/u/karenerer on So i'm pretty new to the Asexual community and I just gotta ask...

Yeah, I def get that: Even as an American, personally grew up with the idea AIDS as an "African" disease (which was its own problems but that's a whole other can of noodles) and didn't understand or really even know about the AIDs crisis until I was a teenager.

and thats what I mean about Ymmv- is you lived through the AIDS crisis and grew up being told or having it be implied that gay people are predators, then you are MUCH more likely to see what happened to lupin as a reinforcement of those ideas if you are told lycanthropy was intended as a metaphor for AIDS. Because it's then something you're more likely to be hyper aware of because it's something you've had to deal with, one way or another.

However, no matter the intent of the writing, I think being blind to a hurtful trope that was BOUND to be prevalent is careless or not well-thought through on the artist's part. She could have easily done more research and been more conscientious, and IMO it affected her writing negatively, because in that I personally saw conflict between the themes of the series and the ignorance of the struggles gay and queer men have gone through in that example. Not everyone is going to see all that and see that as conflict, and that's okay!!!! Art's like that!!! However I feel like it's the author's job to see and explore those things when story-crafting. Everyone's human, and no one is going to be free of mistakes. But I feel like JKR has repeatedly made too many to be free of criticism, especially when it comes to queer issues.

I do agree that people with PTSD don't experience that from the outside because of their PTSD- however I do think that is the ONLY place that the AIDS metaphor works in contrast. And it is not the AIDS alone or the sexual predator alone that makes this a problem for me: it is the historic and homophobic association of BOTH of these with the gay community combined that makes me wary.

And while socially that is not the case, PTSD that comes from sexual abuse or sexual assault DOES come in the forms of one FEELING dirty and guilty. In combination with being poor and not pure-blood (from a species standpoint, since other species of magical creature are shown to be discriminated against. I don't recall if he was half-blood or pure blood magical parent wise.), I feel like that's enough that the AIDS metaphor is unnecessary and can be dismissed due to the harmful ideas I personally associate with the inclusion of that, and allows PTSD to fit well enough to, IMO, add more thematically.

July 19, 2020 at 11:40PM