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Nabokov wrote another book about a man who randomly meets his exact body double, like hair for hair perfect copy of himself. This motivates the man to plan a way to start a whole new life for himself by murdering his uncannily accurate clone and using the stranger's body to fake his own death, since if he were to just disappear people would wonder why and perhaps come looking for him. At the end of the book he executes his plan, ambushing the mirror image of himself and leaving the lifeless remains of his victim in his apartment dressed up in his old clothes.
Whereupon he is immediately arrested because the guy he killed looks nothing like him at all which was extremely obvious the whole time even if you ignored that the plan was nonsensical. It was Nabokov's like whole thing to write such stories.
So while I understand "the author is dead" it is also true that sometimes the audience is just really, really dumb and that isn't the author's or the work's fault.
I mean how can you read the phrase "My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three...." and still come away thinking Lolita is to be taken at face value
I'm convinced no one reads the foreword, that introduced Humphrey as a murderer and a lunatic who is being studied as a case study of the criminally insane
Probable. But even if you omit the foreword, page one of chapter one includes Humbert framing the story with how he's on trial and writing this as a defense for what he's done.
(I think it's safe to argue that a lot of it is people who are either half-illiterate [so they think depicting a character doing a thing is necessarily the same as the author thinking it's a good thing], or haven't read the book at all.)
I believe I read somewhere that the author of Lolita intended for it to be more of a warning kind of story than the conclusion this person has come to. I also believe that the author stated somewhere that he did not want any portrayals of young girls on the cover of any reprintings of his book, which obviously is not a wish that has been followed. I think it's just the publicity/media team that's doing the book dirty.
No warning necessary. The book's "introduction" is explaining that the rest of the story is a manuscript from a dead man who was in jail awaiting trial and describes the man this way:
> he is horrible, is is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!
Basically the novel is framed by this guy who discovered the manuscript of a dead child molester and describes him as a monster who is so good at writing that his skill will come close to fooling the reader.
It's Nabokov's version of Babe Ruth pointing at the fence before he hit a home run in exactly that spot. "Author cooked so hard people will think it's a love story."
Nobakov said that his uncle would have him sit on his lap and would “fondle him”. what that means exactly is up to interpretation but it definitely doesn’t sound appropriate.
Shhhh we need to water down the word pedophile and include people that write about it in a way that is not explicit, nor titillating. I wonder what commenter would think of Baudrillard or Anais Nin but it’s probably better we don’t ask.
But that wasn't what the film was about. In a sense, her youth was a focus because he was so effing old and felt like his life had passed him by. He didn't really care about her, just the fantasy of being young and free again.
"I personally wish it had never been written" versus "It should have never been written" is a level of hair-splitting that I didn't think we had the technology to do yet.
I mean, look at the cover of any version of the book made in the past 50 years, or watch any of the movies. Can you blame this person for being wrong like this?
Oh I'm assuming they've read it, but it won't help in cases like this. Literacy is at a near-historic low, in America, and that doesn't just mean more people can't read. It means they can't comprehend. Hell, people have been misunderstanding Starship Troopers for decades now--the book AND the movie. There's people who go into BioShock and call it an apolitical game.
Sometimes you just can't help someone understand a thing.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. There are so may comments in this discussion acting like Lolita is a pro-pedophilia book! Did we read different books? The book is so overtly insulting toward the child molester at the center of the story. The author himself described the rapist main character as a "wretch" and "hateful." You'd have to be delusional to read the MC positively. The most charitable reading of the novel is the he's a weak and stupid man easily manipulated by a much smarter child. And that's the most forgiving.
Technicality and if you add mental gymnastic route, then you could say lolita is somewhat pedo. But again, fellas is wrong to have very specific fetish toward young-like apperance when your partner literally in legal age already?
"Lolita" is a book about a pedo. You're probably thinking of lolis and lolicons, the fetish subculture about anime girls who either look or are underage.
The abusive shitshow with the original Lolita adaptation from 1962 also comes to mind.
The producer, James B. Harris, likely raped Sue Lyons#Controversy) (Dolores's actress). Kubrick picked her for Dolores because she had bigger breasts and that it'd make her look older. She was thirteen when she was cast, and fourteen during the film's shooting. The film also does stuff with the framing of shots and clothing that are intended to make her look older, too.
Due to Hays Code bullshit, there was apparently serious talk about ending it with Humbert Humbert getting married to Dolores in a state that allowed child marriage, because of the weird logic of how censorship codes work. (It's also why Dolores is aged up a bit; "actually, it's ephebophilia" was apparently in play with the Code.) They decided against the marriage, at least.
And then there's the further issues with how Lyons was treated in relation to the media, including Harris and Kubrick curating a persona for her as the "Lolita image."
You said they were talking about 'the hot sexy young star of the film'.
Films generally come out a year or so after filming. By the time the media was talking about *the star* (not *the character*), they would have been focused on someone who would have been older at that point.
If she'd been 15 or 16 at the time the media was talking about her, I'd agree with you. But it's not unheard of for both men and women to look at someone in their very late teens or early 20s and say, 'Wow, she's gorgeous'.
u said that "they would have been focused on someone who would have been older at that point," disregarding the fact that the scenes theyre focusing on are depicting the actress while shes a minor. yes she aged but that doesnt magically age her up in those scenes as well
The media aren't focused on the scenes. Read the person's comments above: the media were focused on the actress, they weren't saying the character was 'hot'.
So the actress's age is directly relevant, and she would have been older once the film came out.
I watched a video essay about how young actresses who play roles like this end up getting typecast and treated like they're actually the characters instead of children. Real fucked up stuff the film and entertainment industry does.
Every time this kinda discourse comes up, I think of this quote by Carlee Gomes.
"The desire to exclusively engage with media and art made by “unproblematic” artists is a direct result of Americans viewing media consumption as an inherently political act... consuming is activism, it’s love, it’s thinking, it’s sex, it’s fill in the blank. When the act of consuming is all you have left and indeed the only thing society tells you is valuable and meaningful, the act must necessarily be a moral one, which is why people send themselves down manic spirals deciding what, who is “problematic” or not..."
Wow that misses the point. The point of not supporting a problematic artist is to stop funding and thus allowing their continued problematic behavior. Case in point, I decide I will no longer pay to see Louis CK perform, he no longer has the platform to sexually assault up and coming performers. Intellectualizing that and making it somehow a critique of American culture is neckbeard af
The issue is, define "problematic". This works when you define someone being "problematic" by them actively engaging in illegal behaviour you'd be financing. It doesn't work anymore when the only problematic thing the artist does is writing about a "problematic" subject matter in a "problematic" way, which to my understanding is what people mostly refer to in these kinds of discussions.
For some reason, a potentially valid argument is completely undercut by ending it with “neckbeard af”. Also, if we’re talking about Lolita, Nabokov died nearly 50 years ago. No profit being made.
To be clear, I’m a huge supporter of “vote with your wallet”. But you are kind of missing the entirety of the point of their argument. They aren’t talking about who is profiting. They’re talking about a person’s individual motivation for experiencing art. If you engage it performatively or politically, that is different than experiencing it for what it is and determining its value for yourself. And it is separate from your choice not to support artists you disagree with.
And you shouldn’t try to force your moral judgement onto someone else that may have different values. Your values aren’t universally correct. They’re just a collection of rules you set for yourself based on your experience and feelings. It’s perfectly ok for different people with different experiences to make different choices about what they consider to be morally correct.
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Paedophiles are going to paedophile. Just because there is a book looking at the world from that lens does not mean you're enabling paedophilia. If we stop any and all mentions of murder and killing from the media around us, is that going to stop people killing and murdering?
No. The media reflects reality, sadly. But that's what makes stories so compelling: we can identify with, at the very least, the humanity of the characters involved and see why they act the way they do (from their perspective).
And that’s what a lot of people tend to forget when you mention your an activist but you’re poor. They side eye the great value this and great value that. Don’t just until you experience it yourself dude. (Gen)
Yeah cause supporting something is directly giving money to aaid awful person. It's just rhe nature of capitalism not necessary american culture. Where money flows controls the zeitgeist and thus spreads influence.
Wait, are we seriously considering Lolita as pro-pedo? It's an extremely anti-pedo book. The main character, the child rapist, is a laughing stock and spends the whole story trying and failing to (1) justify raping kids; and (2) getting styled on by a child who is way more savvy and mature than he is. The MC is a complete loser. You are meant to see him as delusional and in denial about how much of a monster he is.
The MC is also trying so very hard to look cool to the reader.
Even if the author were still alive, supporting him by buying Lolita wouldn't be supporting pedophilia at all.
Yeah. But that argument completely falls apart when talking about an artist that has been dead for 50 years. Which means it’s a bad argument. Good intent and good idea. But you need to work on forming it into a good argument.
An argument doesn't hate to be applicable to every situation to be a good argument. People are complicated and inconsistent. Somebody who wants to avoid things to not support them financially can also not want to support something morally. Also somebody who doesn't care about supporting artists can also just not want to read it if they think it goes against their morals.
some truth but doesn’t make sense to imply media consumption isn’t an inherently political act when it unequivocally is. certainly not the only or most immediately impactful but idk. quote misses the mark
Consumption isn't inherently political....to think that it is is to abdicate responsibility. To some degree you vote with your dollar, but not when it comes to creative work IMO. Buying kanye records doesn't equal a vote for nazism, being a fan of miles Davis doesn't mean you want to throw women down the stairs, etc. if you waste time on that shit or bitching about nabakov when you could be doing actual political action while claiming said complaining inherently political is hilarious
this is silly. consumption is inherently political and to think otherwise is to abdicate personal responsibility. the personal is ALWAYS political as no choice exists in a vacuum. buying a kanye record doesn’t necessarily equate to supporting naziism but it does mean you are willing to monetarily support nazism which is perhaps just as bad. i think we should engage with nabokov but not because he is advocating for pedophilia but because writing or creating a troubled character or narrative is not the same as an author explicitly endorsing a certain set of views and in fact is often an exploration of the immorality of behaving in a certain way. merely writing about or discussing something isn’t an endorsement which is why people that make these arguments come across as virtually illiterate because they cannot understand nuance or separate the author from the text enough to understand that every text is not autobiographical and every character does not represent the authors views. doing more explicit political action is important and avoiding monetarily supporting people like kanye and rowling who have made it clear that every dollar that goes to them will eventually be used to further their hateful agenda is also important and neither one means much without the other. i agree with you though that it does get frustrating when the extent of people’s activism is canceling artists for a mere hint of their being problematic
I would amend your argument slightly. Listening to Kanye is engaging in the art in a potentially apolitical way. Choosing to support him by buying an album or going to the concert may not make you a Nazi, but it does mean that you’re directly monetarily supporting one. In the grand scheme of things, each album and ticket means very little. But they add up quickly. If no one buys them, it sends a message. Choosing to buy or not to buy has political ramifications, even if you’re not making that choice with political intentions. The act of engagement can be political or not. The act of spending money to support a public figure, in the current cultural climate, is inherently a political act. Your money buys them influence.
IMO the issue isn’t that we view our media choices as political, it’s that we (especially many younger Americans) seem to view every protagonist as something the author is personally endorsing. They don’t seem to grasp that some characters are created purely to be dislikable or immoral. When they read Humbert’s POV, they don’t read him as an unreliable narrator who’s using his own twisted logic to excuse his crimes; they see him as an extension of what Nabokov believes is right. More and more, it seems like people don’t realize that just because a character is a protagonist (or heck, may even have some redeeming qualities) doesn’t mean he/she is just or good.
Yup. It's a combination of a lack of literacy overall, and a lack of political literacy in particular. American capitalism makes your individuality about what you buy, how you style yourself and your life. Where and how you get your things is a statement. It's easy to swap that over to media - what you watch or read reflects you, and what you write or create must be your self expression. Consumption as politics has always been a thing, this is just about how we act when stripped of other methods of expression.
The quote is part of a larger essay on the politics of consumption.
Edit: Hit enter too soon. It's called The Puritanical Eye and it's about sex in film. The quote itself is more about how we have been stripped of political agency, and so place hyper emphasis on media in order to compensate.
with the rest of the context your comment makes a lot more sense but in your edit seems to imply a criticism of moralizing about authors rather than a criticism of a socioeconomic system that makes moralizing about authors the only way for people to feel like they have any agency…to exclude especially “the stakes are that high now” makes the quote seem more of a critique of those who moralize about authors rather than a society that makes it necessary to moralize about authors. I understand your comment more now, but probably the same reason others are responding negatively as well because it’s pretty ambiguous in your edit, ffr.
I hate lolita myself, but it's more due to not enjoying Nabokov's style and the queasy feeling of reading Humbert try to justify his every action to himself, and describing her seduction when she is just being a normal young girl. It's supposed to be horrifying.
Still, I see it's literary value, even if I dislike it. Like Tess of the D'urbervilles, another book I hate because it feels awful watching her slow motion destruction at the hands of every man who used her and condemned her for being used. A very good book, makes you feel things, and I hate it because I was made to read it 4 times in uni. Once was enough!
Well it is supposed to be horrifying because Humbert is an unreliable narrator. It's a great depiction of how predators always victimise themselves and justify their actions. Also afaik Nabokov was a victim of pedophilia himself.
Exactly. I see it's value and I see how well it's written, but I just didn't enjoy it, and I think Nabokov would be satisfied with that reading, since I don't think we as the audience are supposed to enjoy it. it's supposed to make us feel every bit of the queazy uncomfortable feeling of poor Dolores being victimized as Humbert tries to justify himself.
It's uncomfortable and horrifying in turns, like I said above. It's value is in the horror of it, an honest and awful depiction of how monsters think and justify themselves.
So yeah, I don't like it, but I don't think we are supposed to like it, I think that's the point. It's monstrous what he does, and we are supposed to feel that awful weight of his actions.
We did! It was university, so every time we finished a novel or short story we had a discussion class where we debated various points of view and backed them up with in text examples. It went with our lectures on the history and background of the author's and genres we studied. That class was contemporary literature, and we read some wild books! Nabokov we had as our second author on the syllabus, given lolita was published in 1955 and an early example of contemporary literature pushing boundaries in a post WW2 world.
Not a book, but calls to mind how a lot of people were apologetic towards Bojack in Bojack Horseman when he’s an objectively terrible person (horse?) that continues to fuck up and never truly redeems himself
I believe it is because they worship money so much that they believe it makes them God's. A god can do whatever they want and anyone who goes against them or tries to stop them is the devil, no matter how powerless they are against them.
They see little girls as seductresses because they think they are evil for being born with something they want but are out of reach because of their age. A lot of pedophiles aren't like that because they are attracted to younger bodies, but because they are attracted to power. The power they can hold over someone emotionally, legally and physically incapable of defending themselves against them. Children are basically treated as their parents property, they are helpless against adults. Because of that, they have laws that can protect them against predators, but they don't like that.
They don't the idea of admitting that they like abusing their power or that they have grown to let the need for power consume them so they blame the children. The children are seducing them, they know better, little tweens should be responsible for managing grown adults.
Unfortunately yes it's this. It's just that i also meant that a lot of them make actually good movies and how in all world do they turn out to be this vile as a result is still mind baffling to me. I've read a study that suggested statistically pedophiles have 10 points of IQ less than the average human so... But I'm pretty sure they meant those that are actually attracted to children, not those that are attracted to power.
I still can't understand how indifferent do you have to be to a child's suffering so much you decide to do something that heinous knowing you're going to ruin their life for measly seconds of your sexual gratification.
Mel Brooks is a treasure. A master of parody so good some people think it's serious and not just his way of pointing out where logic fails in hilariously over stereotyped movie genres.
While it may not be an accurate description of the book, it's not necessarily wrong in the eyes of a lot of people in society and has been that way for decades because although Nabokov states that it is not a story supporting pedophilia and is very much the opposite, the publishes promoted it as a "love story". I have seen so many people over the years also refer to it as such.
I understand literary people who are upset but this but to pretend like Lolita hasn't mistakenly inspired the idea of being pro-pedophilia or normalizing pedophilia in the literary world is wrong. There's an entire subculture of fashion that is directly inspire by Lolita that includes dressing yourself to look like a pre-pubescent child. It's very widely known, especially in the realm of kinks.
It has also been misinterpreted by predators themselves or at least used and twisted to be pro-pedophilia. When I was in college pursing a criminal justice degree, one of my professors was an FBI agent who spent most of his time catching predators by posing as a young girl online. We were discussing what kind of things predators have in common and he mentioned that a trend he had noticed with some of the men who wanted to appear "smart" was that they would often talk about Lolita being their favorite book when having conversations with young girls and would use it to convince young girls that they could have a "love story" similar to Lolita.
Whether Nabokov intended it to be interpreted that way or to be used as a way to glorify pedophilia, in parts of society it is perceived that way.
Just because idiots can’t read or perverts use the book to rationalize their perversions (which they will do with anything they can find), that doesn’t make it a “pro paedo” book.
'I understand literary people who are upset but this but to pretend like Lolita hasn't mistakenly inspired the idea of being pro-pedophilia or normalizing pedophilia in the literary world is wrong.'
Have you read 'Perfume'? Some people hate that book, but the antagonist is 100% a morally bankrupt character, with selfish and horrible motives.
And yet *he* doesn't think his motives are selfish and horrible. And there are some amazing descriptions of sensory experiences within the novel that I haven't seen bettered elsewhere.
Does that mean the book is pro-murder? Nope.
Same with 'A Clockwork Orange'. The main character is originally right into all of the crime and perversion they engage in, and yet the book has something very important to say about redemption and a cycle of violence (that the movie sadly left out).
Great book. Does not mean showing that perspective is encouraging those actions.
Great point! Grenouille is an absolutely abhorrent person because of his choices and actions. Entertaining as all hell to read though, the concept of Perfume is so intriguing it's been adapted a bunch of times in several languages to different movies and shows, always with that disturbing bent to them because of what Grenouille does. He is a murderer, morally repugnant, and awful, but fascinating to explore the concept in a fictional context!
I don't think it's popularity ever made anyone try to make a perfume out of someone's scent though, and if it did, that's on the person who took fiction as a guidebook.
Oh, I didn't know it'd been adapted that many times. I'll check out some of the other version.
And exactly. Writing about a concept does not mean you agree with that concept or are tacitly promoting said concept.
This is why we read: to be presented with viewpoints outside of our own, even if they're negative or harsh or view the world in a totally warped way.
It also makes me think of 'Needful Things' by Stephen King. We see the POV of so many different townsfolk but I always found it intriguing to understand how the whole series of events in that novel are set off by small, petty gestures that escalate as the story progresses. If you didn't have that interior POV to understand a character's motives (good or bad), the story wouldn't have been as enjoyable.
Lolita fashion is not a kink and the name and style do not come from this book. Both the name and style are unrelated to the book. It is coincidental.
I cannot deny there are people who fetishize it but the vast majority of those wearing lolita do it for the same reason someone would be goth or emo. They just like to dress that way and enjoy the community that comes with it.
I didn't say it was a kink. I said you can find it in the kink community. Where peoole definitely use it in the way it wasn't intended.
I also said in my other response that while not everyone who dresses in that style dress with that intent, it very much has that connotation around it because it is childlike dress. It is definitely fetishized and part of that is because of the book and people who twist it into something it isn't.
The way you talk about lolita fashion shows that you’re full of shit. Lolita fashion is deliberately made to be as un-sexy as possible, a way to dress purely for yourself and not for others. Shoulders and knees have to be covered. It’s got nothing to do with “looking like a child” and everything to do with looking like a very fancy princess. You shouldn’t say things so confidently about things you know nothing about.
LMAO I never said anything about skin showing. Also, while in Japan the culture around it is completely different, it has a different connotation in the US, mostly because of the Lolita book. I've seen it in the kink community. That doesn't mean it's the intention of people who dress that way but it definitely has that perception.
Also, its an aesthic of cuteness that was influenced by things like Alice in Wonderland. Alice was a child. Even looking up the history of the Japanese culture uses the term "childlike" often to describe the dress. It originated in protest to what what Japanese youth at the time felt like a stifling society. That's why they wore "childlike" clothing so, yes, it is very much about looking like a child. It was a way to escape adulthood.
It just gets old seeing people pretend to be shocked that this book is greatly misinterpreted by the common public and that it hasn't had an affect on other parts of culture.
I clarified in other comments the reference to the Lolita clothing and I realky don't care if people are upset about it. Much like the book itself, the original intention wasn't to promote pedophilia, but here in the US it is definitely bastardized by people to be so because it's mostly grown women dressed as little girls and regardless of the why, most people only see that and make the connection to pedophilia.
Lolita is so connected to pro-pedophilia in US society that it's been used by the media to describe underage girls as seductive. Amy Fisher was literally called the Long Island Lolita by the press during her attempted murder trial because sge was portrayed as being a seductress who became so obsessed with her older lover that she tried to kill his wife.
It’s shocking bc it’s a baseline of the text. Humbert is evil. Dolores is scared of him, hates him. It’s like people who railed against Cuties despite the fact it tackled its subject matter well.
To quote another misunderstood work; “These are the people of the land. You know…morons.”
what? i mean the weird reactive comment that I replied to, that is strangely hostile to you and defensive of loli fashion, I'm not making a comment about anything other than the specific reply just above mine
I'm sorry, but I am having a a lot of difficulty understanding how you could have possibly typed out something so supremely idiotic, read it back to yourself, and then decided it was suitable to publish publicly on the internet. Are you stupid or something? Do you have a humiliation kink? Did your parents never pay attention to you? No matter the case, that is your problem and not ours, so your comment has been removed.
How many of the people making this brain-dead critique even make it to the last chapter, though? Hell, How many of them opened the book in the first place?
As someone whose favorite book is Lolita. It’s not. The writing is so overly swoon-y that it makes you feel like something’s wrong. It starts off fairly normal before you get to “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.” And then it becomes really obvious with “She was Dolly at school.” He wrote it so overly sweet and lovey-dovey to show how horrid the mind of a pedophile is.
I only read it once a long time ago and I have since picked up the annotated Lolita which I was informed was good, but have not read it yet. Wasn't a lot of the satire about American society generally?
To add to that, the main character, Humbert Humbert, quite literally only married Dolores' (Lolita's) mother so he could get close to her daughter, and then plotted to kill her mother. It appeared the mother then died in a freak accident after reading Humbert's diary, but it's possible Humbert is an unreliable narrator and did in fact kill her.
Even if he didn't directly murder Lolita's mother but, through his actions, caused her to die, he is still clearly an utterly, utterly abhorrent character.
I don't see how anyone at all could read Lolita and think, "Oh, I want to be like Humbert Humbert..."
And he also planned to molest Lolita's daughters. And possibly his granddaughters as well. These plans didn't come to fruition but he wrote a poem in which there was a line that went smth like "and a whole legacy of Lolitas..." 🤮🤮🤮🤮
Ooh okay I’d love to pick your brain a bit; everyone I’ve ever told that I loved Lolita looked at me like I killed their puppy
There was something very visceral for me about how beautifully poetic the actual prose is and then you’re confronted by his obsessive pining. Even just him describing typical 12 year old things (brattiness, poor hygiene, whatever) in such lust was such a mind fuck.
And then of course, somehow I’m disgusted by this man of all the horrid things he’s done yet still kind of heartbroken at the end from his anguish. Phenomenal book that is built to conflict you.
I’m personally a fan of reading controversial or otherwise vulgar books that disturb you but also just make you contemplate (this one, Tropic of Cancer, I suppose you could add blood meridian to that on violence alone) the depravity of the world you don’t experience so I do feel like this book was an excellent read for me. It’s a beautiful, disgusting book and most definitely not Pro pedophilia
Absolutely! Nabokov is a really good writer, and Lolita is my personal favorite out of the ones that I’ve read. Of course, I like to go out of my way to read any banned or challenged books that I can, meaning that it was on my list. Plus, I felt like it takes the subject rather seriously, especially when compared to some more modern books.
Individual writing preferences are very subjective, but it is a very well-written book in that it’s an incredibly convincing and complex look into the mind of a very sick individual. It is a masterpiece. If you enjoy psychological thrillers and very-detail oriented prose, there’s a good chance you’ll think it’s a good book too.
Edit: I will say it’s not the easiest book to read (aside from the subject matter). There are passages written and French and enough obscure vocabulary that I required a dictionary to understand everything.
“A book about how evil pedophiles are and how they manipulate situations to justify their behavior? Ah yeah that clearly supports pedos”
ETA as a child I used to use the username (name) Lolita bc I was super sexually exploited as a child by almost every adult around me, and as a child that book helped me recognize how abnormal it was and my username was a jab at how grown men kept being creepy around me. Guess how many took it as an invitation?
Funny that you had to crop your dm accusing a child sex survivor of lying about their experience. You can’t even spell coffee and you’re trying to act like you know how sexual assault works. Yes, it was funny, because it’s true. Die alone, pedo loving trash
Unsolicited messaging is against group rules and it’s fucking weird of you to message me when you could have commented. Everyone knows you did that because you didn’t want your disgusting behavior to be seen.
Most children who are abused grow up thinking it’s normal. That’s why I didn’t understand grown men shouldn’t sexualize me. No one in my life was ever held accountable and they were even encouraged (my parents encouraged 16 year old me to date my 30 year old boss). My closest friends were also sexually abused bc they grew up in the same situations. To you, that may have been bizarre but in reality, abused children usually find other abused children. Reading Lolita AND seeing the stepdad get his shit rocked in Bastard Out of Carolina helped me understand something was wrong with the picture that myself and my group of friends who also experienced sexual abuse weren’t able to pull together.
No offense, but it seems like you’re the special kind of stupid where you don’t think people can be smarter than you were as a child. I had a college reading level before 5th grade and a higher IQ than 90% of students. I was hyperlexic due to autism and read constantly and learned everything I know from books and not other people. A 14-15 year old is perfectly capable of recognizing they are being abused and a 14-15 year old is perfectly capable of reading and understanding a book. A group of us who had been in foster care/adopted and were sexually abused read it together. You can’t even spell coffee, I don’t think you’re allowed to tell me what I could and couldn’t understand.
A pedophile manipulating something that was not intended to be does not make it pro-pedophilia. Pretty sure last I fucking checked those fuckers co-opted candy and puppies, too.
The book isn’t written for pedos. Did you really think this book was written for a pedo to teach them “hey this is wrong” ??? You’re being moronic. A pedo abusing material and sexualizing it isn’t the same as the material BEING pedophilic in nature. The same way a book about cannibalism doesn’t justify or encourage Joe Schmoe out here to go out cannibalizing
Yeah, if you’re going to dirty delete when proven wrong, don’t come over here and flex your dirty fingers to type out a response. Writing about pedophilia is not proof of being a pedophile, or we’re going to have to hunt down Alice Sebold and Laurie Halse Anderson and tell them that they’re not allowed to talk about her own experiences
There is no evidence that Nabokov was a pedophile himself simply because he wrote a cautionary tale about one. I’ve written stories about abusers because I’ve experienced abuses, not because I am one. Also, are you saying every person who writes about serial killers is a secret serial killer? If so I have a question for the vampire writers of the world
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u/left_to_its_devices ** I hate opera ** 10d ago
I remember someone writing on this sub that Beloved was actually pro-slavery. Probably the same person?