How would you feel if your underage daughter had a stalker? He was male, much older than her, overly obsessive, and fantasized about seeing your daughter naked or in otherwise compromising situations? Chances are, unless you have more issues then we can cover in one article, you would be freaked out, disgusted, and on the verge of getting some type of restraining order to ensure your daughter remained safe.
Now, why should this not apply to a “fictional” daughter or son who is under the legal age? Sure, Harry has finally reached adulthood, but for ten years, those of us who weren’t as enthralled to join in on Pottermania were forced to sit back and watch as grown women and men(some old enough to be MY mother) obsessed about the “underage” Harry Potter. This is no new phenomena. It has been going on for years. In some ways, these particular women obsess in ways that are unhealthy. Some even border on what I like to call ‘fictional’ pedophilia.
I’m not saying every obsession is sexual in nature. I’m not saying that every Harry Potter obsession is for an underage Harry. I’m also not saying that all women who like Harry Potter think of him in a sexual manner. However, what is sexual obsession, especially to an 11 and 12 year old fictional character, disturbs me greatly.
Just look up Harry Potter fan fiction on the web. While not all fan fic is sexual in nature, there are plenty of sites offering Harry porno-by-pen, with the wizard displayed from age 11 upwards. Prior to book number 7, there were plenty of women (and even men) far over the age of 18 writing smutty stories about an underage Harry getting it on with Ginny, Sirius, Professor Snape, Hermione, or Cho Chang. This (the writing of porno-by-pen with a pre-pubescent Harry as the protagonist) hasn’t stopped now that Harry is an adult in the books.
I had some help researching this topic (which I don’t recommend you do if you have a delicate stomach). During this research, it didn’t take long before a plethora of smutty, pre and post pubescent fiction was on the computer screen. My research crew couldn’t get through any of the stories. That’s how awful they were. I refuse to link to them as the law is quite funny here in the U.S. when it comes to any association with underage writings that are sexual in nature.
I will say that within the first few search links, stories about 15 year old Hermione, Ron, & Harry and Hermione with Remus and Sirius (in threesomes) were visible to any who wished to read them, on the web. Other stories involved first through third year Potter students (in particular, Harry) in both gay and straight erotic situations. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t year 1- year 3 when they were 11-13 years old?
Some of these stories (written by people ranging in age from 18-60+) have the underage Harry still at Hogwarts getting his very first lay, being his Professor’s love slave, or perhaps something even kinkier (which he might be doing with his friends or professors). Upon researching for this article, I cannot describe how mortified and disgusted I was to see this kind of writing being passed off as fiction (or writing period), and trust me, I’m one of the least prudish people you will ever meet.
That’s just the start of it. Daniel Radcliffe, the poor bloke who will forever be associated with the role of Harry Potter, was just 17 when he was preparing for his role in ‘Equus’, a stage play in London that had the young actor nude upon stage. Now I know he was of legal age in England, and is now of legal age everywhere, but what is sad about this is that more often then not, women see him as Harry Potter, fantasizing of him as the character. This makes me wonder if they put Daniel’s 11 year old face to the 11 year old Harry Potter porn that is written.
To emphasize the point and obsession with Daniel as Harry, on television, I recall seeing more than one teenage daughter-mother pair signing up to go see Daniel on stage because they couldn’t wait to see “Harry Naked”. Not Daniel. Harry. The sickness even spreads as far as to reviews of the play online, listing such things as, “Everybody Loves Harry Potter’s Naked Penis” (I implore you to read the comments listing what a nice “ass” he has). Sure, plenty of women fantasize about the “legal age” Daniel, but what about the one’s who fantasize about Daniel as a pre-teen or young teen?
Isn’t this going a little too far? Am I the only one who feels disgusted by this? If Harry Potter was a real 11-13 year old boy, what would his parents (or guardians) say to such worship for him by anyone over 18 including middle aged women/men and those old enough to be his grandparents? Hopefully, they would think it was as disgusting as I do, and yet I’m sure it will continue long after this article is written in its entirety.
Even J.K. Rowling seems to be against adult fan fiction. In 2003, she had her agent’s lawyers contact websites containing adult HP stories. The lawyers had gone as far as to say J.K. Rowling believes true fans write the characters true to character and not in adult situations. Her primary worry, and one of the reasons I’m against adult fan fiction in general (especially underage fan fiction) is because children innocently looking up Harry Potter can find adult fan fiction. As a primary audience of her series, this scenario is completely possible.
In truth, I wonder how these men or women writing adult fan fiction would feel if their children found their stories, showing Mom/Dad/Grandparents fantasizing about Harry Potter not much older (or perhaps even younger depending on the child’s age) then them? I know, when I was a teenager, I would have been traumatized if they were my parents.
So, what can be done about this? Unfortunately, not much (other than J.K. Rowling taking action legally), especially since Harry Potter isn’t real. However, I can only say to those women and men who fantasize about fictional, pre-pubescent, underage characters that they need to get a life. They need to stop living in La La land. They need to stop fantasizing about someone who is way too young for them and who isn’t real in the first place. Hopefully these individuals will see how pathetic their actions are and they will change their ways and/or get help. After all, what kind of mother/father/grandparent is a pedophile in disguise?
Addendum: While I have heard many reasons for why people write Harry Potter adult fan fiction, one that bothers me the most is that people do it to re-live those years in their lives. I concede that I could see a Harry Potter coming of age story in this sense.
My question (and concern) is, what about 11 year old Harry as Snape’s sex slave? What about the stories that contain characters between 11-13 engaging in BDSM activities, threesomes, and other things that I would hope kids in this age group simply are not doing? These stories are on the web for anyone to find. If these kids are having sex, it is not likely many of them are doing such complex and adult-oriented activities. To me, this is not re-living youth. It is a way to get off using children in the stories.
Article edited due to additional research as well as minor clarifications.
Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Women, Middle aged, Fiction, Pedophilia, Daniel Radcliffe, Equus
After a lot of discussion with the other LI Moderators, Gretchen and Jarrett, I have decided to delete the comments, re-open them and monitor them more closely. Please follow some simple rules. Keep on the topic of the opinion piece. No personal attacks on a specific individual or group by name unless you plan to back it up with proof in the form of personal experience, facts, figures, statistics, etc. Some felt their group was being attacked unfairly. Since no proof was given to why they were attacked and no proof was given to counter the attack it was fair to everyone to simply delete all comments and start fresh.
Also, any comments such as “All Americans”, “All Canadians” or “All Anyone” will be deleted as this singles out an entire group and makes inaccurate assumptions. Don’t be ignorant in your comment. Bashing any of our writers’ personal lives just because you don’t like what they write is immature. You can disagree with them in a more intelligent way. If you feel you have proof about a bashing statement, then by all means comment. Just use common sense. If you have specific examples, with something to back you up, that’s a different story.
Also, be careful when posting URLs. We have automatic spam filters. I heard a lot of complaints about comments that never posted. This may be because they went to the automatic spam filter.
Thanks for your patience and understanding on this issue.
Ryan M.
Literary Illusions Administrator
I think that removing the previous comments is incredibly cowardly. Silencing your opponents does not make you right.
The comments were removed because there was infighting by people who do not regularly read this blog about other sites. They had nothing to do with the article, and I had multiple requests for the removal of certain posts bashing sites. It was a consensus vote by the moderators to remove all posts to get rid of the infighting.
You deleted the comments involving infighting, which I understand – yet you also completely erased those that were very relevant to the topic. Frankly I think you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Back to the issue at hand: Mainstream media today is incredibly sexually charged – many movies, television shows, and countless works by published authors involve sexual activity. Frequently this activity involves teenagers that may not be considered adults by, for instance, U.S. law. Does this make the creators of this material pedophiles?
I think not.
There’s a lot you can discover about about a person by how they react in a sexual situation. In my experience as a reader, what many fanfiction authors do through stories that involve explicit sexual writings (known commonly in fandom as ‘smut’) is explore character – id, ego, superego, etc. Granted, there is an element of pleasure involved; it’s part of what erotic literature is all about, after all; but ultimately the story is about the characters.
There are so many wonderful fanfic authors out there whose work (smut or no) is a real treat to read, whether or not you consider fanfiction an art worth your attention.
Therefore I think it’s unfair to lump in those who are invested in such literary practices and exercise a healthy eroticism with those who are out to hurt children. Opposite ends of the can o’ worms, there.
It all comes back to the United State’s puritanical foundation of values and a (natural) knee-jerk tendency to make generalizations. (For instance – I have been active in various online fandoms since I was about 14, including Harry Potter, and the amount of smut which involves 11-year-old Hogwarts students is incredibly minimal. You’re discussing a very minute minority, here, and due to this I think you’ve missed the point of fanfiction, and by association, *fandom*, completely.)
I’m not name-calling, here. Merely I’m suggesting you do enough research in order to write a truly informed opinion piece.
Actually, wouldn’t it be more prudent to actually delete this article in question? It’s very negatively provoking and borders on attack, in this case, toward women in their 30′s, 40′s, and 50′s who have a sexuality, who like fanfiction, who like Harry Potter, and the younger characters.
I think this is why there was so much wank in the first place. The tone of the article whould be edited, if not deleted.
The article is against anyone who reads pornographic, underage fan fiction, not just women. The reason why I mentioned women in the first place was because those are who I knew were reading it. However, I am positive men and women of all ages between 18-100 are reading, writing, and encouraging this smut. I’m against all of them, irregardless of gender, sexuality, age, race, religion, blah, blah, blah.
Therefore, I edited it since no one was smart enough to get that the article wasn’t an attack on people as much as it was on smut, indecent writing of minor characters (some as young as 11 and 12), and those who get off on underage sexual acts being portrayed in stories.
You have to admit there is a lot of difference between a coming of age story and a smutty piece of crap that lists an 11 or 12 year old as a sex slave to his teacher (or worse his uncle, father, or another relative). I’m not just talking about Harry here. Any underage character whether fact or fiction, when written in this matter, is disgusting. Harry just seemed to be the most prominent to comment on.
I hear a lot of people mixing up art and smut. I know the difference, do you? As for the wank, I care little of what a bunch of people who do not know me are saying. Most of the wank had me saying things I didn’t even put in my article.
One example is that I said women rub their thighs together to masturbate. That didn’t come from my fingertips. It wasn’t my comment or in my article. It came from someone else who was being “facetious”. Regardless, if people cannot even read an article and look at the bigger picture then that’s not my problem. It’s theirs.
I have nothing against women, men or otherwise who happen to have a sex drive. I am against those who have the desire to write, read, and/or act on their fantasies about children. Sex is natural and I fully encourage open discussion of sex with children in order to teach them about how to do so responsibly when they are ready. I don’t think 11 or 12 is the right time for children to have sex, because they are not mature enough to understand the risks or connotations behind the act.
Furthermore, I know that 70, 80, and even 90 year olds are having sex. That’s great, but so many of them don’t know about safe sex either and are contracting AIDS and other STDs. Education wasn’t believed to be necessary back in the day. Now it is.
However, if kids stumble across this HP porno by pen, what are they going to think? That its okay for them to do the things in the story because their heroes from Harry Potter are doing it, and trust me when I say most of the smut I’m talking about doesn’t have Harry putting on a condom before he gets serviced by Snape.
Sure, parents should monitor their children better (I know I do for my son). I fully agree with that point, but with so many children being more tech savvy then their parents, the parents aren’t always to blame. Some may not understand the risks and dangers out there because they don’t “get” the Internet. This is why J.K. Rowling has been so concerned about Adult Fan Fiction. Children can and will find it.
It just isn’t worth it, in my mind. If people are this twisted, they should just go back to keeping it in their private journal or if they want to have it in a community, why not do so in one with safeguards against children – such as making people scan their driver’s licenses to prove their age (to be able to get in), password protecting, etc.? Children are going to look up Harry Potter. So finding this kind of writing is inevitable due to its subject matter.
To frances – There are plenty of stories that don’t really focus on the characters, just the sex. It’s kind of like watching a film with a plot that happens to have a scene with sex in it, and watching a porno. Most pornos (while attempting to have a very cheesy plot) are just about the sex, while the movie with the sex scene is more about the bigger story. You can’t tell me that all these stories are the first example and not the latter. It’s one thing to write a character driven story with more than just sex involved. It’s another to write a story all about sex with minors (and I’m talking YOUNG minors) with very little in the way of character development. This is a good way to separate art & smut in my opinion.
As someone who’s been in the HP fandom for a while, please let me assure you that the vast majority of the smut out there does not focus on the characters children. In fact, I have never come across a story with sexual content that featured a child that was written solely with the intent to arouse- I’m sure that such stories exist (personally I’ve never looked for them), but access to them is no where near as easy as you make it out to be…
The response I started writing is now longer than your article! Truthfully, it’s a very complex can of worms, and calling mothers, fathers, and grandmothers “pedophiles in disguise” is not going to get you anywhere if you actually want to know what’s going on. Ugly, ugly. You don’t know nothin,’ kid. Wash out your mouth with soap.
What IS going on is fascinating, and worth studying. It involves an enormous amount of women who are grappling with their age– in a society that prizes youth, and sex, in a society that a) is still male-centric, and b) prizes a femininity that most of these women (as we get older) really can’t be bothered with.
And therefore are, for the first time in their lives, c) discovering that they are not the only hetero, married, matron to suffer from trans-gender issues.
If you’d like to talk further with me, I think I can show you how 11-year-old harry! PWP (Plot? What Plot?) comes into being, and why it is not harmful — within the fandom. I agree, it should be better hidden. But I think I can show you why it isn’t.
I am not saying there is no problem. I am saying that the problem you see is the tip of a rather amazing iceberg, that has nothing to do with pedophilia.