Lolita on ketamine

Thu Oct 8 21:26:01 UTC 2026

One aspect of Jody's text I don't fully understand, and hasn't been discussed yet, is the reference to ketamine. I know E Musk loves the stuff, but lacking personal experience, I'm not entirely sure what the combination of ketamine and Lolita is supposed the produce. Apparently the drug induces a dreamlike, derealized experience? But what is the relationship between ketamine and sexuality, childish or otherwise?

On Thursday, October 8th, 2026 at 19:31, Joseph Tracy via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> 
> On 10/8/26 4:28 AM, Michael Bailey via Pynchon-l wrote:
> > JT: That is almost the opposite of what is being said. Read it again
> >
> > - i did. I'm an English major, so you can believe me (-;
> >
> > Imagery is employed, and opinions, but no logical links are offered between the images, nor are the opinions clearly fastened onto a referent.
> >
> > Other natural questions arent addressed either
> >
> > Largely leaving the reader to concoct a purport
> >
> >
> > I mean, for example, how old was the V.irgin Mary when she was "made" after her first period? And how soon do the other "primate lolitas" of the animal kingdom begin doing it after their first "heat"?
> >
> >
> > Example of what? Was there a prior discussion?  Not that I'm aware of.
> > Thus, an off-the-cuff, musing mood is established
> >
> >   JT- To be honest it is also mocking religious iconography and will clearly be offensive to some. Lolita too is a referent that is not a neutral musing about females.
> >
> >
> >
> > With human brain development being so prolonged, and the societal topiary of our frontal lobes (known as "pruning" in the parlance of neuro-anatommy) shaping us into little useful capitalists (or techno-slaves) how long does it take to be considered a human adult, by comparison with the rest of the animals?
> >
> >
> > MB-There’s a consensus about different kinds of adulthood
> > - the "useful capitalist (or techno-slave)"  comment may read as wryly humorous, not dogmatic
> >
> > JT- 1 problem with this passage is that it points to self awareness both about being manipulated and our slow maturation, so that the problem of what adulthood is and when it begins is a 2 way interplay with more options than capitalist or technoslave. Also there are legal boundaries when it comes to consensual sex vs. rape. and a world of mixed messages to negotiate. Some are predatory and propagandistic. And some are born  of sincere parental and social concern for the well being of the vulnerable. I find it quite acceptable in a society of law to set such limits. In different societies different patterns have emerged from the values of those communities.
> >    Some of the creepiest people of the Epstein cult, like Alan Dershowitz,  want to argue for the lowering or disappearance of those legal boundaries, so this issue is hardly able to be contained in the category of wry humor, because it opens the door to abuse as much or more than it does to freedom.
> >
> >
> >
> > Don't ask me, but I will refrain from resorting to a Keyboard or Voice Recognition for the answer. And that may be part of the problem- Incorporating more and more artificiality in an attempt to prolong the inevitable...Until what, until it's completely artificial? In the basement ruins of V. the kids are toying with a dissociated life-form.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Part of what problem?
> > This paragraph is exceptionally vague.
> >
> > JT - The problem is the question of the age of consent which is being questionably equated with adulthood. I see no other reasonable understanding. That has been the core question being explored. How that question relates to a culture shaped by media propaganda and now AI is far more complex than labelling both concerns artificial. Every society, whether media shaped or intrinsically tribal and local has values and taboos concerning sexuality, and every society has abusive individuals whose behaviors would cause harm anywhere.  The harm is real: suicide, inability to form healthy love relations, abuse begetting abuse, severe mental problems, physiological damage, prostitution and drug abuse.
> >
> >
> > MB-You could read paragraph one as a problem statement, but it’s loose and diffuse & I do not glean a clear problem statement from it
> >
> >
> > Yet there is no avoiding it. All roads lead to the same place. No escaping it- the certain doom of each of us And yet Waste may not be just unavoidable but may be a saving grace. And what seems like down may really be up with a little help from gravity...
> >
> > JT- Here I would say I may have over-reacted to the phrase saving grace , since it depends on the intention of the word "Waste", which I take to mean the reality of social norms that have in response to social entropy allowed youthful and even promiscuous sexuality. Something important is missing here. One could make a very strong case that these norms have begotten more misery than good. Also if one sees the sexual repressiveness common to many religions and particulalry the religion of saving grace as absurd or inconsistent with biological reality,  which is indicated in the 'V.irgin Mary' and 'primate Lolita' lines, then the phrase  saving grace is a weird and inconsistent way of saying maybe the growth of teen mothers, prostitution, child and rape pornography, and Epstein style pedophilia is just an upward spiraling release of divine favor or love. I think that is naive and wrong.
> >
> > Neither do I accept that Jody has some inside knowledge on the meaning or non-meaning of death (characterized as doom).
> >
> >
> > MB-The Waste referred to here seems to me to be the sex/love/romance opportunities missed by an artificial (ie cultural) norm discouraging viewing teenage sexuality - a norm discouraged ("and too soon marred are those so early made") by Shakespeare et al.
> >
> > And it’s a pardonable waste, in fact may be a saving grace
> >
> > Even if that's not what jody meant, it’s what it means to me (lit-crit, reader-response school inter alia)
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2026 11:08 AM
> > To: Joseph Tracy <coypoet at mailfence.com>
> > Cc: Michael Bailey <mi256118 at ucf.edu>; Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Subject: Re: Lolita on ketamine
> >
> >   
> > CAUTION: This email originated from outside of UCF. Only visit links or open attachments from senders you recognize.
> >         
> > A little lightness of ironic understanding helped me
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 7, 2026 at 10:32 AM Joseph Tracy via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org<mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>> wrote:
> > That is almost the opposite of what is being said. Read it again. After
> > implying questionable sexual decisions are driven by females, (I say
> > BS), he is saying that young people sorting it out with AI as a guide is
> > the new direction and maybe that will be better.  He adds that anyway
> > our attempts to govern our urges don't  have any meaning because we all
> > die.
> >     As I read it the essence is  'maybe a surrender to nihilism and
> > entropy is really saving grace'. Forgive me if I mock what sounds to me
> > like incoherent gibberish, and fratboy philosophy.
> >
> > I suppose I shouldn't care, but something is being glossed over that has
> > a lot more to do with male fraternity and military, and sports, and
> > corporate) culture of humiliation, male dominance hierarchies, rape and
> > degradation than when and how sexuality becomes part of a maturing human
> > life. Because of this culture which equates sex with violence and both
> > with status and money, everything is objectified and mass murder and
> > planetary rape are equated with status.  We can see variations on this
> > all too credible pattern in all Pynchon villains, with an emphasis on
> > how it becomes a systematized  civilizational pattern and the basis of
> > great power warfare and police states.
> >
> >
> > On 10/7/26 7:47 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
> >> I'm not always sure what jody is talking about, but i really didnt
> >> think the lolita on ketamine post was trying to justify rape action or
> >> find some grace in *that* but rather to find grace in the socially
> >> mandated delaying of reproductive urges by various methods, despite a
> >> disparity between the age of physical maturity vs
> >> social/economic/emotional maturity, and contrary to YOLO justification
> >> of impulsive activity
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
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