Does "Lolita" glorify pedophilia?

Nabokov's goal was to demonstrate the negative aspects of obsession, not praise them

Question: Does "Lolita" glorify pedophilia?
Position1 of 2›: No, "Lolita" does not glorify pedophilia
Argument: Nabokov's goal was to demonstrate the negative aspects of obsession, not praise them

Nabikov’s main character is meant to cause the reader to look past his seemingly harmless facade to see the actual disturbed behavior underneath.

The argument

The use of an illicit relationship between an adult man and a child is meant to grab the reader’s attention so that they are unable to look away from the disturbing obsession that Humbert Humbert maintains with lust, possession, and the objectification of another person -- in his mind, a nymphet, or an object rather than a real person. His desire becomes all-consuming and alludes to a very real desire that American society creates for youth, especially in regard to sexualizing youth. While the subject matter may be considered perverse, it is used as a literary plot device, not to glorify Humbert Humbert’s actions or behavior, but to illustrate the disturbed obsession and crippling selfishness of a person, and the lengths they are willing to go to satisfy their desires -- even if it means the destruction of themselves and someone else.

Premises

[P1]The novel's disturbing central relationship is a literary device meant to fix the reader's attention on Humbert Humbert's obsession—his lust, possessiveness, and objectification of a child he reduces to an "object" rather than a person. [P2] Depicting this obsession illustrates his crippling selfishness and self-destruction, and critiques society's sexualization of youth, rather than presenting his behavior as admirable. [C] Lolita does not glorify pedophilia; Nabokov's goal was to demonstrate the destructiveness of obsession, not to praise it.

Counter-arguments

Nabokov himself stated that there is no moral to the story of Lolita, and that he wrote it merely for “aesthetic bliss.” The common interpretation by the literary world that it is some deeply thoughtful masterpiece completely ignores the author’s intent and the fact that the book so easily allows the reader to empathize with a middle-aged man’s perverse sexual obsession and abuse of a child.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Reading the central relationship as a device presupposes the interpretation at issue: the novel is narrated throughout by Humbert in ornate, self-justifying prose, and the argument does not identify what in the text signals condemnation rather than leaving readers to supply it. [Rejecting P2] Authorial purpose is also not the same as effect — Nabokov disclaimed any moral and described his aim as aesthetic — so establishing that obsession is depicted as destructive does not settle whether the depiction glorifies, which is a claim about how the book works on readers rather than about what its author intended.

Proponents cited

Elizabeth Janeway
“Mr. Nabokov is slyly exploiting the American emphasis on the attraction of youth and the importance devoted to the ‘teen-ager’ in order to promote an unconscious identification with Humbert’s agonies. Both techniques are entirely valid. But neither, I hope, will obscure the purpose of the device: namely, to underline the essential, inefficient, painstaking and pain-giving selfishness of all passion, all greed—of all urges, whatever they may be, that insist on being satisfied without regard to the effect their satisfaction has upon the outside world.”
Stephen Metcalf
“Its real genius is too easily missed. It lies in what Nabokov called the ‘nerves of the novel,’ the ‘secret points, the subliminal coordinates by means of which the book is plotted.’ In these, Nabokov has hinted at the life that exceeds the perimeter of Humbert’s encompassing obsession—at the inner lives of those others whom he so casually dismisses or destroys.”