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While I realize this is an edgy thing to say, I strongly disapprove of this man's actions but my reasoning has nothing to do with the age difference or any modern feminist notion of consent as a real ethical fundamental. I simply think men have an important responsibility not to have sex with any woman they do not seriously intend to marry.
How young would the girl have to be before the immorality of the age difference overwhelmed the immorality of the casual sex? You've established an adult man having sex with a 12 year old is morally superior to casual sex with another consenting adult woman. What about a 9 year old? A 6 year old?
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Why is "intent" to marry sufficient? Surely a man who's serious will marry first and fuck later.
Of course. But we're grading on a curve here. There are worse things and less bad things.
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So, like, the worst part about Humbert-Humbert is that he he didn't intend to marry Lolita?
I don't think "feminist notions of consent" have anything to do with protecting minors from their own voluntary decisions. The legal basis is cognitive. 12 year olds can't legally quit school, buy legal drugs, leave home, sign contracts, etc. But this is not because of feminism.
Would you be okay with a 19 year old having sex with an 11 year old? An 8 year old? And so on...Provided they intended to marry?
Its an interesting perspective, but I see some small potential for abuse.
No, it is specifically caused by feminism. Compulsory education past the point it makes sense, prohibition (even for adults, too), and AoC laws were day-one feminist goals. A 12 year old could trivially just leave home on the first bus to the city 100 years ago to find work, but 40 years after that it was outlawed (by a significantly more feminist society).
No, it isn't; adults that are stupider than the average teenager (including the mentally handicapped and the senile) have more rights than them, so that claim it's cognitive is incoherent.
I think you're confused about the correct delineation between "child" and "adult", because all of human history suggests it isn't where modern society thinks it is. (And now you know why teenagers [and topically, the occasional 12 year old]- being biological adults under a high degree of suppression- are generally difficult to deal with.)
It's cognitive, but imperfectly.
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Indeed; ancient societies generally considered males to be full adults in their mid to late twenties and women and girls to never really come of age, as opposed to the current standard of eighteen for both sexes.
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I come from a very patriarchal culture, arguably not truly feminist (though it's made its impact on the educated). No one would put their 12 year old daughter on a bus alone to go find work.
Yeah, in some areas of the world even more divorced from reality this can trigger a child endangerment investigation. Gotta be supervised at all times, ideally with a face covering.
Again, you had "left to join the circus" only 4-5 generations ago (for example, the youngest worker on the Hindenburg when it went down was 14- not an unusual thing, and then you look at the workplace photos and see more people even younger than that).
They are capable, we just pretend they aren't because... reasons.
Capable of running away, or capable of getting better outcomes than if they'd followed the guidance of their parents? I'm aware that children were a lot more free-range before, but that did come with expectations that they'd act as they were taught and heeded their elders. In fact, there was far more emphasis on heeding one's elders than there is now, even though, as you note, not all adults are smarter than all teenagers.
You seem to be missing that "if you stay on the farm you'll be poor forever, and you're still not inheriting shit because you weren't born first, so it's time to leave and earn some money to support yourself" was a calculus young men and women commonly had to make even into the middle of the 20th century (in more rural areas).
Modern overextended "adolescence" is a [late-mid]-20th century invention.
Wasn't anything to inherit in most cases. Outside of the US most were tenant farmers: all my distant ancestors certainly were.
My grandfather and his father on the male side were both apprenticed at 12 and moved into their masters' shops. On my mother's side her father started working in the mines around the same age, which was much later than her grandfather had started work (around 9ish)
My dad got to go to trade school until 15, and didn't start a real industrial job (bit grinding) until then.
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From what I see, the peak of teenage "difficulty" is 2-3 years before puberty is done with them. Seems clear to me that a 13 year old doesn't instantly become a "biological adult" when she starts bleeding or his balls grow the first few hairs.
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No, the worst part was his delusional narcissism that made him think he was a sexy young popstar-lookalike she had a crush on, rather than an aging academic she only flirted with a bit to mog her mom/daddy issues.
That's why her rejection hit him so hard, especially because of who she hooked up with instead
Was Quilty even real? I think there's a reading of the book where Quilty is Humbert Humbert's own alternate ego.
Isn't Humbert on trial for murdering Quilty? Unless you take the unreliable narrator so far that the trial isn't real either.
In any case, Lolita in the end marries some other guy closer to her age (I forgot his name, if it's even mentioned).
Richard. I only remember because jealous Humbert called him something like "superfluous Dick"
Had it a bit wrong:
God I love his parentheses
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Wouldn't that mean even the framing story can't be trusted? The editor points out places where Humbert's narrative conflicts in a provable way, and doesn't do that for what he's actually on trial for.
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I find your views fascinating in a clinical way. Would you have been okay with his actions if he had intended to marry her, perhaps in a society where child marriage is more common? What if their age difference was larger? Is consent required for marriage, or is that also just a 'modern feminist notion'?
Depends heavily on outcome and specifics. If they split or divorce later, for example, it reflects very badly on one or both of them, and probably specifically the man as the more mature participant. But an intent for marriage would shift things over to "negligence" or perhaps even "bad luck", and away from "malice".
Larger which way, and by how much? I don't know, really. It can be hard to disentangle the emotional disgust reaction from the moral disgust reaction. The strongest moral arguments here, IMO, are also strong moral arguments against nonprocreative sex more generally, which seems kind of weak.
Universally? No, but something like it should certainly be pursued. Better marriages are (among other things) ones where the husband and wife (or wives) make each other happy, which is obviously less likely if they don't want to be there. There are material considerations as well, of course, but I think men and women have a responsibility to care deeply about each other, especially in the context of sex and marriage.
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