Coming out...or not

[sistermagpie]

Recommending a nice post by bluefall here on characters leaving the closet. There's nothing I can really add to it, but the basic idea is just that slash so often deals with ostensibly straight characters, and so writers often deal with the characters themselves coming to the realization of being gay, but sometimes the process of coming out to other people

Comments

[sistermagpie]

Out of Harry's friends, I do think Ron is more likely to have an issue with it, because of the heteronormative Weasley family stuff you mentioned, and because Hermione strikes me as someone likely to be plagued with a degree of middle-class liberal guilt and eager to show herself as non-bourgeois and open-minded as possible. She'd probably take up the cause of gay wizard rights with much enthusiasm and embarrassment for all those involved.

That's probably the way it seems most easy to me too. That's why I always think it's funny when people act like it's ridiculous for Ron to have any problem with it. Sure it's ridiculous for Ron to turn into some hateful fundamentalist who curses Harry to hell. But his family actually does seem to consider certain behavior "proper" when it comes to sex, so why is it impossible for him to be casually insensitive? (Frankly, although I know JKR would never write her this way, I could believe Ginny being just as nasty about it, and to show herself "heroic" by standing up to people teasing the gay person by saying that of course that person isn't gay--what an insulting suggestion! He's all man!)

I realized when I was writing this that you'll notice I didn't mention Dumbledore at all--mostly because he seems to be a personification of ambivalence about gayness. It's all "why are YOU being so silly as to ask why it never came up in the text? Do you expect him to say "btw, Harry, there's this man I'm interested in?" when of course practically every single heterosexual character does just that in one way or the other. Even Snape, the last person who would ever want to share his feelings with Harry, suggests more of a romantic love for Lily in his memories than Albus "let me come clean about my relationship with Grindelwald" ever does about Gellert.