Older Men?

Lolita had to be the most challenging book I have ever read. Reading the story through Humbert’s perspective was hard to read. The feelings he had for the twelve year old nymphet Lolita was disturbing. Also reading that Lolita was the first one to push their relationship towards a sexual level really disturbed me as well. What young twelve year old girls would want to sleep with an older man? I remember when I was twelve or thirteen years old my friends and I would dream about holding hands with the hottest guy at school that was around our age. We were not fantasizing about an old man that could be our step dad. I feel that Humbert did make it seem like Lolita wanted to have sex. He may have added that to make it look like it was consensual sex and not rape. However, Humbert is not a reliable source due to the fact that he was once in a mental institution. This makes the readers question how well his judgement is and how much does he make up in his mind. We are not sure if Lolita was toying with him during the first half of the novel or was he making it all up in his head. Also we all know that he was in fact raping her and keeping her captive during the second part of the book in just the way he describe the relationship he had at that point with Lolita.

After Lolita escaped away from Humbert we find out that she is pregnant and she was always in love with Quilty an old sick perverted man that likes to have sex with different partners at the same time. This part of the story that Humbert writes about I do believe it is true because we can see that he gets heart broken and goes off to kills Quilty for taking his Lolita away. Lolita flirting with Humbert and her being in love with Quilty is kind of gross and we can  say that Lolita might have some issues. Learning about Lolita’s relationship with her mother, we learn that it  was not the best relationship a mother and daughter can have.  We can argue that Lolita might have needed a more loving mother that gave her the attention she needed. However, Lolita’s mother could not stand her and wanted to send her off to boarding school after she had married Humbert. What mother would want to send her child off to school because they don’t want her to be apart of their new marriage? I just feel that Lolita’s mother could have been more caring especially since Lolita did not have a father figure in her life while growing up.

There are a lot of cases that young women are attracted to older men which is kind of weird if you ask me. However, I can understand why young women are attracted to older men. Women want men that are ready to be serious about a relationship to settle down and start a family. Young men these days like to date and just see what’s out there and that is not what women want. I feel that every women wants the fairy tale fantasy of having a husband that is mature that is able to support his family. I feel that in a sense this is understandable because I would hate to be in a relationship with a man that is an immature man that is just in it for the kicks. Point is that men that are older are sexier than younger men because they have their shit together and they also know what they want in life. So men the sooner you get your shit together the more faster you get the girl that wants to go all the way with you.

I guess Lolita’s attraction to older men is not as weird if we block out the age difference. Lolita seemed really mature for her age knowing how and what sex was. Lolita was an interesting character because she became promiscuous at such a young age. She developed faster than an average girls does and I feel that is also the reason why she was attracted to older men.

Jeannette Cazares

So this 51-year-old and His 16-year-old Wife Walk Into a Bar…

  Super sexy, yes? Personally, from the neck up she appears a little “nip tuckish” to me which isn’t my style, and just to confirm it is the make up, an ABC Nightline special indicated doctors proved she is plastic surgery free, but generally speaking this is considered a modern day “Blonde Bombshell”.  Big blonde hair, big boobs, petite frame, somewhere between Victoria’s Secret and Penthouse, this is where it’s at right? Well her husband sure seems to think so! 51-year-old Doug Hutchison and 16-year-old Courtney Alexis Stodden (above) married a little over a year ago. Perversion senses tingling yet? Assuming the “Blonde Bombshell” is your kind of girl, how sexy you thought she was before didn’t magically disappear because you found out how old she was, yet “societal norms” would deem it inappropriate for you to still be thinking those lusty thoughts for this busty teen.

What is most disturbing to you? Is it that the sexual “precociousness” of the photo somewhat tugs at your pediphilic perversions and for a quick second you can empathize with any man’s or woman’s attraction? I mean goodness forbid amongst everything else you know about our little Lolita that aditionally, she looked like this, we would have to be a little less harsh on Humbert Humbert. Maybe it’s what images flashed through your head when you heard 51-year-old, considering that her husband may look more attractive and “younger for his age” and obviously, she looks older than your standard 9th grader, would this set the societal “inappropriateness” at ease? You say taboo I say tomato. Evidently, Courtney isn’t your average Nymphette, but knowing Humbert is an attractive man calms the gag reflex.

Regardless of how beautiful or disgusting the old man, Nevada is one, amongst the 39 states that has legalized underage marriage as long as there is parental consent from at least one parent. So who’s up for some statutory rape, with parental consent? Afterall, these two are deeply in love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXElU2k7OkY&feature=player_detailpage

What age is it accepted to be in love, furthermore, what age do you understand what love is? A doctor from the interview above (follow link) says a 16-year-old hasn’t fully developed their frontal lobe and an adolescent brain lacks in the judgement area and evaluations of consequence.  But doesn’t evrybody sometimes have that issue? Moreover, if that is the big issue, what about the “mature for their age notion”.  Life experiences teach us aspects of life a lot quicker than reading them in books don’ tyou agree? Lolita had a lot more experience than those other Nymphettes she had been around and indeed was married and pregnant by the age of 17.

Teenagers have sex all the time, and that is assumed and acceptable as long as they stay within the age guidlines, or even further, gender guidelines.  If the gender roles were switched, the social stigma wouldn’t be so heavy.  There’ s a whole show dedicated to these much older handsome ladies that seem to be on the prowl for these younger men, as if they were “Cougars” ready to pounce on their prey. Everything seems so predatory, but could there actually be any love involved, and if so, will that change ones perception from an episode of Law & Order, SVU to some sort of modernized Romeo’s Old Enough to be Your Dad and Juliet?

Courtney and her husband Doug.

-Yasmin Goodarziborojeni

The perks of being attractive

Great things happen to many good people. But many great things happen to good looking people.

This is a subject that has intrigued me since I was first able to acknowledge its undeniable presence in life. I’ve been contemplating this phenomenon a lot after reading Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita.” It is one of the most critically acclaimed books of all time for a multitude of reasons and is a literary wonder that touches the darkest parts of the psyche with depictions of graphic and unapologetically controversial perversions from the novel’s narrator, Humbert Humbert (HH).

But there is one specific detail about HH that makes his character more complex yet more obvious: He is attractive. Of course everyone has a personalized, differing image of HH when they read the novel, though I will admit before I go any further: I had a very clear mental image of HH in my head as I read “Lolita.” I watched Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film version of Lolita before I read the book (I had made several pathetic attempts at reading “Lolita” for leisure and never made it past page 30). I knew it was going to be a bit of a lingual challenge so I cheated and watched the movie before I read the book, just to get a general synopsis of this classic work of literary genius.

And let me tell you—James Mason was a hottie! He was so handsome. Now, after having read the book, it’s interesting to look back and see how much more critical one would be of HH if he/she didn’t have a clear image of his character in their heads (at least not James Mason!). Being an unbiased “jury member” in the movie was slightly harder than being a completely objective one when reading the book. It was a strange feeling- finding myself attracted to a deviant pedophiliac monster.

And it’s all because he’s attractive.

I have witnessed people have more sympathy for, pay more attention to, play favorites to, and allow beautiful people to get away with all sorts of things in the familial, societal, cultural, and communal realms. To use modern example: All teenagers, young, and mid adults who have gone out to bars, clubs, concerts—you’ve watched that hot, fit, well dressed, good-to-know group of girls or guys, who breeze past everyone to the front of the line unflinching and go right through, while the group of Plain Janes or Awkward Nerds wait an extra hour in line and have to pay $10 a head when they get to the door.

The fact that Nabokov plays this age-old trick on the reader and audience trying to make HH seductive is so fitting for his character in a sense, but it also seems to be an artistically placed cliché that exposes this immutable fact of life. Just like Nabokov connects with the reader by making HH honest and responsible for his actions, he identifies with the reader by pointing out this extremely obvious and perilous bias that has always been embedded in our minds. He knows HH’s agreeable looks will tend to counteract our comprehension of the perverse, ugly pedophiliac things he narrates about.

Even immensely influential writers and artists like Vladimir Nabokov can appreciate the obvious and accept it. Nabokov himself doesn’t look like the most handsome of his class, quite the opposite of the narrative’s main character. For all we know he might have been one of the Awkward Nerds, standing in line for a show, watching the Humbert Humberts of life enter before him.

I am the youn…

I am the youngest of two girls. My mom was also the younger of her and her sister-Aunt Eileen- who lived with us from age five to age eleven. It was a house of women. Sometimes my dad would shoot out the door to go on a long walk because he used to get so fed up with “all the estrogen” (took me a while to grasp what that meant). Needless to say I was always curious about friends of mine with brothers. A brother?! What the hell would I do if I had a brother I used to wonder. Little boys are so different from little girls. I always had lots of girlfriends and didn’t really start forming true friendships with boys until after they had gone through puberty thankfully, so the life of a little boy was something I couldn’t conceptualize.

Anyway! I was thrilled when I found out a couple years ago that I was going to be an aunt- I was having a little nephew!! Kaiden came to us in November of 2007. And I’ve gotta say- I didn’t care he was a boy. He was so damn cute. Still is, always will be.

A few years prior to his birth, I took my first psychology class- Human Psych 101- at the city college. It was the first time I’d ever heard of Freud. I just thought I was cool because I was a 17 year old freshman who was taking psychology (so deep, dude) while my friends were still in pleated skirts and penny loafers. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing in that class let alone what I was doing in college, but one day I started paying attention. I started learning. It was the first class I’d taken that really made me do some self-reflection. I dove into my own life history when reading about his Stages. I started thinking about the inner workings of my mind, my sexuality, and my psychosocialization.

I got a C in that class but hey. It tickled my pickle, so to speak. So I took another psychology class, this time on women’s psychology. But then, about 6 months before I found out Terry was pregnant, I took a children’s psychology class. That was all too engrossing. The further I delved into Freud’s theories on infant sexuality, the possibilities of developing complexes towards your parents, the more I agreed with them; the more they made sense to me. And now? With all this knowledge fresh in my mind and Kaiden in the Phallic Stage, it’s like having access to a real live textbook! I feel as though I have a sneak peek into the past of every male friend and family member I know thanks to my little nephew. Terry still tells me “stop psychoanalyzing my four year old.”

The truth is- I’m sure one day sooner than I’d like to admit, Kaiden will be doing the psychoanalyzing!