Shop pulls "Lolita" bed for young girls

[Dave Monroe]

Shop pulls "Lolita" bed for young girls
Fri Feb 1, 2008 2:01pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn
the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls
after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with
sexually active pre-teens.

Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds
were not aware of the connection.

In "Lolita," a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes
sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter -- but Woolworths
staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based
on it.

Hence they saw nothing wrong with advertising the Lolita Midsleeper
Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard
intended for girls aged about six until a concerned mother raised the
alarm on a parenting website.

"What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had
never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either,"
a spokesman told British newspapers.

"We had to look it up on (online encyclopedia) Wikipedia. But we
certainly know who she is now."

Woolworths said the product had now been dropped.

"Now this has been brought to our attention, the product has been
removed from sale with immediate effect," the chain said.

"We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about."

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSEIC16848020080201