as much controversy, and thus upheaval in her own life, as you 
appear to think.  
Ultimately, as I said in my earlier post, I don't believe that there 
will be a gay character in any of the books. I think that the series 
itself is far too conservative in its depictions of social 
strictures to go this far. However, neither of you addressed this 
point in a mature or reasoned way. What both of you did was 
essentially to cover your eyes and go "No no no, we don't want to 
see that!". It's this sort of passive homophobia that perpetuates 
further states in which the subject can't be discussed reasonably 
within an adolescent context.

Kirstini