Lolita/Moé: Ethics and acceptance?

[isami]

Well, because I'm a total nerd and often get into serious discussions about anime/manga, the topic of Lolita and related issues often comes up, and I'd really like to know what other fans think about it. Bare with me, I know this is a bit long.

As a small history lesson, Lolita in regards to Japanese culture usually refers to:
a) a fashion style based on victorian and roccocco dress. frilly, antique looking clothing that is often used for baby dolls and such.
b) loli-con, aka Lolita Complex, refering to a fetish/desire for underaged girls in a sexual manner.

Furthermore, the term/name Lolita comes from the novel written by Vladimir Nabokov about a man who has indecent desires and relations with an extremely young girl (like 12) named Lolita.

Moé is a lesser known, but slightly broader topic. In a nutshell, it's more or less an attraction to a certain type of fictional character, IE a girl with glasses or pigtails, but has also been used in a similar way to loli-con. Moé characters are recognized as either physically or emotionally youthful, innocent, and vulnerable.


The general acceptance of such things in Japan stems from a lot of cultural influences, many of which I won't get into cause it's not family-friendly discussion and i'm trying to keep this as clean as possible. But I feel first off, fans need to stop assuming that Japanese culture is this high and mighty center of awesome. Like any nation, it has it's issues, and one of them has to do with the way women are treated and objectified, specifically young girls. IE, they need separate train cars for WOMEN ONLY during rush hour because of what people do to them, [i]in public[/i].

What I find kind of interesting is how popular and simply accepted these genres are in western fandom (especially hentai enthusiasts) where relations with young girls/boys is looked down upon severely. I'm not talking 13 or 14, but 10 and 11. Girls this young are often depicted sexually in anime and manga, though you may not realize it.

Some may argue that, as cartoons, it's easy to simply overlook these factors since no REAL underaged girls are getting hurt. I agree, this is pretty viable. But it doesn't change the mental connection that this is representative of someone who is that age, etc.

So what do you guys thing about this? Don't be afraid to express opinions for or against, I really wanna know and I'm not going to attack anybody.

[LunaticCrow]

A 23 year old unwed office lady who lives with her parents becoming a magical girl at night-cool and awesome as I think that is-is a bit less glamorous compared to a carefree little girl constantly surrounded by beauty and innocence becoming something more adorable? From an entertainment standpoint kids are generally considered superior.

Though from the sexual standpoint, whatever floats your boat really. I haven't heard of many instances (well, at least not enough for it to be commonplace) with people taking cartoon things of that particular nature to the next level, so...I don't consider it to be a national crisis. Japan's a pretty sexually liberted country to begin with (for men anyway), so the fact that loli/moe is pretty much accepted isn't very surprising to me. :V

unrelated: is that Archer and Rin in your avatar?
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[Stereominate]

From what I can tell it doesn't have all that much to do Nabokov's Lolita. Somewhere along the line it got twisted about, so it's more a porcelain-doll thing than a 12-year-old-girl thing. It's just some goth thing really. I place it in the same category as those long-haired girly-looking victorian vampire prettyboys. Pale face, dark clothes, all sombre and dark and 'sinister' and blah.

I think those mass-produced loli clothes look really fucking stupid.

Anyway, people can objectify whatever they want to objectify. If there are people out there playing into it, then obviously they deserve to be objectified.

[LunaticCrow]

Yeah, Lolita fashion is incredibly stupid AND ugly. People tend to only reference Nabokov's Lolita so they don't look as stupid when they're caught looking at pictures of ugly kids in ugly clothes. :v
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[Sliv]

My hometown has an annual anime convention that I have attended the past four years (although I didn't stay long last year because I had a fever).
During one of the cosplay contests a young girl of 8 was dressed in a beautiful Elegant Gothic Lolita dress (she was cosplaying as Cosette form Le Portrait de Petit Cossette). As she walked onto the stage, she was greeted by male members of the audience with wolf-whistles and cried of "Have my babies!". It was absolutely disgusting. Thankfully, most of the audience (myself included) booed these males and shouted "You sick F***s!" in response (I know that's what I shouted).

Personally I enjoy dressing in Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion, but I'm of the legal age of consent in my country, and dress that was with the intention of appearing [not necessarily sexually] alluring. [LOL, not that I'm suggesting a person should be of a certain age before they are legally allowed to buy a dress.]

As far as what is accepted in a countries/ scoieties where pornography is everywhere you turn, where STDs and pregnancy are only five drinks away, where showing some cleavage will save you from a speeding ticket and oral sex buys you a taxicab ride, where multimillion-dollar child-pornography busts are on the news weekly, all that matters is MOST PEOPLE ARE SICK in one way or another. I can accept this, however if anyone touches my children, no matter how they're dressed, I'll kill them. [I don't actually have children.]

[Brianhjh]

I would auction my children to the highest bidder of opposite sex. It's called profitable natural selection.
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[RammsteinSkollexxx]

i'm the HEUGIST shotacon fan and i find absolutely no attracion to boys younger then 13(which is ok, i'm 15).


i think as long as the writer/reader isn't into real little kids, and doesn't model the drawings after real children, it's okay. it is understandably taboo, but they aren't real children, so it's okay