I read an annotated version of Lolita. I suspect I would not have made it all the way through an unannotated version. The annotations were astonishing to me. Po

I read an annotated version of Lolita. I suspect I would not have made it all the way through an unannotated version. The annotations were astonishing to me. Pointing out literary references that were either unknown to me, or that I knew but did not, on my own, connect. I missed a key plot element (being followed), that was illuminated by the annotation. I've also read erotica and a small amount of porn. IMHO, Lolita doesn't come close to being porn. It's just go too much going on _beyond_ the sexuality. The issue of being drawn to a 12 year old is .... complex. When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, 13 was the age of consent, and Juliet was 13. Evolutionarily, once a woman is ovulating, I assert it's 'natural' to be attracted to her, regardless of how young she is or the age difference. BUT in a modern world, the power differential between an adult male and a 12 year old, or 14 year old (Sue Lyons was 14 when she played Lolita in the Stanley Kubrick film) is too large to condone. The potential for psychological damage to the younger person is vast. So we've made it illegal. But my sense is that it has become tarred with too broad a brush. "Unthinkable that any moral person could have these desires" seems to be the theme in much of the book-banning crowd. And, as others have pointed out, it was rape, which is despicable, and does not 'glorify' the sexuality, but it's done in a complex (literary) way that makes it possible to miss the rape element. !!!