The fascination with younger potential sex partners appears in a number of films where it often has the feeling of an obsession. Lolita, Baby Doll and Death in Venice all deal with people preoccupied with a particular person which leads often to death. In Death in Venice, the death is the plague which is ravaging the city yet a man stays because he can not leave because of his fascination with a young boy.

The definition of “child” as being a person of a certain age has raised many questions. Some people have argued that any post pubescent person is no longer a child, whereas others have pointed out there are 17 year olds who are sexually more knowledgeable, aware (and often experienced) than some 40 year olds and so decisions need to be made case by case. Law however looks for generalities and is not happy with this kind of definition.

Prepubescent children are often seen as “sexless”. That is since sexual differentiation is not clearly present in secondary sex characteristics it is often difficult to tell male from female children. Once puberty sets in secondary sexual differentiation becomes apparent.

Involvement with children in American (and many other societies, but by no means all) is seen as taboo and illegal. Even in the history of the West there are times when women are given as wives who are basically children and have no say in the matter. (See Gregersen’s article on marriage)

Child molesters are seen as serious problems and are often thought to be homosexual as well, but this is not the case. Many, if not most child molesters have turned out to be heterosexuals.

Symbols are defined as something which stands for something else in an arbitrary way. That is to say there is no real connection between the symbol and its referent. Sex can be, and has been symbolized in many ways. In Anatomy of a Murder, sex and legal process were conflated in some ways, while in other films food and sex are equated. Food and eating are common metaphors for sex and appear even in English linguistic terminology about sex. Sex legally involves not only genital-genital contact but oral-genital and anal genital contacts,

Oral sex is often symbolized through any other oral fixation whether it be thumb sucking (e.g. The Big Sleep) smoking,

Drinking or eating. These symbolic markers are common in films.

A number of films deal with the question of sex with children including Lolita/i>, The Mark/i>, Priest/i>, and Doubt/i>. Fritz Lang's M a film about child killings resonates with the idea of child molestation, but never quite comes out and says it.)

Notes on Lolita