Piping Up at the Gates of Dawn

I have just read the most profoundly preposterous twaddle I've seen in a very long time (comments no longer being accepted, otherwise the author would have gotten an earful).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/books/10willows.html

All about two annotated versions of one of the books I love best, "The Wind in the Willows."

My issue---putting aside suggestions of it all being about upper-class Edwardian Britain quashing lower classes, which may or may not be a matter for lawful debate---is with the alleged sexualization of the relationships.

GREAT GODDESS DEFEND US! Is there no END to the banal stupidities of alleged literary types??? Ratty and Mole's relationship is in no way homoerotic, any more than Frodo and Sam's, and I'm getting more and more revolted by moronic deconstructionists trying to foist a sexual subtext onto everything that comes along.

As for the "sexuality" allegedly present in the Piper chapter, no. Just. No. Ecstasy, certainly: it brings tears of joy to my eyes every time I read it. But "sexual"? Hardly!

Again, this relentless sexualization has GOT to stop. Before it irredeemably taints and smears every lovely thing in literature with its sneery, sniggering ickiness. Makes. Me. Sick.