~~slash & pondering gay!ron.

wah. i rambled on so much re: franzeska's post about the question of whether or not ron is "gay" on her journal, that i feel i may as well make it a post. obviously, i have issues with classifying any canonically straight character as "gay" to start with, but it's an even more interesting discussion with ron, because most people think of him as straight. and there are really several reasons for that.

i think lasultrix made a great point, about ron being an average straight bloke, but what about the loads of people who slash manly men? how gay -is- clark kent? (well, aside from The Looks, i guess). and then there's stargate, star trek (jim is "gayer" than ron? heh), the magnificent 7(!), homicide, oz, sentinel, highlander, due south (not that i've watched it, but i think they seem kinda ...normal), st:tpm (i dunno how "gay" qui-gon is, necessarily, and yet he's not like ron, or anything, but still).

i think slash also has a lot to do with whether you (as a mostly straight female) perceive the character as sexy or sexual, and whether you have an investment in him being straight (ie, you ship him with a girl).
    i mean, yes there are stereotypes and yes they're not necessarily automatically false just because they're generalizations, but i don't think slashers -care-, really, if they see "possibilities" that get them hot.
    i see no other reason for slashing some of the people that get slashed.

i think ron (to me) is straight. firstly, i don't have any attraction to him (visually or as a character), and secondly, i have some sort of affection (god knows why) for him being with hermione (who's also straight in my mind-- not because she -can't- be lesbian, but you know-- she's not-- she's with ron, and there isn't anyone to slash her with-- i think that's important, too, btw. if there's no one who really -fits- a character of their own sex, or if there's an overwhelming fit with the -same- sex, that character gets perceived as sexually oriented in that direction by fanficcers, a lot of the time).

    ( at some point this becomes a discussion on what it means to be `gay' and whether that's different from being `slashable'... )