Erotic Aesthetics of Blindness
A few years ago, I’ve caught a glimpse of an article titled: ‘the most erotic Korean movie rank chosen by university professors.’ Of course I clicked it right away. If you think about ‘the most…’ thing, there are certain names or images popping up in the head. But to my disappointment, it was (in my opinion) old-fashioned film which lasts over 3 hours. And it doesn’t have any ‘real’ sex scenes at all. The more striking point about this rank was that professors chose the last scene of this film as the most erotic one which is merely a scene of a brother and a sister singing and drumming in a room. It is literally a singing scene, I’ve never thought of symbolization of drumming as a sexual intercourse, incest motif and so on like professors’ interpretation. University professors in Korea might have studied so much that became kinky, I concluded. However, after reading Nabokov’s Lolita, I started to understand them. Lolita is the most erotic novel I have read because there are so many gaps between the lines where I could fill up with my own erotic imagination.
This ‘gap’ came from Nabokov’s writing style. His portrayal of the first night of Humbert and Lolita remains in my memory as ‘pink cloudy’ erotic scene ever. He deliberately skipped the description of the explicit sexual intercourse, instead, it is simply mentioned in a sentence: “by six she was wide awake, and by six fifteen we were technically lovers.” And the other one: “At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently.” Where did the fifteen minutes go? Or what does ‘it’ mean? Even if author mentions nothing, from that vacant description of sexual scene, reader’s erotic imagination blossoms according to his or her sexual preferences and ages. In addition to the avoidance of sexual scene, Nabokov used many other metaphors and tender description. Lolita as ‘his prey’ is continuously described in bodily characteristics-- honey-brown body, limb, soft cheek and etc—by Humbert the narrator erotically, and it gives readers feeling of peeping. This peeping also arouses imagination in that we cannot actually see or experience what is happening inside but just can think.
Apart from the Nabokov’s aesthetic view[1], ‘covering’ or ‘blurring’ description might have been inevitable since Lolita was touching the ‘incest code’ or ‘sexualized-child’ which is the very taboo in our society. Even if the author only emphasized on technique in the aesthetic view, those gaps found in the description of sexual relationship can be read as ‘self-censorship.’ Whether he intended it or not, like a silent consensus, this evidently implies a feeling of shamefulness and guilt. Readers become aware of existing taboo and possibly get thrilled by substitutive experience. In the text, Nabokov not only avoids explicit description but also shows characters who see themselves as immoral. Humbert’s monologue “[F]orget, Dolores Haze, so-called legal terminology, terminology that accepts as rational the term ‘lewd and lascivious cohabitation.’ I am not a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child” shows guilt feeling ironically. In addition, there appears Lolita’s realization of shamefulness when she confesses to her step father that she has been a ‘filthy, disgusting and depraved girl’ because of her early sex experience at the camp. Connected with this moral indicator, incest and girl-child motif stimulates the readers with bigger imagination.
Lolita as the most erotic novel in my previous bookshelf thus proves several interesting facts. The most obvious is that there exists various sexual awareness and preferences. Contrary to Lolita, Sade’s infamous literature shows characters who don’t have any shamefulness and don’t care about any morals. Explicit description of the sexual scene is also totally opposite. Personally, Sade’s story and even the porno video clips we had watched in the class was not erotic at all—they were either funny or too ugly to enjoy. However, (strategic?) use of blurring by vague depiction of erotic scenes in Lolita opens more possibilities for various imaginations according to age, sex, ethnics and so on. At the same time, for people who are morally well-aware, this blindness works erotically and excitingly. Maybe this could be the reason why people try not to abolish sexual taboos.
[1] “Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.” –Nabokov, "On a Book Entitled Lolita."
2008-05-09