The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

Lolita, Sexuality and the Symbol of the
Perpetual Child
As discussed in the previous chapter, my analysis is that the Gothloli image
evokes the senses of mourning, memory and loss in relation to childhood
and innocence. This feeling is of course present in the case of the Sweet
Lolita or the frilly baby-doll look but is more pronounced with the Gothic
Lolita persona who, as I have suggested, in choosing to wear the habit of a
Victorian child in mourning, belies a particular feeling of bereavement in
terms of nostalgia.
Buried within this nostalgic element is the memory of childhood and
the wish to retain it or return to it. In regard to innocence and loss,
however, is the sense, paradoxically, that innocence has in fact been lost,
reflected in the desire to get it back.
The most popular age group for participation in the Lolita movement
is adolescence or young adulthood, a phase when there is a “sense of
* 134
duality” in regard to “fading innocence and emerging sexuality”.
regard to her appearance as a little girl and at the same time existence as a
* I have taken these quoted phrases from an article by Hellen van Meene on an art exhibition, Viva
Lolita (see reference details), curated by James Putnam. Van Meene was referring to the notion of
Lolita in the Nabokovian sense, but I have used her language to describe the Japanese Lolita, as I
find it apt in this context.
In
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