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Resurrecting Lolita ...
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http://www.trespassmag.com/resurrecting-lolita/
Resurrecting Lolita
By Valerie Wangnet on Jul 09, 2010 in Featured, Valerie Wangnet
When Vladimir Nabokov first introduced his tragically lovesick scoundrel to the world, he was met with quite a response. The comically obsessive Humbert Humbert of Nabokov’s 1955 classic novel Lolita was immediately pounced on by righteous crusaders who deemed the book as “sheer unrestrained pornography,” and it was subsequently banned in France and the UK. Nevertheless, the story, which features both stirring prose and some of the most marvellous characters of 20th century literature, stood up on shaky legs and went on to be considered as one of the finest novels in the English language. Still, the idea of a tortured, middle-aged man in love with a twelve-year-old girl (or ‘nymphet’, as Nabokov so tenderly puts it), does not sit well with the greater part of Western society. With the recent phenomenon of ‘paedophile hysteria’ that seems to echo the rabid madness of the Salem witch hunts, Humbert Humbert, despite all his charm and eloquence, would undoubtedly be dragged to the stakes. The child molester is without question today’s cultural bogeyman. In Japan however, things appear slightly different, with a widespread trend referred to as lolicon.
Lolicon (or the Lolita Complex) is the sexual attraction to young girls, and dominates Japanese fashion, cartoons and pornography. In a country that hails the school-aged girl in a school uniform as an erotic symbol, pornographic magazines offer childlike cartoon characters depicted in erotic poses, shops make available unwashed panties allegedly worn by young schoolgirls, and telephone dating services pledge to unite lonely middle-aged men with teenage girls. With the soaring popularity of kawaii, which translates to ‘cute,’ women parade around the streets of Tokyo in childish clothing, blatantly labelled as ‘Lolita Fashion,’ swooning around in pink lace, puffy dresses and oversized ribbons in an effort to emulate the bug-eyed, flushed-cheeked sweethearts of their manga magazines. Locals do not bat an eye at this phenomenon, but it’s certainly provoked some fierce reactions around the world, with countries such as Canada, Australia and Sweden criminalising any form of sexually explicit cartoons involving childish characters.
The sexual objectification of young girls is brutally condemned in Western cultures. A Sydney man in 2008 was convicted with possessing child pornography simply for owning sexually explicit illustrations of child characters from The Simpsons, and in Australia there’s now a call to ban commercial photographs of women with a breast-cup size of A, as that supposedly encourage paedophilia. These examples are a far cry from the lolicon craze in Japan, which is what makes the following domestic trends rather perplexing.
On the clothing racks of our local department stores, we’ll find several oddities, from pre-pubescent push-up bras, g-string underwear and clothing adorned with provocative messages such as ‘Eye Candy.’ The profit-driven agenda of selling sex to the newly constructed ‘tween’ market even attempts to lure children who still remain years away from the demographic, with ‘Hooters Girl (in training)’ T-shirts for toddlers, padded bras for 6-year-olds, and even pole-dancing kits available in toy sections. The contradictions embedded in Western cultures between paedophile hysteria and marketing sex to children is certainly baffling. Is the sexualised image of the high school cheerleader really that different from the Japanese schoolgirl? And what can be said for music videos like Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time, which features the former pop sensation dancing provocatively in her school uniform? While we all love to cry foul at the foreign practices of distant cultures, it is often interesting to step back and examine our own. The cross-cultural differences regarding the Lolita Complex is narrower than ever, but we would hate to admit that. The first step in tackling an issue is awareness, but this becomes very unlikely when the issue in question is being widely denied and ignored.
In addition to contributing to the premature sexualisation of children, these emerging trends pose another ugly threat. The message that is being given to young girls is that sex is solely about exhibiting the body and being desired by men. Sensuality and enjoying one’s own body receives very little emphasis, which consequently positions girls from an early age to see themselves merely as passive and objectified sex kittens. As sexuality is enforced upon children at a very early age, the development of media awareness and consumer consciousness therefore becomes increasingly vital, but this of course will not be possible until the grown-ups realise the realities of society’s escalating Lolita Complex. Meanwhile we will sit around and continue to situate our children as sex objects while wondering how on earth such evils like Humbert Humbert could ever come about.
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