Does James' bullying arises to the level of sexual harassment/

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 150061

Alla:
> Wait, I am confused now. You were talking about Levicorpus though, 
> no? You see James using Levicorpus as sexually harassing Snape or 
> did I misunderstand you completely? When half of the school used 
> Levicorpus then  yes, I think it is highly probable that many people 
> had their pants taking off. Do you see this as sexual harassment or 
> do you see something different in pensieve scene as metaphor for 
> sexual harassment?

Pippin:
I think a line was being crossed with the pantsing
Fred and George hex people all the time but they obviously haven't 
been pantsing people for fun or Harry wouldn't have been shocked.  
It's not established that pantsing was a customary rite of passage 
or that the victim could expect things not to go any further. 

It's a common  technique from fairy tales, conveying a
threat to innocence by couching it in terms that innocence will not
understand, and JKR's language is allusive rather than explicit. But
the clincher for me is that the scene breaks off where it does: 
that implies *JKR* can't take it any further without being 
inappropriate.

There's an escalation of sexual hostilities: James making the
insulting suggestion that  Lily would trade  her attentions for Snape's 
safety, Lily humiliating James by saying she'd rather date the 
giant squid,  James taking out his humiliation on Snape, 
and finally Harry wondering if James had forced Lily into marriage.

Of course James behaved in a very Snape-like way,
provoking an overreaction like "filthy Mudblood" , then using righteous
anger as an excuse to punish. But just as in the Snape Harry 
interactions, it seems to be less about  correction than venting. 

And also, of course, about getting attention. I am certainly
willing to perceive James's behavior as more about 
attention-getting than about a need to use sex to humiliate 
people. AFAIK, that doesn't affect whether it's sexual 
harrassment or not -- that has to do with the victim's
perception. You are going to have to work very hard to convince 
me that Snape felt sexually safe with James threatening to take 
his pants off.

But that raises a question about Snape's bullying  --how much 
is sadism, and how much is a need for  attention? And is the 
need for attention the result of an outsize ego, as it was in 
James's case, or does it come from neglect?

You know, I've never had much hope that Snape could be
cured of his bullying, but now I wonder -- if it's really tied
to neglect, especially of the  attempted murder which
everyone expects him to treat as a joke -- then maybe
there's more hope for him than I thought. 

That, I think, was Dumbledore's huge mistake. He didn't
want to think any of those nice Gryffindor boys was capable
of deliberately intentionally taking another life. We often take 
childhood hurts inflicted by other children too lightly because we
don't want to think kids are capable of such things. Well,
Slytherins maybe -- but not *our* kids. 

Pippin