The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

This type of pornography and the Lolita fashion style from Japan may share the
same name but couldn’t be more different! Japanese Lolita as a [form of] dress and
lifestyle does not personify sleaze…. They are as far removed from one another as
a lamb is from a wolf! *
However, while I support the stance that the Gothloli does not intend
to be involved in pornography, I disagree with Henville that she has nothing
to do with roricon or lolicon, as the Lolita identity has been, as I have
highlighted, implicated in the sex industry. But again I must emphasise that
this is not by choice, and the association of the Gothloli with this type of
imagery has been due to misappropriation.
As Sheila Burgel has stated, the “prissiness and prudery” of the
Gothloli look is in fact an effort “primarily intended to keep it sacred and
ensure that the image is not destroyed by links to sex”. 212 Burgel also agrees
that pornographic images of Lolita are the result of “misconceptions
[which]… run rampant in a country where [terms]… like ‘Loli-Complex’…
are imbedded in the culture”. 213 She goes on to say that:
The demure, well-mannered Gothic Lolita is ultimately a rejection of the sexual
demands placed on little girls in Japanese society. Although child pornography in
Japan was finally outlawed in 1999, fetishizing prepubescent schoolgirls is still
commonplace…. However… [the] Gothic Lolita [image] doesn’t quite carry the
significance the look suggests. 214
* Personal communication between “Angelic Lolita” and “Kitty Bridges” (Auckland, New Zealand)
on MySpace, www.myspace.com/botticelliangel_nz, 18 January, 2010.
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