To ease Lolita Effect

Bottom line: From a fictional little girl to a very big, very real archetype.

Poor Lolita. When her story was first published in the United States on Aug. 18, 1958, she was seduced, coerced and kidnapped by her lecherous guardian, Humbert Humbert.

Instantly controversial, instantly a best-seller and part of the pop culture, "Lolita" became a cultural signifier, a shorthand to be used and misused in many ways by those who did not understand Vladimir Nabokov's sly, disturbing novel.

Exploited once, and in perpetuity. Two new books use the 50th anniversary of the publication of "Lolita" to explore the complex issues that have arisen around the name that has become an archetype.

"Chasing Lolita" is a slim but interesting overview of the historical context in which Nabokov wrote, and how the culture has missed his point almost entirely. "The Lolita Effect," likely to be the more popular, is a work of feminist pop sociology that shows how toxic our culture is in dealing with girls' sexuality, and how parents and teachers can turn it around.

Both books start from the same point —- "the miss behind the myth," as Graham Vickers writes. In Nabokov's story, which appears on almost every list of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Delores Haze, nicknamed Lolita, is a girl of 12 who is neither attractive nor seductive. Her appeal is purely in Humbert's fevered mind. But four years after the novel came the 1962 movie version starring Sue Lyon, with its famous poster in which she sucks a lollipop and looks like Marilyn Monroe's jailbait sister. With that single image, Lolita went from gawky to sexy.

The name is memorable, short (perfect for attention-grabbing headlines and Internet searching) and pops up everywhere, from Amy Fisher, the "Long Island Lolita," to tennis player Anna Kournikova, who was still being referred to as a Lolita even after she was an adult, Vickers notes.

" 'Lolita' rapidly acquired a meaning," Vickers writes, "that was internationally understood —- or rather misunderstood —- [as] a provocative teen sex siren, a tart, a slut, a voracious and proactive seducer of middle-aged men." The connotation of a Lolita now carries with it "a presumption of guilt," Vickers asserts, which is a complete inversion of Nabokov's presumption of relative innocence.

That goes directly to the cover of the "The Lolita Effect." Here is a serious book decrying how modern media and corporations over-sexualize young girls, and the cover is a large photo of an over-sexualized young girl, her mouth open provocatively as she applies lip gloss. Should this dust jacket be considered a legitimate example of the problem, or a shameless come-on designed to attract attention and, therefore, sell more books?

But M. Gigi Durham's book is worthwhile, even though it falls prey to some minor sins, and worth heeding. "The Lolita Effect," she explains, is "the distorted and delusional set of myths about girls' sexuality that circulates widely in our culture and throughout the world, that works to limit, undermine and restrict girls' sexual progress."

A professor of mass communication at the University of Iowa and self-described "pro-sex feminist," Durham has a lot to offer, although much of it will sound familiar if you've read Mary Pipher's "Reviving Ophelia." Not only are girls sexualized by the culture before they are ready, she argues, they are sexualized in limiting, demeaning ways: Get a figure like Barbie. Dress like a slut. Be what boys want you to be.

The problems Durham points to are real, and pervasive, and her arguments deserve attention. But she tends to blame "the media" for pretty much everything going on. It's not just the media that are driving these trends, however, but American capitalism in general: The popularity of Bratz dolls, inappropriate Halloween costumes and the prevalence of provocative clothes for pre-teens in malls across America all contribute, as Durham notes, with little or no help from the media.

But a subtitle "Capitalism's Sexualization of Young Girls" isn't going to fly off the shelves like "The Media Sexualization of Young Girls." Durham has identified a problem (one that other social critics and a lot of parents of daughters have also identified), however, and her suggestions for parents are worth reading.

She writes that the Lolita Effect is virtually inescapable, and sadly she is right. The antidote is to challenge the culture and be a vigilant, critical consumer. That's not easy. Being a parent never is.