A good case-study? A work of fiction that doesn't even purport to be derived from any RL experiences? AND which you further fictionalize by introducing your own fictional elements into your fabricated "Utopian" background you impose?

This is why nobody can take you seriously. You seem truly averse to talking about what any real girls with real names want for themselves. Meanwhile your "case study" is meaningless without discussing the very serious issue of whether the 7 dwarves are mandated to report a runaway. ;p

* sheesh *

However, I must question whether you even read the same book I did or saw any movie of it.

The entire coercive element derives from him exercising his "parental rights." Its not merely financial dependence she has after the death of her mother. He is now her legal guardian. And thus all the "wicked stepmothers" of fairy tales would be BETTER case studies on the dynamic than your claim that we can derive a child-liberationist Utopia from a scenario dependent upon his right to relocate her.

AND....... back to the REAL WORLD.

In parents-have-no-selfish-interests land it is easy to pretend that the right to relocate a child at will at any time does no harm to their independence or ability to plan for the future.

Sure, in this era of helicopter-parenting it seems more common to see parents relocate themselves to find better schools and pass up career opportunities in order that their child's goals can be met with some degree of continuity.

But there's really nothing in the law that recognizes anything wrong with creating enforced dependence by moving the child so often that they cannot form longterm friendships. ( Or so that neighbors can see signs of longterm neglect or abuse. )

And sometimes an aptitude or a goal is tied to a location. We reduce all teen jobs to entry-level by making the teen leave as soon as they gain any skills. And what of the child with an aptitude? Do they need to stay at a school whose programs can allow them to develop?

When the child can be treated like the furniture, it sends a message.

But, back to your fictionalized account of an already fictional novel.

* ahem *

In RL nobody is a telepath. And, since Lolita wasn't written as a sci-fi novel; we can presume that its police officers aren't telepaths.

So now we must remove entirely the conceit of a novel which allows us to know the minds of several people at the same time. Your "rewrite" must be a first-person narrative ( like a PI novel. ) And your question makes it a first-person narrative from the point of view of the officer.

So now we have it. I am working one day when a tween girl comes up to me and claims that her stepfather is abusive. But when we get to the station she says that she made it all up because she wanted to get back at him over a punishment for being out past curfew. ( Yes I changed your "Utopian premise" so that your entire scenario doesn't unravel. )

Now what happens next depends entirely on the decade. In the time that Lolita was set, chances are likely that the child who admits to making something up would be respected. No charge, no due process, no double-jeopardy to apply if she later declares it to have been true. ( Although lying to an officer in either direction makes it more difficult to prosecute. )

Today, as a minor, she would likely be forced to endure a rape-testing for something she claims never happened, and be forced into foster-care while her stepfather languishes in jail. And assuming that she emerges from the foster-system unscathed, she will still find that her stepfather may've been shanked in prison, or at best has had his career in academia entirely destroyed by the time that it is proven in court that no evidence supports the claim.

AND... because we're not telepaths, the fact that she's NOT Lolita, he's NOT Humbert and that her recanting was sincere really doesn't affect the fact that his life is destroyed by her false accusation.

The system depends upon the child NOT being fearful of the consequences, because they must be kept ignorant of the iatrogenic harm which will fall upon them for lying about another. If they knew, then they would be less likely to make false claims.

But then many of the girls accusing others of witchcraft in Salem were unaware that the occult symptoms they claimed to suffer from would be used as evidence against them.

AND.... meanwhile back, to Lolita and Child Liberation. Why should she even need to let it get sexual in order to simply say that she no longer wants to stay with him?

Its as if you bluster and spout against liberationist notions reflexively, but then conveniently forget them in order to create the bogeyman. You've ranted often enough against the notion that a child is free to leave that you cannot pretend that it wouldn't arise here.

Since her discomfort arises prior to overt sexual activity, the sex in the novel is dependent upon the parental ownership scenario you defend at every turn. Without it, the whole story crumbles ( both Nabokov's and yours. )

And lets not even get into Quilty. Because there's no way to talk about him without revealing that the novel was NEVER meant to be read as a REAL narrative about REAL people.

Dante