[HPforGrownups] Harry Potter, REALLY for Grown-Ups (well, PG-13 anyway)

[Pamela Rosen]

No: HPFGUIDX 164355

Bart:

Hogwarts has students from 10-17. Doesn't ANYBODY
have sex? Now, I am not one of those people who say that ALL teenagers
have sex, but certainly, SOME do. Even the professors appear to be
virgins!

And look at Draco. He clearly has little care for
the feelings of others. Yet, he has a woman who has the entire older
male student group hot under the, ummm, we'll call it the collar, and
Draco has her under Imperious Curse, and, well, nothing! Don't tell me
that Draco has become a gentleman!

Any thoughts?


Pam:
    Bart,
  I'm sure Hogwarts is healthily full of hormones. However, I cannot see a point to mentioning it in the books, because it isn't pertinent. Furthermore, kids as young as seven read these books. It's not that mention of sexuality is necessarily bad for them, it's that a huge portion of the HP's audience is obstensibly written for a young audience who love the fantasy and the theories but still get major heebie-jeebies if they see a screen kiss or read a romantic scene.  My son is one of them.  We're in the middle of OotP right now and he loves everything but the Harry-Cho subplot. 
   
  As for the teachers, it appears that all of them have a good reason to be there.  Snape is doing whatever Snape is doing, Trelawney was under protection, Binns is dead, Hagrid was taken in by Dumbledore, etc.  I have long suspected that many of the teachers had significant others, but they may have been killed during Voldemort's last reign. I have a similar feeling about Aberforth.  He was in the Order during the first reign; 15 years down the line finds him in a slightly demented state.  Did he suffer a fate similar to the Longbottoms? 
   
  Anyway, those are my thoughts about the lack of sexuality at Hogwarts---plot and audience for the students, and logical backstory for the teachers.
   
  Pam

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