It depends what it is abut Lolita that one considers shocking. There are those who think that it rationalizes and excuses paedophilia. These people froth at the mouth at the mention of M-cat and think that Jon Venebles should have been hung when he was 10.

Others find it shocking that an urbane, intelligent, articulate man such as Humbert can rationlize paedophilia, but recognize that for paedophilia to occur, this must happen in the minds of the twisted. These people are at least able to read this brilliant novel as it was intended.

Reply 5

Eclectic Styles

I don't know about that.

Lolita at the time was written in a very `closed` era of time, circa 1950's or something like that (I'm not gonna use Wikipedia here), but even if it was a little earlier (even worse) or a little later (still, quite bad), it was an absolutely horrifying subject for many people to read about.

It didn't just talk about sexuality and `child sexuality`, it talked about impromptu romance and manipulation between both sides, through the girl's `naughty 12 yr old girl` imagery given through the thoughts of the narrator and then much of it being of his own invention in his mind, given some feelings of repression and depression in roughy equal measure.

It didn't go into abuse and it didn't really need to, due to the way in which the story was told. It was heart-jerking to read and hear about (through the man's thoughts, again, as through the rest of the book) the situations and events and how the guy starts to believe that the kid is really an adult, even though she's really not and of course she doesn't understand the actual connotation behind the situation.

Give this to someone today to read and they'll be shocked. Whether that be your friend, a sibling, your English teacher or whomever else you choose to gift/recommend the book to and they'll usually be a little disturbed by the book but will continue to read, due to the sexual nature of the it's content. Strangnely enough (but not so strangely when you think about it), one of the people you recommend the book to may reference the clothing and advertising and sexualisation of children that is gradually being realised through various media (include the many, various porn sites on the subject, if you want...), such as advertising and even the TV shows you get (I remember when I was way younger, hearing a line on a show called Fairly Odd Parents, in which a 10 yr old kid was supposed to want to french kiss some girl who he had a crush on or something?)

Hell, you can even get t-shirts with `Future Porn Star` in bold for an 11 yr old girl (somone here will know the incident that got reported in the media that I'm thinking of- everyone went mad on the Internet after hearing it). And still, it's only when we're actively presented with it that we actually realise that it is happening around us. It's not just the imagination of a middle-aged man anymore, it's in the thoughts of younger kids (even 16-18 yr olds- "no jaybay", "gotta have hair", jokes spring to mind). If you tap/bang/****/shag a girl who's actually over the age of consent, it's legal, but because people (especially young men- moreso than you think girls) think a little too much about the girl's age and you have to be `scientifically correct` or whatever so that you don't get chatised, it becomes more difficult to look at the issue- hence the general census towards America's 18 and over consent age...

There will be many a guy on here who cannot deny that if they saw a 14-15 yr old girl, but did not know their age at the time (and for argument sake, the guy's 3-4 even 5 yrs older) and found them hot and went out with them, that at the point where they're just about to have sex with em', the girl says "you know I'm 14, yeah?", the guy is either gonna jump right off or think `**** it` and get on with what he's gotta do. And depending on how mature that guy is, he'll either do the former or the latter.

And to think, that the novel was about a middle-aged guy and a 12 yr old girl and yet the age difference between a guy and girl can only be 1 year and yet you get chastised and looked at as a paedophile if you even `try` it (pretty much, only guys here, girls generally tend to have the luxuary of never getting in trouble for this, since if you're ******* a guy 2-3 yrs younger than you, it means your slutty, easy or a peroxide slave).

Anyway, that's all I can think of at any rate...

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