No Sex, Please, We're British

[o_caipora]

No: HPFGUIDX 83493

"grannybat84112" wrote:
> Caipora considered:
> 
> > I'm fairly sure one of Rowling's sources is Kipling's "Stalky & 
> Co".  Set in a boarding school, has a Trio, etc.
> > 
> > Kipling was of course Victorian. Even so, his meaning is clear. 
> 
> Uh, it's not clear to me. (I'm not sure whether this is because I 
> speak American English as opposed to The King's English, or if I'm 
> just not as well-versed in the subtlety of Victorian euphemism.) 

Reading the entire story makes it clear, at least to the adult. 
Kipling may have been intentionally obscure to such of his readers 
who may have gone direct from "The Jungle Book" to "Stalky & Co."

This isn't one of the better Stalky stories. The entire book can be 
found at (Yahoo was unfriendly to the last link; you may need to copy 
and paste this one to the address bar in segments)
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/prose
/StalkyandCo/index.html 

I mentioned this as a probable source for Rowling. Snape bears quite 
a resemblance to housemaster King.

In some other commentary on English public schools, it seemed 
that "unclean microbes" was a code word for either masturbation or 
homosexuality: it was something to be prevented by tiring the boys 
out on the playing fields and putting saltpeter in the stew. 

> > When Harry is in the 
> > Prefect's Bath, Millicent peeks at him.  ... If even a spirit 
> > cannot withstand a bit of sexual curiosity, what can we assume of 
> > flesh in the grip of adolescent hormones?
> 
(The ghost is Moaning Myrtle, by the way.)

My mistake. Sorry.

> Well, yes, but the mandrakes are bit players rather than main 
> characters. And their ultimate destiny is to be sliced, diced, and 
> pureed into a restorative draught; hardly an encouraging omen for 
> teens interested in learning about sex.

This thread started off on the topic of ethics. The treatment of the 
mandrakes, who are anthropormorphized and then puréed, is one of the 
ethically most troubling incidents in the books.

> (Still, I can't help waiting for Malfoy to make some homophobic 
> crack about Harry and Ron's friendship.

Dudley makes such a crack at the start of OotP, regarding Harry's 
saying Cedric's name in his nightmares, so it's not beyond Rowling's 
reach. 

Regarding Victorian/Edwardian British mores in general, read 
Saki's "Tobermory": a story of a cat who is taught to speak. He's 
been observing a country-house party (including through their bedroom 
windows), and their panic at what he might say suggests that their 
behavior hasn't been, well, Victorian. You can find it complete at:
http://wondersmith.com/scifi/toby.htm
The distress of the characters must have made sense to Saki's upper-
class readership, who presumably found untoward goings-on to be not 
too out of the ordinary. 

One of the most puzzling aspects of romance if not sex in Rowling is 
Hermione's cool explanations of how girls behave in OotP. Her 
demeanor has an air of "been there, done that, got the T-shirt" but 
her only romantic relationship we know of is with Viktor, and that 
seem largely epistolary. How does she know so well how other girls 
behave? She's given to spells, but in a different sense than other 
girls. So how does she know?

 - Caipora