The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

The Gothloli expects and can feel proud to be photographed, even in a
sense to be consumed. She knows it is inevitable that she will attract voyeurs
as she is on display, and it can be empowering, even invigorating, as I
discussed before, to become visible, to be noticed. However, again, this does
not mean that she invites, let alone wants to encourage, sexual advances,
abuse or violence. She is also not asking to be consumed in a pornographic
way; nor does she wish to feed the Lolita Complex. It is not her fault if her
signals, her intentions, are misread.
To associate the Japanese Lolita with the sex industry is to misinterpret
the Gothloli’s motivations and, as I have stressed, intentions, and to use her
image as pornography, as I have also argued, is to bastardise her identity.
Journalist Francis Henville has stated her agreement with this opinion,
wishing to “dispel” what she also calls “one common misconception”. 210
She has gone as far as claiming that the “Gothic Lolita has little or nothing
to do with roricon or lolicon… [or] hyper-sexed manga or anime that would
probably violate child porn laws in most countries”. 211
Kath Bridges, a 34-year-old Auckland Gothloli and independent Lolita
fashion designer for her label Kitty Bridges agrees, declaring that:
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