A tale of two Lolitas

That's obviously a pile of petticoats in the background and not a pair of jeans. Definitely not

(SPOILERS: American Horror Story: Coven)

Happy Halloween!

This year I've opted for the demonic doll look. I've already been cackled at on my way to work (it was a Halloween themed night, okay) by group of thirteen year old girls standing around in the cold wearing tiny hotpant playsuits. It's Halloween, people! What happened to the childish excitement surrounding the holiday, when it was about honouring all things that go bump in the night and not getting boys to want to grind against you at a disco? And on the subject of unspeakable things and provocatively-dressed children, it's time to talk about Lolita. Both of them.

After years of weeaboo pipe-dreaming, I've finally bought myself a Lolita outfit - the Japanese kind, that is. I know at 22 I'm probably pushing the acceptable age limit for this subculture, but I already the child treatment for my appearance so I'm going to milk this young face until the end of time. I've already sweated it out twice in this outfit this month, once at the MCM Expo in London, and another at work. If anyone's wondering if three pairs of false lashes, an enormous frizzy wig, a temperamental bonnet and flared frilly sleeves are a good call for bartending, the answer is no, definitely not. To get the most out of my new outfit my first point of call was to trawl countless YouTube videos on Lolita make up and photo poses because  being asked for a photograph at Expo and having no idea what to do with your hands is pretty awkward. It definitely still happened, though.

Anyway, there are always hysterical YouTubers who flock to these videos shrieking, as much as one can shriek using a keyboard, things like: "DO YOU REALISE ALL THESE LOLITAS HAVE SUGAR DADDIES?!?!?!?!" as though they've busted some kind of kawaii conspiracy. The conflation of the Lolita style with Nabokov's infamous novel is based purely on the name - and it causes some to rant and rave as though lace and frills are inherently corruptive. There are even those within the subculture who won't use the name because the connotations are just too pervy; I did wear my outfit to an under 18s night to serve coke and lemonade to under 18s. COINCIDENCE? So is the shared name just just a random occurrence, or is there a darker side to the bows and ruffles? There's no official answer to the question of how Lolita fashion got its name, so let's look at some of the possible connections.

JESUS, 'PEOPLE MAGAZINE'!

When Vladimir Nabokov set out to write Lolita in the mid-twentieth century, modest knee-length skirts and petticoats were probably the last thing he had in mind for his female lead. She is instead characterised by her revealing, flirtatious clothing teamed with her bandy physique. This has become an iconic look all in itself. Lolita is a minor who lacks the innocence of her youth. She is described as a 'nymphet' - a girl between the ages of nine and fourteen that Humbert, the narrator, finds most appealing. As a girl resting on the cusp between childhood and puberty her interest in sex is apparent, boasting about her exploits to Humbert. However, her need to assert her apparent maturity only serves as a testament to how young she actually is. Humbert takes advantage of her during a point in her development where she is curious about sex, and uses it to trap her. He blackmails her with poverty and the orphanage if she doesn't perform certain sexual favours. He never refers to her by her true name, Dolores, instead renaming her 'Lolita', to signal her new life as his possession.

The name 'Lolita' itself is a more coquettish incarnation of Dolores, which was not only a popular girls' name in the novel's era, but also translates as 'sorrows', perhaps referring to the tumultuous relationship between Lolita and her mother. 'Dolores' also has Catholic connotations, associated with the Spanish title for the Virgin Mary, Mary of Sorrows. The name Dolores represents all who Lolita's mother, and in turn, society, expect her to be as a young girl growing up in 1940s suburban America - chaste and innocent. Her new name even gives him pleasure to say, thoroughly cementing her transition from straight-laced upbringing to paedofile's plaything:

"Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth"

There are those who still claim that Lolita is an equally guilty party in all this and that she encourages Humbert, but this is probably down to Humbert's narration bias - of course everything the twelve-year-old does is going to seem hypersexualised. Lolita doesn't need to give Humbert any encouragement. He is not only a paedofile, but a rapist. Before their first 'consensual' sexual encounter, he drugs and attempts to molest her, only failing because she wakes up. He even considers impregnating Lolita with a daughter with the intention of eventually a raping a child of her likeness when she is 'past it'. Oh yeah, this is the same book that Vanity Fair once called "The only convincing love story of our century." Thank God for the single life, right?

Here's one for you, 'Vanity Fair'

On the surface the Japanese style has nothing to do with this plot - this plot is not kawaii in the slightest. But undeniably, in both, there is a fixation on the beauty of youth. With Lolita clothing, it is often devoid of sexual intent, focused more on prettiness; there's something oh-so-becoming about a nice little bonnet, don't you think? On the other hand, Lolita is more concerned with, and I shudder to say “The sexy aspects of childhood”, but that's exactly how Humbert's twisted psyche views it.

The continued association with the term 'Lolita' and sexual deviation is also in part due to its creeping in to the language of psychology. In his 1965 book The Lolita Complex, Russell Trainer (who is frequently criticised for being a pulpy amateur who doesn't know what he's talking about) describes a phenomenon where men are fixated on young girls, calling it - you guessed it - The Lolita Complex. The term was translated to 'Lolicon' in Japanese, which then became a horrific genre of manga and anime based around sexy depictions of child-like girls. I'm not entirely sure that was Trainer's intention.

Humbert clearly suffers from the 'complex', the same attraction repeating itself throughout his life. Even his name, Humbert Humbert, has at its core the idea of repeated behaviour, which is all linked to his psychosis. This perverse pattern in his sexual behaviour is seemingly linked to the death of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel Leigh. He recognises attributes of his lost love in Lolita, which aids his attraction to her. It that his obsession with so-called 'nymphets' is a way of coping of the loss of Annabel and returning to a more innocent time where his life was untainted by death.

The name, Annabel Leigh, is directly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem, Annabel Lee, in which an unnamed narrator laments the loss of his childhood love:

"The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me -

Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee."

It all seems a bit too contrived to be true. Perhaps Humbert, who we know is a distinguished reader, is having a joke with us, making up a romanticised situation to explain his vile behaviour when in fact, he has no excuse. Perhaps he's preserving Annabel's purity with an obvious pseudonym so she remains untainted by the actions of the boy she loved. Or, perhaps Nabokov is showing us that Humbert is romanticising the situation with Lolita far more than he should, and we can all see right through it.

This morbidity in Humbert's intentions, to capture a youth, frozen in time, can be seen in the doll-like aesthetics of the Lolita. While some Lolitas take offence to the term "living doll", there are certainly some aspects inspired by dolls. In popular culture, the heterosexual man with a fixation on dolls in signal for sexual deviance. In The Simpsons, Smithers' huge collection of Malibu Stacy dolls is a running joke based on the camp aspects of his homosexuality. In American Horror Story: Coven, the moment we see the creepy doorman Spalding strap a Victorian bonnet over his greasy locks and retire to his china doll bachelor pad, alarm bells start ringing. Not only does he have an impressive and expensive antique doll collection, he also dresses dead girls in doll clothes and performs sexual acts on them. This obsession with youth is a particularly ghoulish one - the fascinations with the eternally beautiful yet passive dolls being the next step down from necrophilia, and the need to mirror this in the preservation of human beauty after death.

But then, the "creepy old man with a doll collection" is only a horror trope, and it's not a fair assumption to make of anyone with a doll collection in real life. Still, interest in childhood is often linked to paedophilia. Lewis Carroll, who created Wonderland as a childish haven, is frequently accused of being a paedophile, apparently harbouring an unhealthy fascination with a family friend, Alice Liddell. Incidentally, Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland is a particular source of inspiration for Lolita fashion. The word 'Lolita' was used in a spin-off Lolicon Manga comic called Stumbling Upon a Cabbage Field in the 1960s. Perhaps the link lies in Alice and Wonderland. Who knows?

But this is all just speculation. There are obvious links, but nothing to lose your rag and burn your petticoats about.