Dean the Groper or Who declared it OBHWF Wank Week?
tunxeh pointed this out from the SQ. A thread about how Dean Thomas was groping Ginny, so she dumped him.

WonkyFeint: Whilst I largely agree with all this analysis about Ginny being over-protected by her family and having a need for independence, I also think that Dean's motive for helping her through the portrait hole was a bit more physical. I think he enjoyed having an excuse for handling her backside. The portrait hole is something you have to climb through. Helping someone through implies giving them a bit of a lift

TDU: Which would make it even more annoying for Ginny: not only being patronised but groped at the same time. Of course, if she had really liked Dean that much she probably wouldn't have minded either but I think it is safe to say that Dean was always going to be second to Harry for her.

Eveishxx: I agree with that as well. Dean may have been trying to be gentleman like, but I think that he wanted a reason to touch her in that way. Naturally, I can see why Ginny would be annoyed by that. If I had a boyfriend who did that, I would be quite annoyed. And not only because I have quite an independent streak like Ginny, but I don't think I'd even want a boyfriend touching me like that. I'd probably wish to take things slow.

CornedBee: Although admittedly, at this point they had been dating for 6 months or more - not wanting your boyfriend to touch your rear would be taking things VERY slow.
Not wanting your boyfriend to touch your rear in public would of course be a very different thing.

Grace has Victory: Young wizards are apparently very heavy on the snogging (although one is "supposed" to do it in private). Ginny seems to be totally uninhibited on the kissing front, and she seems generally affectionate in terms of hugging her friends. Does it follow that she would also expect a little pawing from her boyfriend, or is this activity in a separate category, something that a respectable teenaged witch wouldn't allow?

Certainly a girl like Ginny wouldn't sleep with her boyfriend before she left school. But where exactly - before fornicating but after kissing - would she draw the line?

vonfirmath: Not so slow. Touching your rear is a very personal thing. I wouldn't have _thought_ of letting my husband touch there before we were married. It's simply not something for casual touching, esp deliberate casual touching!

CornedBee: Different culture then. Among the teenagers here, a girl not letting her boyfriend of 6 months touch her bottom at least while snogging would come off as quite a prude.
It may well be that the wizarding world does not match this culture.

Chatmandu: Speculation alert! Ginny is very much a reflection of her Mother. Molly Weasley has always impressed me as a Proper Woman. We snickered at the "Scarlet Woman" comment during GoF, but for Ron and Molly it was a serious accusation. Ginny would feel the same way. She clearly resents the implications of Ron and the Twins that she is behaving like a Scarlet Woman, because she has dated two boys. Writing a 15 year old girl, Jo probably has Ginny reaching a level of comfort with kissing, or even snogging! But touching elsewhere? I bet not. Dean unwittingly crossed a line Ginny was not comfortable with. She let him know she didn't appreciate the help, or the touch. Dean is lucky Ginny only broke up with him. She might have complained to Ron, or the Twins!

Of course all bets are off when it comes to her private behaviour with Harry (still taking into account she is a 15 year old Proper Young Lady).

Starsea: Well, maybe not. Different girls are sensitive about different parts of their bodies. For instance, some girls would not want to hold hands in public but would not mind their boyfriends touching their bottoms while helping them through a portrait hole.

Also, if Ginny had set strict rules about touching - such as "above the waist only" or "only when we're alone" - then Dean's furtive... grope caress would imply that he doesn't respect her boundaries, quite apart from the fact she has repeatedly told him not to.

Eveishxx responds to one of the groping doubters: was thinking of 2 things: 1) Dean was trying to be polite or gentlemanly by helping Ginny into the portrait hole or 2) He may have been trying to touch her backside. I was just saying that maybe that's why he did that. I do think that Dean is portayed as a nice guy, who deliberately do something unacceptable. 2 was just a mere suggestion. You seem a bit annoyed with me for some reason, I hope your not. I didn't mean to do anything to make you mad or anything. It's kind of hard for me to construe things, more or less when I'm online.

nundu: Maybe I am just horridly naive and an old fuddy duddy, but when I read it I assumed he took her arm to help her through, just as a polite gentleman takes a lady's arm to help her through a door. I don't know why that has come in this thread to be an assumption that he grabbed her derierre. I don't care what generation you are from, groping someone's rear is not acceptable in public and I highly doubt that is what Jo intended. I imagined Ginny's affront came from the fact that she is an independent female and doesn't want to be catered to by a boy. (What we used to call a 'women's libber', the sort that find offense in a man holding a door for a woman). The author (Jo) is a woman my age, so I imagine our social mores are similar. I think this is a gross case of overthinking the situation.

hughroe: Well, considering that Ginny never really gave up on Harry (I mean, that's what she said, right?) the "affair" with Dean was doomed from the start...simply because he was not Harry.

I don't understand the need to make Dean into some sort of pervert.

Rinceword the Wizzard: I think the "derriere-grabbing" thing is going a bit too far now. It was a joke(a funny one too!), not a real, bonafide theory for Bob's sake.... It was just one of those moments, like when someone says "Harry went to bed thinking about Ginny's performance on a broomstick, huh?" Nudge nudge, wink wink...

That said, I wouldn't put it past a teenage boy to use the portrait hole as an excuse to touch his girlfriend, at that age touching a girl just about anywhere is pretty cool, even if it's just her arm...

Wonky Faint: Although I'm happy for people to joke about it, and although I do sometimes post jokes disguised as straight statements, I never intended this one merely as a joke. It's what I seriously believe Jo intends her readers (or at least, those of them who notice) to believe. She is after all the woman who gave Ron the line 'Can I see Uranus?', and gave us a ghost who lives down a toilet.

Throughout the series, people always climb through the portrait hole. Ginny is small. Helping her seems to imply giving a lift.

The interpretation seemed obvious to me when I first read the scene. I first posted it on the Quill several months ago, and I posted it again in the current discussion, and I still think it has a strong chance of being what Jo intended.

hughroe: And does it follow that having put into place stairs that turn into a slide by the third step to 'protect' the girls, that the founders would then turn around and install a door/entranceway that would practically invite the fondling/molestation of the smallest (who would be usually female) students?

Would not Ron have at least said something to Dean about grabbing his little sister's rear? I mean the doorway is visable from the common room, and while Ron might be a bit thick on some things, I think that someone touching his sister in an inappropriate manner would elicite some response.

and

I haven't seen anything to support the 'Dean kept copping feels' position, that isn't what Ginny said, no one seems to have seen it, but all of a sudden, Dean's a flipping bad guy.

Starsea: Nobody's saying Dean's a bad guy. It was just a suggestion. Even if he did touch her bottom, they are going out, he's only human.

Grace has Victory: No, of course I'm not annoyed with you. Although I agree that it's sometimes difficult to "read" a person's tone of voice online!

To be honest, I was a little alarmed by the assumption that it is "normal" to grope at the derriere after only six months of going out together. I know it is normal in some cultures. (Let's face it, in some sub-cultures, it's normal to sleep together after ten minutes of sharing two drinks at the pub!) But I wanted to emphasise (tactfully, but evidently not making a very good job of it) that it isn't the same in every culture. There are many cultures where it is normal to permit no physical contact at all among teenagers - read Jane Austen's novels, for example. I don't think people at the Sugar Quill should be made to feel strange because their culture or personal values are stricter (or, for that matter, more permissive) than someone else's. The forum boards reveal that differences will turn up in all kinds of unexpected places.

nundu: But we also must not apply today's 'acceptable' (to some) standards to Harry's world. First off, it was a decade ago in real time. I asked my daughter (the same age approximately) and she assured me that if a boy had done such a thing to a girl (she's 15 at this point, remember) the reaction by her and most of her friends would have been a good solid slap and a report to the school authorities. What is socially 'acceptable' amongst consenting adults is not what is or was acceptable amongst children.

and

As to the comparison, to compare Ron and Lav-Lav's snogging to Ginny being groped is apples to oranges. There is a big difference between consentual snogging and unwanted, uninvited groping. I can remember perfectly well some not so discrete snogging (we called it 'making out') going on in out of the way corners of my school as well as kisses when couple parted at classroom doors. I also remember with disgust the boys that would stand along the corridors and call out 'compliments' to girls walking by. The former was embarrassing to witness but the latter was humiliating to experience.

Eir de Scania: But Ginny wasn't being groped, and didn't accuse Dean of that. She was tired with him "helping" her, wether she wanted it or not. If he was in the habit of groping her when she didn't want him to, she would have told him to keep his hands to himself, and thrown some hexes at him as an extra bargain.

Poor Dean, he was trying to be a gentleman... and not only did that lose him his girlfriend, he got accused of being an unsensitive groping lout as well.

Discordant_Harmony: wonder if he did grope her at some point. You know, how far they went? I'm not suggesting Ginny is some sort of slut, but they were going out for quite a while, and it happens.

And in that case, how far Harry and Ginny went. They didn't go out for long, but it is Harry and Ginny, who are made for one another.

ilene: Er...just to give my support to Grace Has Victory re the "groping" issue; I certainly understand your point about cultural differences, as well as personal differences about physical displays of affection. It reminds me of the old argument that if a woman goes up to a man's hotel room alone, she must have been "asking for it" or "known what she was there for", and hence there's no possible way the man could have raped her, because she had to be meeting him to have consensual sex. Just pointing out that assuming that your (or your friends') standards in this area are universal can be quite dangerous.

Also, in the case of touching someone's butt, especially in public, I think the issue isn't just one of "going too far", it's a case of whether it's meant to convey affection or meant to be condescending, somewhat like a pat on the head. I'm somewhat short, but wouldn't want anyone (even a tall boyfriend) patting me on the head, not because I feel my space is being invaded, but because I'd feel condescended to. And I tend to think of random butt-pats the same way.

And that's the end of the butt wars. Whoever knew the SQ had it in them?