More random jottings - on a theme

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Mike & Susan Gray" <mikesusangray at ...> 
wrote:
> 
> Here's a top-of-the-head overview of the trio's experience of sexuality in
> the Potter books:
> 
> Harry and Ron and Hermione all participate in socially negotiated patterns
> (called balls, for example) which allow closer encounters of interaction
> between boys and girls which they both desire and fear. That's sexuality.
> Harry, Ron and Hermione all participate (with greater and lesser degrees of
> success) in a widely-spread pre-mating ritual known as kissing. That's
> sexuality.
> Harry, Ron and Hermione are siezed by otherwise inexpicable emotions of
> jealousy and rage when persons with whom they have established a hormonally
> charged bond show signs of forgetting it or of establishing such a bond with
> other persons. That's sexuality.

I can see your point, but...
The Ball for instance. 
If Harry and Ron's partners had been hoping for a little socially acceptable
sexuality,  then I fear they were sadly disappointed.
And no dancing since, IIRC.

Kissing - yes, it's there. Harry has kissed two girls, so has Ron; Hermione 
probably two fellows - mighty short rations. I'd complain if I were they;
seventeen and only two kissing datees? T'aint natural, I tellee.
Admittedly Ginny may have had more fun, but what we hear is mostly
disapproving conjecture on Ron's part. Besides, Ginny seems more 
genuine than the other three put together - particularly since book 4.
Maybe that's part of it.

Hormones - ah well. You should read what my physiology manuals have
to say about teens and hormones. It'd fair make your hair curl, and would
not go down well amidst the pages of HP. But I never suggested it should.

Despite all the brou-haha since, my point was that a little more realism,
congruence with contempory norms - especially the same-sex discussions
regarding uncertainty, ignorance and guesswork epidemic among the
younger set as they grope(!) towards adulthood, would not be amiss. 
We had it once. In seven years. In seven books.

It may be that this is all of a part with one of the other points in that
post - the total blank on any other adult arrangement except wedlock.
It may be the most desirable state where many folk are concerned,
but in society as a whole life-long wedlock has declined towards being 
a minority activity.
There are a lot of young readers who will not recognise the WW family
unit as something they're familiar with. It's a shame that the HP books 
neglects to recognise them.

Kneasy