Is Lolita Porn?

[mona amon]

Anyway, pornography's supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing...

I was asking why you'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing, when it has erotic passages. Are you saying you'd be worried only if anyone found the Lolita/Humbert parts arousing?

Even then, I'm not so sure that only perverts and peadophiles would find it titillating. This passage for instance-

She was musical and apple-sweet. Her legs twitched a little as they lay across my live lap; I stroked them; there she lolled on in the right-hand corner, almost asprawl, Lola, the bobby-soxer, devouring her immemorial fruit, singing through its juice, losing her slipper, rubbing the heel of her slipperless foot in its sloppy anklet, against the pile of old magazines heaped on my left on the sofa—and every movement she made, every shuffle and ripple, helped me to conceal and improve the secret system of tactile correspondence between beast and beauty—between my gagged, bursting beast ...

Undoubtedly erotic, very well written. I wouldn't blame anyone too much if they were aroused by it (The whole passage. I've only quoted a small part).

[kelby_lake]

Well, if they did considering that it's paedophilic, not merely because of the language.

[Kawthar K.]

Lols.. This thread gave me a good laugh, I needed that.

Heard of word assocciation? I've always assocciated the word "Lolita" to sex.
You are an inquisitive, person though, aren't you?

I think it's how you connect words though...Orrrr..You can just watch porn and judge for yourself.
Lolita is not porn, but it sure is a suggestive name

[blazeofglory]

Today's world is totally different, and we are exposed to perversions and nudities and we are accustomed to such things to an extent we can kind of consider it as a normal course.

I do not say it is a bad novel and something it degenerates values, but the point is it has something that was not palatable some decades ago. Maybe we will or our posterity will come to a state where even what we call vulgar, obscene and disreputable will be deemed normal and not obnoxious.

Of course what I wrote could have vexed a few here or some were highly critical. This is natural and all I did in point of fact is a fair comparison or analogy and nothing else.

As I would expect comments, I am not antagonistic. But Points of view vary. Another aspect is that some readers and writers here may have a great obsession or kind of liking for the book and this may from that lens obviously provoke kind of resentment. But this is a forum which values individual differences and that is what promoted me to jot down all that I feel of my own volition.

At the same time it is interesting to note down how our tastes, values, understandings of human behavioral patterns have undergone sea change or transformation in the degree and intensity the way expressly put forth here.

Now I conclusively want to write down that nothing is more worth noting here than observing our behavioral patterns, or value systems. I do not say it is unnatural or some going adrift. This is what we have learned in the science of evolution. I simply made a comparative view from an indifferent lens, and I do not say there has been abrasion in values. But to say there has been some metamorphoses is not the something as there is erosion. I go for the former

[kelby_lake]

The novel still has an impact, 50 years later. People still can't make a film which captures the dark wit and tragic beauty yet.

[PeterL]

The novel still has an impact, 50 years later. People still can't make a film which captures the dark wit and tragic beauty yet.

I think that the problem there is that the moviemakers don't understand what Naabokov was doing. Maybe someone should try to make a movie from Nabokov's screenplay.

[Etienne]

Today's world is totally different, and we are exposed to perversions and nudities and we are accustomed to such things to an extent we can kind of consider it as a normal course.

I do not say it is a bad novel and something it degenerates values, but the point is it has something that was not palatable some decades ago. Maybe we will or our posterity will come to a state where even what we call vulgar, obscene and disreputable will be deemed normal and not obnoxious.

Of course what I wrote could have vexed a few here or some were highly critical. This is natural and all I did in point of fact is a fair comparison or analogy and nothing else.

As I would expect comments, I am not antagonistic. But Points of view vary. Another aspect is that some readers and writers here may have a great obsession or kind of liking for the book and this may from that lens obviously provoke kind of resentment. But this is a forum which values individual differences and that is what promoted me to jot down all that I feel of my own volition.

At the same time it is interesting to note down how our tastes, values, understandings of human behavioral patterns have undergone sea change or transformation in the degree and intensity the way expressly put forth here.

Now I conclusively want to write down that nothing is more worth noting here than observing our behavioral patterns, or value systems. I do not say it is unnatural or some going adrift. This is what we have learned in the science of evolution. I simply made a comparative view from an indifferent lens, and I do not say there has been abrasion in values. But to say there has been some metamorphoses is not the something as there is erosion. I go for the former

So by your arguments, we should call, say James Joyce's Ulysses pornography as well?

[JCamilo]

Romeo and Juliet is pornographic, 1001 Nights (not burton edition) certainly.... Geez, we are all pervs.

[armenian]

Anyway, pornography's supposed to be arousing, isn't it? I'd be worried if anyone found the novel arousing...

o snap, i got hard a couple of times reading american psycho

[armenian]

that wasnt a joke.

[blazeofglory]

It seems that if we use art, philosophy to cover up impropriety or vulgarity all books of porn will be taken as normal books. I do not Lolita is hard-core pornography. Of course there is no any specific criterion to gauge it. Then when there is no common standard or the metrics it is our systems of judgments that become decisive factors or norms. A couple can discuss sex, eroticism or issues of carnality but the same thing becomes a subject of ignominy and is likely to put us to shame in a different environment. It is of course your value systems, and there are some societies, primitive societies now vanished, wherein discussing sex in the family freely is not a taboo. I labeled it as porn looking at it from a lens specific to a particular social fabric. It is not a general outlook, and it is my individual perception.

Today we are not naive and watch soap operas or commercials aplenty and we watch in togetherness, in company with our family members. It means that we all are exposed to such attributes. I do not write from an ethical or moral lens. But what is wrong if we come across things of sex, eroticisms galore
What is the measurement of porn? Does it mean the book has a just a few instances of erotic dialogues? And you need more erotic or x-rated examples? By all standards the book is porn and only if we look at it from an unaffected or un-mired lens.

[mayneverhave]

So by your arguments, we should call, say James Joyce's Ulysses pornography as well?

With a middle-aged Irishman masturbating on the beach and his wife farting in bed - how could you not consider that pornographic?

[Etienne]

By all standards the book is porn and only if we look at it from an unaffected or un-mired lens.

You come and argue that it is porn from your cultural perspective, than change your mind at the end and say it is porn by all standards. What are those standards that you speak of? And what are "all" the standards? And where do they come from? You are just bringing back your cultural lens back in the picture but as something like the absolute standard, don't you even realize it?

With a middle-aged Irishman masturbating on the beach and his wife farting in bed - how could you not consider that pornographic?

By ALL standards, Ulysses is first and foremost a porn mag.

[Karen_Leslie]

I think the definition of porn is so nebulous that this is an impossible question.

If the deeper question is "Is Lolita a lot of disgusting and/or arousing content wrapped in an intellectual wrapper", then I think the answer is no. The disgusting and/or arousing content is also handled intellectually. It's very consistent.

[ballb]

Can`t be porn.It`s written by Nabakov and it is not shelved among those seedy paperbacks marked "erotica"