How Being Lolita Helped Me Resolve My Sexual Trauma
by Stephanie McCarthy
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I’m rereading Alisson Wood’s coming-of-age memoir, Being Lolita, because I plan on reviewing the book and discussing how it resonates with me on a personal level. While I usually don’t get caught up in the content of the pictures I post on this blog, the above photo captured what was going on in the author’s book so well that it was unnerving and I knew I had found the perfect photo for this post.
It has the red heart-shaped glasses that are on the cover of Wood’s 2020 edition of her book. Here’s some fun trivia for you: In Vladimir Nabokov’s book, Lolita, Dolores Haze (aka Lolita) never wore these glasses. They wouldn’t be donned until 1962 by Sue Lyons for the promotional poster for director Stanley Kubrick’s screen adaptation of the book. A common misconception is that Lyons wears them in the film. She doesn’t. When Kubrick’s version of Humbert Humbert (James Mason) first sees Dolores, she’s wearing cat eye sunglasses.
So, what do the heart-shaped glasses symbolize in Being Lolita? I’m not quite sure. I’d love to interview Alisson Wood one day and ask her. Until then, here’s my interpretation of what they mean. I’m sure you’ve heard the popular saying, “Take off your rose-colored glasses.” It warns someone to stop seeing a situation or an individual with unrealistic optimism and to start viewing things as they really are, especially if they involve possible flaws and negative qualities that could result in harmful consequences.
Teenagers, especially young women, are susceptible to optimism bias due to their bodies and brains not being fully developed. Add raging hormones, as well as being attractive and clinically depressed, to the mix and it’s almost inevitable that older men will prey upon these weaknesses. In Alisson’s case, it was the handsome and charming 26-year-old English teacher, Mr. North, who used a copy of Nabokov’s classic, Lolita, to lure her into an illicit relationship.
They may as well be on a picnic together, sitting on top of a heart-patterned blanket, while they enjoy tasty cream puffs (like the one you see in the main picture above) for dessert. Alisson and Nick North meet, alone, after school and, not only do they write to each other, but he tempts her with sugary Italian cookies as a reward if she finishes her reading and ties the bakery string, that once held the box of cookies closed, around her wrist.
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My favorite unretouched outtake from my spring
1996 high school senior portrait session. |
Wood captured the volatility of being a teenage female with such stunning accuracy that it made me cringe. Although I was transported to the most painful moments of my teenage years, I now had a clarity I didn’t previously have in order to fully articulate, as well as make sense of and come to terms with what happened to me, so that I could put it to rest once and for all. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that good literature doesn’t make a difference in people’s lives. It really does. This helped me in a way that therapy never did and without the heavy price tag too.
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Me and my mom at my high school senior baccalaureate mass in late May 1996. |
When I was in Catholic high school, I was beautiful in a way that I’ll never be again. I admit it and I’m not saying it to be full of myself. The proof is in picture after picture from that time. My body, my skin—nearly everything about me was flawless—and it was all achieved with little to no effort. Not only did it make less attractive and more insecure women cling onto their boyfriends more desperately and possessively, but it also put me in quite a bit of danger.
It made my first serious boyfriend think he could just take what he wanted from me and he pressed his metallic lips against mine to muffle the sound of my pained utterances while he used almost the entire weight of his body to pin me down so that I couldn’t fight him off. It caused my male therapist’s eyes to leisurely roam over my body in my school uniform as I shared some of the most personal details of myself with him.
My beauty had gone from being dangerous to nearly fatal. From the PTSD of being sexually assaulted to men constantly objectifying me, it was all incredibly dehumanizing. I was beginning to hate myself and grew tired of living. I contemplated suicide, but I couldn’t go through with it and ended up putting all of my antidepressants and sedatives back in their cases. Similar to Alisson with the teacher, I had become accustomed to seeing myself through a distorted, predominantly male lens. I needed to take off those heart-shaped glasses. They were making me very sick.
There’s an extremely illuminating and moving moment in Being Lolita when Alisson is reading Lolita in college for her English class. She realizes, from her time taking Latin classes, that Lolita’s real name, Dolores, is the pluralized form of dolor: dolores, which means pains. Put that together with her last name, Haze, and you have the pained haze of adolescence that so many teenage females stumble and fumble through. It is only when we take the accountability necessary to remove our heart-shaped glasses that we are truly able to start getting better and start becoming the individuals we were meant to be instead of just getting by in life or through another day in the same old, ugly way we’ve been conditioned to do.
You can purchase Being Lolita by Alisson Wood for $7.31 at AbeBooks.
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