No Sex, Please, We're British

[grannybat84112]

No: HPFGUIDX 83502

Pshemekan wrote:
> >
> >(Hmm, how do 
> >budding wizards shave? With wands? With a beard inhibiting potion? 
> >With an old-fashioned straight razor?  
> 
> Wands. Definitely. Morning (and sometimes evening) shave is a major 
> bane of human male existence.
 
Now you've got me wondering about a minor bane of human female 
existence: Shaving legs. Do witches even bother, or do they just 
count on those long robes for cover? Rowling has yet to show us a 
student wearing shorts or a teacher in a miniskirt. 

> >... the only adolescent we see demonstrating overt 
> >sexual urges is Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw who appears to change 
> >girlfriends every month.  
> >
> You missed two other examples: the pair caught by Snape in the  
> bushes during Yule Ball

Are you referring to Fawcett and Stebbins, or to Fleur and Roger? 
Fawcett & Stebbins I'll grant you, although my initial reading of 
that scene didn't translate as Snape catching them in the middle of a 
snog. I thought they were just running around as kids in high 
spirits, `letting their hair down.' (To an uptight Victorian like 
Snape, unconstrained enthusiasm would be perceived as bad form.) 

As for the others–I've already mentioned Davies' hormones, and Fleur 
is, well...French. ;)


> and Patil's horror when she realised that 
> Crouch/Moody can see through clothes ("Nice socks, Potter!").

I didn't interpret this as sexual nervousness. I saw her reaction as 
revulsion against Moody's all-around creepiness and his ability to 
invade personal privacy in at will. Was it Lavender or Parvati whom 
Moody chastised in DADA class for showing her horoscope beneath the 
desk when he was speaking?
 

> You should also take into account that WW teens are not 
> indoctrinated by  TV shows, teen magazines and generally speaking 
> pop culture. 

Yes, there's a real dearth of Muggle entertainment once kids enter 
Hogwarts, isn't there? No videos or music CDs enchanted to run off 
magical devices rather than electricity, certainly no Internet, not 
even paper media.  Dean Thomas's poster of the West Ham soccer 
(sorry, football) team is the only item mentioned; I assume Muggle-
borns can receive letters from their non-magical family members 
without restriction.  (Dumbledore reads Muggle newspapers, but he's 
unusual even by Magical standards.)

Freedom from sexual peer pressure may be a good thing...but are we 
meant to assume that the values and culture of the Magical world 
consume Muggle-borns so thoroughly?

Chilling thought, that.

Grannybat