[merylsilverburg]

Originally posted by Hylas

Though I'm not an expert, as I said above, I think the term "Lolita" referring to the phenomenon of gothic lolitas has something to do with Nabokov and his book. Not in a literal sense, but being synonym of young and at the same time provocative, beautiful, sexy, intriguing and most of all deadly. The Lolita of the book was all these things together, being very young and attractive, but not in an ordinary way. She intrigued older men with an innocent look, but behind this look there was hidden a femme fatale.

What you said is true; apparently, the title of "Lolita" comes from term of being "young, feminine, beautiful, and innocent" of Nabokov's book. But, for the Japanese, the meaning of "Lolita" doesn't have anything to do with what the term of the book portrays. From what I've researched, the Japanese who dress in the "Lolita-style" does not have that "innocent but deadly" image in mind. They call it "Lolita" because they want to show the image of being "innocent and beautiful" but in no way have an secret meaning of "innocent but sexy/deadly". They do not want to have the attention of older men or be the desire of men's fantasy. They just merely dress because it's pretty and cute. That's why in Japanese, they coin the term as "Roriita" (Loliita) with the extra "i" in between in order not to be mistaken with Nabokov's version. The same can be said for the Japanese Gothics. While the Western ideals of being a goth really means loving the otherworld, satan, death, etc. the Japanese (apparently) have no desire in that whatsoever. They dress as the Gothic-style only because it's "pretty" to them. They like the dark, creepiness involved with the Gothic-theme because they think it's beautiful, not because they actually believe in the Devil, witchcraft, etc. So in reality, I think these Japanese can't really be called "true Goths" because they do it as cosplay, not an actual belief. Half of these teens who do the "Gothloli" style are actually normal people in real life; they go to school on weekdays and dress up on the weekend. And a majority of these people stop dressing up when they reach well past their mid-twenties (25...27 the latest).

That's all I really know...of course, I can't claim this is actual real information because I don't know any Japanese who can actually confirm this, but apparently others who've done the research actually read the "Gothic and Lolita Bible" and read the interviews/questionaires by these teens on the streets of Japan.