First off I must say, I absolutely adore AOL Black Voices. They show me a lot of love (hi Karu!! hi Ken!!), and are just a wonderfully entertaining site to visit to stay abreast of what’s going on in the world of pop culture pertaining to people of color.

This past weekend while Googling myself (what? you know you do it…besides, I was doing some research), I came across a book profile they’d done on me that I hadn’t seen before.

I was quite surprised by it and thought the layout was gorgeous. I’m guessing it was an extended part of the write-ups and podcast they’d done on me earlier this year. One part of it included Five Facts that most people don’t know about me. Items #3 and #4 particularly caught my eye:

I was a little startled to find that we’re considered X-rated out here on The Zone. I actually chuckled when I saw that because I’ve been feeling anything but X-rated lately. Still, I can’t be the one to determine how the content is perceived because it’s a perspective thing that’s relative to how the individual reading the site takes it. Perhaps you guys can chime in and give me a little insight as to the degree of raciness out here.

Also, and this one is significant: my real name IS “Lolita Files.” I’m not clever enough to make that up. FILES is the surname of my father’s very extensive side of the family, and they might think I’d have some nerve for trying to take credit for having come up with it myself. As for the LOLITA part, my mom decided to name me after director Stanley Kubrick’s film, Lolita…

The way my mom tells the story, she decided that, if she had a girl, she would name her either “Lolita” or “Jasmine.” Well, “Lolita” won out. Of course, my mom never read the book, nor saw the movie, so she had no idea that she was naming me after a story about a 12-year-old manipulative slut. (Why do you think they called Amy Fisher the “Long Island Lolita” in the early 90’s?)

I’ve spent much of my life beating back older lecherous men who wanted to know if I was reallllllly “a Lolita.” Nabokov’s title character was something he defined as a “nymphet.” Per the website Wikipedia:

A nymphet is a sexualized adolescent girl in the early days of puberty. The term was coined by Vladimir Nabokov in the novel Lolita […]

This is what Nabokov writes in the novel itself:

“Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their nature, which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose designate as “nymphets.”

Demoniac. Young slut. Thanks, Mom!!!

(On a related note, I do have a dear friend who sometimes refers to me as “Locifer.” But then, he’s always got jokes.)

If I did make up a pen name (who needs one with the doozy I was born with?), it would be more along the lines of “The Skanktastic Whore” (think superhero-style, like The Fantastic Four.)*

Still, imagine the bewilderment of my one of my beloved high school English teachers, who now lives in Paris, looking me up on the internet after the release of my first novel, Scenes From A Sistah, (which many people thought was subtitled “The Lolita Files” because that most certainly couldn’t have been the author’s name)…

…only to have said beloved teacher and dear friend e-mail me that, during her search, she came up with not just information about the new book, but thousands of websites for child pornography (specifically, young girls). Quelle horror!!! Story of my life.

Fortunately, these days when you enter “Lolita Files” on the ‘net, thousands of hits for me come up first. It probably pisses off a lot of pedophiles, but then again, maybe they end up lingering on a site about me and deciding to read a book rather than doing harm to some exploited underage girl. It’s a grand thought, I know, but one can only hope.

Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up about my name. It’s real, and it’s mine.** I got it honestly from Lillie B. Files, a mom who didn’t read novels by Russian writers or watch movies by revered directors, and Arthur James Files Sr., a dad who was one of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever had the honor of knowing. May he rest in peace, regaling those on the other side with his very, very, very tall tales.

*Of course, I’m just kidding. I would never have a name that misleading or X-rated. It’d be more along the lines of Titties Galore.

**You wouldn’t believe the kind of sex men expect to get from someone named Lolita Files. It sets a very high bar that you must decide, early on, that you’re going to try to surpass, maintain, or not even bother to reach.

AOL Black Voices: Book Profile. Sex.Lies.Murder.Fame.
Previously: The Lo Zone: Check Out My Podcast On AOL Black Voices!!!
Previously: The Lo Zone: …And They’ve Got Us On The Front Page Again!!!
Previously: The Lo Zone: The Greatest What-The-Fuck Of All: My Balls Are More Galactic Than The Galactic Balls Of Black Jesus!!!