Smash the heterosexual orthodoxy

[donnaimmaculata]

Following the confirmation of the Remus/Tonks canon and the subsequent - to use a polite term - discussions about whether or not Rowling has merely submitted to society's heterosexist pressure, I would like to ask a question that's always interested me: What makes Remus gay?

I am asking this, because there are many readers who read the character Remus Lupin as gay. And I don't mean the character's being coded as representing the idea of homosexuality on an allegorical level, which is quite a different thing. (A worrying one as well if people assume that making someone a vicious man-eating monster means that they stand for homosexuality, but this is neither here nor there.) What I am interested to know is what, exactly, about Lupin's characterisation makes readers think he's as gay as a tree full of monkey.

Because, as much as I like writing and reading Remus in slash pairings, I've never read the character in the novel as gay. (He reminds me far too much of my ex-BF for that, but this, again, is neither here nor there.) He's polite, understanding and witty, which, I realise, are qualities that are often contributed to gay men, because they are oh so full of understanding for us women, quite unlike their rude, insensitive, grumpy straight counterparts.

This is a serious question. I'm honestly interested.

Comments

[shocolate.livejournal.com]

I never read him as gay.

Obviously not pre-fandom, because I didn't read anyone as gay - and my brother is gay, so it's not as if I don't trip over gay people regularly.

And I don't read Marauder's Era stuff, so I have almost never been exposed to gay!famdom!Remus, either.

So the Tonks thing didn't upset me at all.

So this is a pointless comment.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I never read him as gay either, but in fandom he is the gayest gay character ever. I wonder why.

The Tonks thing didn't upset me because it is Tonks, but because now there is a canonical SO. It would have upset me just as much if it had been Snape or Harry or Bill. Well, Bill a bit less. But I would have been much more upset if it had turned out to be Sirius, because theirloveissocanon is too omnipresent for my comfort as it is.

What would life on LJ be without pointless comments? And pointless posts?

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

For me it's the stuff from OotP. He watches Sirius for a fair while in that big kitchen scene, and their interaction mirrors the Molly/Arthur interaction quite a bit. Plus Remus is alone, and seems to have only ever had his schoolfriends in his life... okay we could be missing a lot of his inbetween story, but there is the impression that they (or one in particular, who knows) meant a hell of a lot more to him than we would expect. Maybe it's just too sad to think that he never got any shagging in at all :(

But the polite and understanding gay man thing? Hahahaha. My best gay male friend is a Geordie with a foul temper who swears incomprehensibly and gets into fights when he has too many beers.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

You know, I can see the Sirius/Remus appeal, even though I don't really ship them. However, there is a difference between the situational gayness of Remus (i.e. he's shagging Sirius) and the inherent gayness (i.e. the character is teh gay, even though there is no Sirius in the case). And I wonder where this comes from.

My best gay male friend is a Geordie with a foul temper who swears incomprehensibly and gets into fights when he has too many beers.

Does he scratch them with his manicured nails? *g* Maybe he's a hetero in the closet.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Honestly? When I read PoA for the first time, I absolutely saw the Remus/Sirius thing (and that was long before I got into HP as a *fandom*), but seeing one m/m relationship for a character doesn't preclude that character's involvement with someone of the opposite sex. Bi, at least...but not necessarily gay.

I have a feeling the *real* All Gay, All the Time coding for Remus was done by Cuaron in the movie. Remus's last scene with Harry was very much "Parents don't want gay men teaching their kids," but I didn't get that message in the book.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the Sirius/Remus thing, but that might be because I was so focused on Remus that everything else faded into the background. The Prisoner of what?

But I get the feeling that Remus is often perceived as gay even if there was no Sirius in the case. There have been many posts lately about how "Rowling took a perfectly gay character" and gave him a beard.

Hm. I am not at all impressed by the contamination through the movies. Especially since I don't really like them myself and it confuses me when movie canon is suddenly established.

[oakwonder.livejournal.com]

The only one the books actually point to with a big gloved hand coming from the sky is Gilderoy Lockhart.

When I reread OTP just recently I was specifically looking for signs, and couldn't find any. OTP is distinguished, indeed remarkable, for showing grown-up friendship: as the children age they're being admitted to that viewpoint more. The interactions between Tonks and the girls have more resonance, but still not enough to really read any hints into it.

Though I have to admit I was hoping Tonks was; and was disappointed with the hastiness and non-foreshadowing of the thing with Remus. Even during the one book, until it's revealed, you couldn't guess. You don't know what the hair means; the Dark Mark rubbing was a deliberate red herring that was never re-explained later; and there was no interaction that could let you even fantasize.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Gilderoy is such a queen, it's not true.

OTP is distinguished, indeed remarkable, for showing grown-up friendship

Yes. That is so true. This is one of the things I liked about the book - we get an insight into how the adults are relating to each other. But with regard to Remus and Sirius, I've always felt that they simply fall back on one another because they have no-one else who is close to them. Old school friendships do that for people, I think. I fall back into the old patterns when I meet old friends from school, even when I haven't seen them in a long time.

I don't mind the lack of foreshadowing in HBP - most of their action happens off-screen, and there is no way Harry could spy easily into Remus' love life. And it's not as though the Remus/Tonks thing was important in the great scale of things.

[prillalar]

For me, it was just a gut feeling, not a list of things I could tick off. And I should clarify: I didn't think that JKR thought he was gay. Like I don't think George Lucas thinks Luke Skywalker is gay, but gay he is, to me.

And I had the same feeling about Tonks, which is why the whole romance seems so weird to me.

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

Somehow after reading that I'm expecting someone to come up with an icon saying "Remus/Tonks- she can be any gender he wants her to be."

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Remus, to me, has always been a character who certainly could be gay, but didn't read to me as such. He could go either way because he was reticent and kept his feelings to himself. I think perhaps some of the things that read as positively gay have to do with his werewolfism--he has something to hide in a way that historically many gay characters have had to hide.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Remus certainly could be gay, but this goes for many HP characters. And I agree that the entire concept of werewolfism as something to hide could be read as a metaphor for homosexuality (to a degree), but I rather read it as a metaphor for a dangerous disease. However, what puzzles me, is that there apparently is something about his characterisation that makes people read him as gay (not as a metaphor, not as slashable). See, I make a distinction beween the metaphorical level (lycantrophy = homosexuality), the character's slashability, and the character's personality. They do intertwine, of course, but I am surprised about how many readers think that Remus is "a perfectly gay character" (to use a direct quote from fandom).

[archon-mentha.livejournal.com]

Actually, Sirius was the one who has always pinged me as 100% gay. Just an impression, formed somewhere I think between him ignoring the blonde girl in the Pensive scene and the way he fights with Molly, which reminds me of a few gay friends.

I started thinking of Remus as gay in association with Sirius. I still mostly thought of him as gay rather than bi, partly because (even though I'm bi myself) bisexuality is a rarer thing, but also because I like the idea of them being completely into guys and especially into each other.

I still dislike R/T, but not because Tonks is female. I can honestly say I'd have disliked it even more if Snupin had been made canon...it's just not somewhere I see the characters going.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I find it very refreshing that it's Sirius who is gay for you ;-)

I think my problem is that I don't have a fixed idea of the character's sexual orientation (I tend to make them all cheerfully bisexual, to be able to avoid all coming-out issues in fics). For me, they could go either way, and I can't honestly say that Remus or Sirius (or Snape, or Harry...) strike me as definitely homosexual (or definitely heterosexual, for that matter). But there seems to be something about Remus' characterisation that makes people think he (Remus-the-person) must be gay. "A perfectly gay character". I read and write more slash than het, but not because I think the characters are gay, but because I, well, like slash.

I don't dislike Remus/Tonks as such; I've read this pairing before and enjoyed it. But I'd have preferred Remus to remain single in canon.

but also because I like the idea of them being completely into [...] each other

See, I'm the complete opposite! I want them to get around ;-)

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I used to consider the "Remus is So Totally Gay" thing to be an example of the worst kind of stereotyping (because quiet bookish men who aren't overtly macho must be gay), but I changed my mind about it after somebody on a non-HP-related message board pointed out that his speech about how his friends found out he was a werewolf is, in essence, a coming-out narrative. So I think people may be picking up on the similarities and over-literalizing them.

In any case, my own position has always been that he doesn't need to be gay because he's already a werewolf. JKR has already presented him as a member of an invisible-but-discriminated-against minority, and she's done it in a way that fits into her world and the story she's telling; there's no earthly reason for her to do the same thing twice over. It would be like making all the Muggle-born students at Hogwarts Jewish.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

that his speech about how his friends found out he was a werewolf is, in essence, a coming-out narrative

Yes, I don't deny that. Remus as an allegory for homosexuality (or, for me, rather for a dangerous disease) works quite well. But that's not what I was driving at. See, I think that the characters work on different levels: they can represent something on an allegorical level (Remus could represent a homosexual man or an AIDS patient or a mentally ill person), and they also work as, well, characters. As people. And I wonder that there seems to be something about his characterisation that makes people think he's gay - not merely an allegory for homosexuality. (Of course, they can be intertwined; Remus can be gay. But he doesn't have to, and for me, nothing about his characterisation screams "teh gay"!)

[crazysexy-cool.livejournal.com]

I've never read him as gay, either; I think it's more than people just want to pair him with someone, and the easiest and simplest way to do it is to pair him with a man.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I slash Remus left, right and centre myself. But I've never seen the character as described in the books as definitely gay. He could be, but he doesn't have to be.

[mimine.livejournal.com]

Remus doesn't read as gay. It's the fanon influence. Now Sirius... it's obvious, same with Harry deep down, no matter how many girls he snogs.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you say that :-)

Something about his characterisation seems to make people think the character must be gay, and I wonder what that is, because I've never seen it myself.

Harry, of course, is obsessed with Snape and Malfoy, so that's that.

[babycakesin.livejournal.com]

can't help you here, I don't read him as gay. I think fangirls (slasher ones, obviously) have a tendency to slash everyone anyway, so...

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

After HBP especially, there have been many posts about how Rowling took "a perfectly gay character" and gave him a girlfriend. I slash him myself, obviously, but I've never read the novel character as gay *sighs*

[midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com]

It's funny. I was never really a 'slasher' before. When I was lurking a lot in the Highlander fandom, well, Methos was my favorite character, and he is someone who always struck me as totally bisexual. At 5,000 years old, I couldn't see him thinking in terms of gender. The one pairing I didn't like was Methos/Duncan, because Duncan totally pinged 'straight as a board' to me. I never wrote any HL fanfic.

It wasn't until I actually came into the HP fandom last summer that I really had much interest in slash. And even now, it's not about the slash itself, it's about the dynamics between the particular characters. When I first read the books, I never even thought about the sexuality of the characters. At all. I didn't read them for the romance; I read them for the story - for the plot - for the interesting characters. And after PoA, Remus and Sirius quickly became my favorites, probably because they were about my age, and the trio were so young to me.

It wasn't until I stumbled upon a R/S fic, quite accidentally I might add, that the idea of the two of them as a couple entered my mind. And to my surprise, it really resonated with me. Not because of their gender, not because it was "ooh - teh hot slashy sex", but because I loved the dynamic of their personalities together. Their gender was almost... incidental. And I have gay friends as well. Yes, I saw the similarities between lycanthropy/homosexuality, but I never really applied it in that manner. It was a metaphor, not an actual comparison.

So why do I see Remus as gay/bi rather than straight? I can't honestly tell you. It's not any one thing in particular and there's no glaring neon sign flashing over him proclaiming "gay as a tree full of monkeys" or anything like that. I just tend to look at him as a private, closed person who, by his very nature and probably because of his condition, would not be one to scoff at attraction/love in whatever form it comes in. At least not as an adult - as a teen - it would probably have been awfully confusing. And because of who he is, he's also not the type to seek out love or relationships. Not so much because he doesn't think he deserves it, but because he's too much of a realist, and his friendships with the other marauders were more on par with a gift. I suppose I also see him as being much more comfortable with men than with women in general. He doesn't let people in - not easily - which is why I'm not happy with the R/T relationship as it's been portrayed.

I like Tonks. I'd read a few stories pairing them together, and the fanon Tonkses were much better written compatibility-wise. Sirius is such a force of nature, especially younger Sirius, that he wouldnt have taken no for an answer. Relentless. Canon Tonks doesn't have that... passion, that depth.

Anyway, I'm really going OT. I suppose fanon has influenced me though I don't slash just to slash. I don't like Snupin, and I wouldn't just pair Remus indiscriminantly with any male just for the sake of it. I need a reason beyond "ooh teh hot slashy sex!" I just really like him with Sirius. To me, it just fits - it works. And I can't really explain it any more than that.

I don't think I helped very much in answering your question...

[eyesaintmoving.livejournal.com]

*giggles at your GO references*

[3goodtimes.livejournal.com]

I never really saw him as gay, but I think his condition contains paralells to homophobia especially when related to the AIDS virus. Then again, it paralels a lot of different types of prejudice, pehaps even prejudice in general.

When he says things about parents objecting to his teaching, that conjures up memories of boy scout troop leaders and teachers being fired because of their sexual orientation.

So perhaps this is where the gay assuption comes from.

Of course, we now know he's not gay, but that doesn't rule out bi. ;)

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Oh, I perfectly understand Remus-as-metaphor, even though I see it as a metaphor for a dangerous disease rather than homosexuality, but that's my personal perception. However, there seems to be something about Remus' characterisation that makes people think he (Remus-the-person) must be gay.

I'm not opposed to gay!Remus - on the contrary. I slash him myself. But the Remus in the novels does not read as gay to me. At all.

Here via d_s

[mafdet.livejournal.com]

I never really got the feeling that Remus was intended to be gay, either. I'd prefer to think that the fanon idea that Remus was gay is an outgrowth of his lycanthropy as a metaphor for homosexuality rather than the idea that a quiet, bookish, introverted man must be gay. For all we know, Charlie Weasley is gay, or Mundungus Fletcher. I'd put forth Hagrid as a candidate for "bear" but he's so obviously enamored with Olympe Maxime.

Re: Here via d_s

[i-am-badger.livejournal.com]

I'd put forth Hagrid as a candidate for "bear"

Bwa! Indeed. ::tries to scrub away the image of Hagrid in assless chaps::

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I think it is mainly fandom's predisposition to make all male characters gay because it is utterly slash obsessed.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I like slash, too, but I don't think that novel!Remus reads gay. He could be, but he could just as well be straight.

here via daily_snitch

[parallactic.livejournal.com]

Until HBP, Lupin didn't strike me as much of anything. He read to me as the sort of reserved character where he could have been into anything from kinky!sex, to having a wife with 10 kids stashed around somewhere, to being a 40 yr old virgin. Whatever he was into, no one but he and the person(s) he was involved with would know about it.

IMO, the Remus is gayer than a tree full of monkeys on a sugar high thing is meant as a facetious joke amongst slashers. That's how I've always read the, "S/he's so gay it's obvious," jokes. I take it in the same light as jokes about how the subtext is so obvious it's canon. At least, I hope that it's basically an old inside joke that's become so overused even outsiders know the punchline. Though sometimes I wonder.

Re: here via daily_snitch

[i-am-badger.livejournal.com]

That's how I have been taking it, too. I never got the impression that Rowling was giggling and writing in were!kink subtext or anything close into the character of Remus (or anyone else, for that matter). I think she's intelligent enough to see the similarities between the lycanthopy and homosexuality narratives, but used the analogy as a characterization device, not as a neon pointing sign and a wink-nudge joke for the big kids.

I have always taken the jokes to be just as you said--facaetious, good-natured slef-deprecation, etc. And I'm sorry, as much as I see subtext splashed all over the SW Prequal like buckets of...paint, I highly doubt ol' Georgie was thinking the same things as I do.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I don't know why, honestly. He always just pinged me that way. I always knew she wasn't going to make him canonically gay, because when you have a metaphor, you don't make it into the thing it's a metaphor for, and I always saw his being a werewolf as a metaphor for being a gay man with AIDS. There are a number of possible readings - the lycanthropy is mostly a symbol of The Other - but the trappings always struck me as being that. And I think Cuaron certainly played that aspect up in the movie, though I don't actually *like* the characterization of Remus in the movie at all.

And possibly because I always, always saw the Remus/Sirius subtext, from the first time I read PoA, long before I was slashing anybody.

[chapstickmeg.livejournal.com]

ooh, who did the art in your icon? It looks awesome.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

To me, the only thing that made him read as gay (or bisexual) was his relationship with Sirius. That relationship seemed to me to be much more than friends, and therefore, Remus was gay or bi.

The rest? All stereotyping and silliness. :) Although I did see someone once comment that only a gay man would think to ask about Neville's grandmother's handbag.... ;) (Or a straight man written by a female author!)

[madam-marozi.livejournal.com]

Ha, that was me. Yeah, it's all about the accessories.

As far as stereotyping goes, aren't Potter characters "types?" Especially the teachers. Just as many have a Snape or a McGonagall in their educational history, I think Lupin is a particular "type" of teacher that many people recognize. Your middle-school history teacher who tells you all the shocking stuff the textbook leaves out, your high school drama coach, your freshman creative writing teacher. The enthusiasm, the empathy, the archness, the subtle bitchiness, the subversive sensibility...and the discreet old-fashioned gayness, which is not overt but taken for granted by anyone who thinks about it. Though even ignorant kids who use "fag" as an insult don't care, because he is the coolest teacher.

So, yeah. Lupin read as gay to me from "The Boggart in the Wardrobe" on. Which resulted in the lycanthropy metaphor and the Secret History with Sirius making a particular kind of sense for me (and it does make sense).

[lionessvalenti.livejournal.com]

Remus is neither homosexual or heterosexual. I believe (agreeing with theory brought forth by my sister) that Remus simply loves those who accept him as himself, werewolfishness included. I think he would have loved anyone that loved him. Which would make sense to why he was with Sirius (Even though, if looking at that way, he could have been with Peter or James just as easily, but Sirius simply makes more sense in the big picture), and then why he would be with Tonks, who made it very clear at the end of HBP that all of the things that would be made into a problem were no problem to her.

Haha, is Lupin as gay as a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide?

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, cool Crowley icon!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I think it's that he's coded female, in much the same way that Joanna Russ said that Spock was, when she wrote about the original phenomenon of slash.

"Ruled by the moon" would be the key one, also with the sensitivity and the general physical unimposingness... and the general DIFFERENCE.

Which makes him easy to put into the slash stuff, which makes it very easy for people to go all tin hat about the Gay.

[kelly-holden.livejournal.com]

I think it's that he's coded female, in much the same way that Joanna Russ said that Spock was, when she wrote about the original phenomenon of slash.
I sort of agree about Remus, he does seem 'feminine', but I don't agree about Spock; if one of the K/S pairing is 'coded female' it's Kirk. To quote an entry of mine from a long while back (hooray for tags): "Consider that Jim is the emotional, the intuitive, essentially the feminine; in spite of his (mostly undeserved) reputation (both in his universe and the real world) as a ladies' man. Consider also that Spock is the logical, the unemotional, the masculine. In K/S smut, Spock almost invariably tops, and I've yet to lay eyes on D/s or BDSM with a dom Kirk."

I don't think it's straight out being 'coded female' that had me thinking of Remus as gay, though, I think it was partly by comparison with Aziraphale from 'Good Omens'.

[elethoniel.livejournal.com]

I've just come to re-iterate what midnitemaraud_r said. I can't explain why he seems to be gay to me. I think it's something we all perceive differently, which is why HP fans are torn. There's just something that makes him appear that way. Perhaps I've been in the fandom too long and the way I once thought of a character has totally disappeared because I have been influenced by others. Sad to think of it that way but I fear it may be true.

I also agree with lionessvalenti that Remus would be happy and comfortable with those who accepted him. And that's all that matters.

Of course it could be because Remus is a strong believer in treating everyone as an equal because of his monthy transformations that I see him as embracing others sexuality (I don't know how that translates to him taking on that sexuality...)

[westwardlee.livejournal.com]

I wish I could give you some intelligent and elaborate reason why I portray Remus as gay, but unfortunately, there isn't one. I just like him being gay, so that's how I write him.

I've never believed that ohtheirloveissocanon. I think that canon is, at best, ambiguous. I slash them because I enjoy it. And I like pairings that have absolutely no basis in canon, especially Kingsley/Bill.

I dislike Remus/Tonks with a passion and was distraught to read it in HBP. Since I don't like it, I'll ignore it in my fics. And probably skip over the hospital scene when I re-read HBP (the same way I skip over the part where Sirius falls through the Veil in OotP).

Life is simple, isn't it? I write what I like and dismiss what I don't. This is the fun of fanfic for me.

Sorry for not being much help.

[lindi-of-rohan.livejournal.com]

I once read a fic (not HP fandom) that pretty much sums up how I see Remus/Sirius. One character asked another why he was in love with another man, because he had always been straight. The guy said "I am straight, but you can't help who you love."

I think that Remus is so lonely in his affliction and Sirius has been alone for twelve years, you can't say that they didn't find at least some comfort in each other after PoA. Granted, there's not a ton of evidence in the books, but you have to admit that there is something very deep between them, whether it's love or friendship.

And just for the record, I always saw canon!Remus as straight, but I do ship Remus/Sirius in fanon.

[greyandgrey.livejournal.com]

See, with most of the fanfic featuring remus in slash pairings, he's usually a *slash* character rather than a *gay* character

I make the distinction not to fall back on stereotypes or to imply that remus as he is could not be gay, but rather to use slash in it's actual fannon meaning - two cannonically straight characters of the same sex in a romantic relationship.

the reason I say remus, or any other character, is a slash character rather than just a gay character is the fact that sexual orientation is never really delt with on the whole. It's always Remus falling for one specific person (sirius being my OTP *g*) They see only eachother, and quite often the slash pairing seems to be the exception to usual dating behavior (this is usually the case for sirius especially, as remus is usually characterized as not having much of a love life)

hope my ramblings made sense^^

[quite-grey.livejournal.com]

I never realized that distinction, but you're right. Slash does not necessarily equal gay. *wonders off to ponder*

[undeadgoat.livejournal.com]

Uhm . . . because he, uhm, hugged Sirius. And . . . stuff. OBVIOUSLY Sirius/Remus is about as canon as a slash can go, at least before HBP. But if I wrote slash instead of reading it, I would totally make Remus's resistance to Tonks because he's still in love with Sirius a bit, and should be going out and loving men, or things. I do have to say that I never saw gay!Remus before fandom, but then I was young when I first came to fandom, and whereas now I go around saying "OMG GHEY!" every other page in some books, back then characters were much more "Straight unless the author says otherwise" to me. Because, um, well, it comes with this whole "being in high school" thing. And Remus/Sirius was one of the first goodslash I was exposed to. So.