tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post114798949030108156..comments2024-01-15T05:32:24.873-05:00Comments on The Jon Rowe Archives: Jonathan Rowehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-5888961202061865842016-01-20T17:40:48.632-05:002016-01-20T17:40:48.632-05:00I don't agree with your ages. 18 & 19 year...I don't agree with your ages. 18 & 19 year olds are adults. People mature at different ages. But it's more like 12-16. People who are in, around and after puberty but below the age of consent. Jonathan Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-6517700455203392982016-01-20T13:36:17.842-05:002016-01-20T13:36:17.842-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Seaearth ponyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17582765918943640894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-1148341235401278092006-05-22T19:40:00.000-04:002006-05-22T19:40:00.000-04:00"In many ways, it's the younger reaching out for r...<EM>"In many ways, it's the younger reaching out for rescue by a parent-figure lacking in his/her own life."<BR/><BR/>That's certainly true. I don't doubt that underaged folks can and do seduce older people. Though I never read the novel or saw the movie, isn't that what Lolita is all about?"</EM><BR/><BR/>My memory is that it's not so much about her seduction of Humbert...as his obssession with her and image of her *innocence*. She is neither an *innocent* nor a seductress, but has her own obession with a dif older man. What she does do is utilize her budding sexual prowess to trade Humbert for teenaged girl accoutrements - but only because she is *trapped* as he is her *parent* (after the mother dies) and she's unable to escape him.Karen McLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09721731853548537686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-1148256014570799982006-05-21T20:00:00.000-04:002006-05-21T20:00:00.000-04:00Nabokov is a favorite author, and I don't think th...Nabokov is a favorite author, and I don't think the claim that "Lolita" is one of the best 20th C. novels. Its complexity resists reductionism, but certainly Humbert's arrested adolescent development and Lolita's seduction and manipulation are obvious themes. Nabokov was hardly a moralist in the traditional sense, but power relations figure predominantly in most of his works. So too, seduction, even in his more "political" works, where individuals are seduced by power only to be consumed by others' power (e.g., "Invitation to a Beheading"). One can interpret the Bolshevist Seduction into these works, working in a similar dynamic to the interpersonal dynamic. Wouldn't it be great if we just "resisted" all seductions? But power and sex are two types of seductions many cannot resist, even if their instincts forewarn them that they are headed for certain destruction. Look at the seduction of Libertarianism or Marxism or Christianity or Freudism or even Foucault, the ultimate anti-power person preoccupied with seduction in his own life. Resistance, like just saying, "No," is often easier than one thinks. While I fundamentally agree that adult-adolescent sexual relations should be discouraged, precisely because of unequal seductions, it's that very nature which makes it attractive to the young-mature dynamic. How many young (at least adult) women becomes spouses of much older men? Again, none of this speaks to me personally, but I've become less condemnatory if only because the dynamics involved "work" for some ineluctable reasons. Pedophilia, however, is distinct, usually involving a para-pubescent child and adult. No excuse is acceptable for this perversion and power grab, whatever the pscyhodynamics may or may not be. Just as incest is a societal taboo, so too is pedophilia, for different reasons, but on the same magnitude. Frankly, I think we are not harsh enough on this perversity. I have no qualms about castration (in males) or something comparable (in females). That almost 90% of these freaks involve a step-father & step-daughter affair, its repugnance must not just be shunned, but must literally ostracised. While it might have been tolerated in more primitive societies, it has no place in a civilized one. None. Not for the biological, power, and psychological abuse alone, but because it violates a person, but because it violates the person's sense of self. Like rape, a near cousin, it cannot be allowed without significant consequences to the social fabric as well as to the victim.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-1148233746066500602006-05-21T13:49:00.000-04:002006-05-21T13:49:00.000-04:00"In many ways, it's the younger reaching out for r..."In many ways, it's the younger reaching out for rescue by a parent-figure lacking in his/her own life."<BR/><BR/>That's certainly true. I don't doubt that underaged folks can and do seduce older people. Though I never read the novel or saw the movie, isn't that what Lolita is all about?<BR/><BR/>The bottom line is sometimes you have to resist such seduction.Jonathan Rowehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04079637406589278386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-1148112855936238482006-05-20T04:14:00.000-04:002006-05-20T04:14:00.000-04:00I think this *unequal power dyanmic* goes a long w...I think this *unequal power dyanmic* goes a long ways to the underlying issues here. But the situations I find most disturbing are those that seek to ignore the developments mind v. body aspects of human pre-teen, teens and adults and *normalize* sertain behavior - which may codify the uneven power structure.<BR/><BR/>The kinds of situations I'm referring to are the fundamentalist polygamous marraiges of post-pubescent but very "young" women (who may or MAY NOT be allowed to be execising any meaningful *choice* in these arrangements.)<BR/><BR/>Yet the entire societal group they live in accepts, endorses and promotes these situations...which I do view as abusive and less than acts of real *consent* under these circumstances.<BR/><BR/>This is distinctly different from the "Lolita" fictional model with the obsessive Humbert. And different to in a power equation that posits a need on both sides from an unequal position that satisfies both partners.Karen McLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09721731853548537686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6564473.post-1148097221147597172006-05-19T23:53:00.000-04:002006-05-19T23:53:00.000-04:00You present the dilemma most of us don't face, and...You present the dilemma most of us don't face, and a problem without a face.<BR/><BR/>Taking advantage of others can be deplorable, and we often assume it's the adult who takes advantage of the underling. Such unequal "power" dynamics tear at our sense of justice.<BR/><BR/>While deplorable, I've met a few of these exceptional relations, and it's reformed my own views. Just as the "older" can befriend the "younger," the reciprocal also occurs. In many ways, it's the younger reaching out for rescue by a parent-figure lacking in his/her own life. Such relations are counter to my own values and aspirations, but I sense a "fit" in what appears to be "their" disconnect, an emormous inequality, among those who find rescue in each other.<BR/><BR/>Heretofore, I was condemnatory. I remain highly skeptical and averse. But I've seen "kids" redeemed by "father-figures," and old men rejuventated by "youth." It makes no sense to me, but it now feels less repugnant. In the Mystery of Life, a Mystery I confess to little knowledge, apparently the "dynamic" works. It sure does not "work" for me, but once I suspended my own apprehension and repugnance, and allowed "them" to inform me rather than me prejudge them, I am more accepting of the dynamic I certainly don't understand, remaining alien to me.<BR/><BR/>"Power" relations, especially between two inequals, can be disturbing. The Priest who molests a kid that wants nothing to do with it, still disgusts me. It's all about power to dominate another, by vice of vulnerability, by another vice of exploitation. But how many child-women became wives to older men in byegone years? Our histories are littered with them.<BR/><BR/>But in a perverse, yet "normative" manner, such power relations have always existed. Let's always err on the side of the less powerful, but not uncritically, anymore than we err in judging a situation we don't understand, and a dynamic we can't fathom. Yes, it cannot be a "default" position, because the innocent often become victims. But maybe many of the victims are those of power who fall into lairs that are set, and their "fall" is no less an injustice? Yes, they should know better, but shouldn't we all?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com