JKR, the female and facism (wasRe: WAS Slytherin as villains...

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179108

Betsy Hp:
> Yes, and it's one of full attack mode.  When we're supposed to start 
> thinking of her as a sexual person, we never see her that she's not 
> attacking (usually physically, sometimes verbally) someone.  Because 
> I think, for JKR, that's what female sensuality is: an attack.  And 
> something that weakens men.
> 
> JKR needed Harry to have a girl he could make babies with for the 
> epilogue, so she needed to invent Ginny.  And I do find it 
> fascinating that she made Ginny as much like Harry as possible 
> (though far more aggressive, because female).  But then as soon as it 
> was established that Ginny and Harry would willingly breed, Ginny is 
> whisked away.  Because in the end, she'd only weaken Harry.  
> *Especially* if they had sex.  (Though Ginny is hyper-alert to 
> protecting Harry against other aggressive females.  Hence her making 
> sure Cho doesn't lead Harry to the Ravenclaw dorms.) 

Carol responds:
I agree on two points: that JKR doesn't depict romance well and that
Ginny is, well, aggressive and not at all the wonderful character JKR
sees her as being. (Soory, Ginny fans, but the only time I liked her
is when she stood up to Draco early in CoS. Well, that and telling
Harry what it's like to be possessed. He was acting like an idiot and
he should have asked an authority on the subject.) 

However, it's Ginny, not Harry, who's being protected in DH, not from
sex but from danger, as Harry makes clear at the end of HBP. And she's
still being protected in DH by her mother because she's underage. Ron,
too, is protecting her--not explicitly from sex, although she's the
one who would get pregnant if they didn't use Contraceptio, or
whatever the contraceptive spell is, but from a broken heart.

And while it's true that Ginny is aggressive toward her rivals,
Hermione's jealousy manifests itself in an attack on *Ron*
("Oppugno!") and Cho's in words and tears. IOW, each feels the same
emotion but manifests it according to her personality. Both Ron and
Harry also feel jealousy; Ron's jealousy of Viktor Krum in GoF results
in accusing Hermione of "fraternizing with the enemy" and in HBP the
idea that Hermione may have kissed Viktor two years earlier leads him
to stop speaking to her. He's *still* jealous in DH, this time of
Harry (combined with his envy of Harry as the Chosen One and his own
sense of inferiority), with the result that he walks out on both Harry
and Hermione. (He symbolically kills all these demons when he destroys
the Horcrux.) Harry, too, is quite capable of jealousy, as we see in
his chest monster and fantasies of revenge on his rivals. The only
difference is that Harry, for the most part, keeps his jealousy under
control.

JKR is also, of course, making quite sure that her teenage heroines
don't get pregnant or engage in underage sex, setting a bad example
for young female readers. (She said something of the sort in an
interview, and since it's not an analysis of her characters or an
interpretation of the books but a reason for not taking sex beyond
"snogging" and groping, I think, for once, we can credit that statement.)

I see no threat to the *boys* from female sexuality--unless they marry
a woman like Blaise Zabini's mother. Nor does Ginny's aggressiveness
against Zacharias Smith have anything to do with sexuality. And when
Harry does get to kiss Ginny, both in HBP and DH, its represented as a
blissful escape from harsh reality. The only threat to *him* of having
her along would be that he might get sidetracked from his mission. The
threat to her is that she might get killed (not to mention that she's
not even sixteen when we see her kissing Harry, given her August
birthday per JKR's website, and is still a child even in the view of
the WW).

On a sidenote, Betsy said somewhere that she thought that the romance
between Molly and Arthur had died. I offer "Mollywobbles" as evidence
to the contrary. And Molly is none too pleased with the attention that
Arthur pays to the beautiful half-Veela Apolline Delacour. (The
behavior of boys and men around Veela is just, IMO, a comic jab at RL
men's reactions to beautiful, seductive women.)

Carol, none too sure that jealousy is really a sign of true love but
seeing it as far more apparent in JKR's characters of both sexes than
any threat to boys or men from female sexuality (the only threat being
to *girls* who might be thought of as "scarlet women" if they behave
like Lavender Brown)