nerdtastic

Thoughts on Lost Girls

There is some debate over whether Lost Girls is pornography, art, or filth. Some are outraged simply by the idea of portraying children in a sexual manner, whether there is any truth to the subject or not. Alan Moore set out to create pornography, but he wanted to make something bigger than that as well. The difference between most pornography and Lost Girls is this: most pornography has no other purpose than to arouse. Lost Girls wants you to think about why, how, and with who you are aroused, and how exactly this makes you feel about yourself.

The book uses fictional characters to uplift the discussion of sex and take away some of the taboo surrounding certain sex acts. The sexual experiences are even further removed because they are often memories or dreams of fictional versions of already fictional characters, or they are images in a book that these characters are reading. Moore deconstructs things further when the hotel manager gives them a first hand account of his taking sexual advantage of children for money… the women call him on it and accuse him of making it up, but it is never revealed if his story is real or fiction. This blurs the line even further between reality and fantasy and forces the reader to address the moral issues surrounding the story: Is it “ok” to be aroused by fictional accounts of morally unacceptable actions, or is there a difference between the reality and the fantasy?

The hotel manager’s story is also more realistic than the womens’ accounts of their first sexual experiences; these stories are more surreal and thus the controversial aspects easier to overlook. Although I personally do not usually find graphic erotica arousing, I usually find it a turn off… in this case, the indistinct and surreal art style adds a dream like quality to the sexual scenes. The surrealism enables the (otherwise inhibited) reader to allow themselves to be affected by the sexual nature of the stories…it is a protective lense with which to view what would sometimes otherwise be very twisted, i.e. child molestation, bestiality, etc.

As the story progresses, more boundaries are pushed and taboos explored…they are also portrayed in a more realistic manner. While Alice’s experience with the “Rabbit” are muddled and dreamlike, Dorothy’s experiences with her father are portrayed more realistically. While I had an instinctual turned off response to the incest scenes, the language Moore uses enabled me to see how someone could possibly find it arousing. This is the brilliance of Alan Moore— he shows us an unfamiliar sexuality from a point of view other than our own biases, in a non confrontational way. Moore’s language during the sexual scenes explores the inner thought process someone with that fantasy might have to reach that point of arousal. He plays up  the erotic elements while minimizing the morale issues by placing the scenes in a memory of a fantasy character. Taken in normal conversation, most people imediately balk at a serious discussion of incest, but removing the discussion this far from reality enables the reader to get closer to the subject without being put off.

 The characters themselves metafictively discuss the idea that what they went through as children, although hideous in reality, is quite arousing to imagine. By using the characters to discuss directly the issues surrounding some of the taboos they are exploring, the reader is more aware of what they are learning about their own sexuality. By sharing their stories, the women rid themselves of any emotional baggage their early experiences may have left them with while simultaneously sharing an intimate experience—or three, or four— with each other. In doing so, they are freeing their past selves, “the girls they have lost.”  Moore is making the case that sex can be a positive, healing act, not the dirty, immoral deed the public so often labels it as. While in an idealized, fictional world this may be the case, I do wonder if Alan Moore actually knows anyone personally who has gone through a traumatizing sexual experience. After decades of carrying the burden of child molestation, I doubt that a few shared sexual experiences and an honest retelling of the traumatic event would heal someone completely—just like that.


Despite Alan Moore’s complicated layout, Lost Girls is fairly similar to other pornography. It doesn’t need to be anything else in order to be of value. Lost Girls stands out because of the talent that went into it, and the fact that two such worthy artists spent such an effort on mere sex. Surpassing the genre isn’t the point of the project; it stands out simply because such few examples of intelligent, positive, thought provoking works of pornography exist. Lost Girls shows that sex is a worthy subject to explore on its own.