It wasn't grandfathered in; it's unconstitutional, in the U.S., to ban Lolita.
It would be pretty unfortunate if literature couldn't even seriously deal with the subject! (Incidentally, it's pretty hard to read Lolita as being pro-pedophilia; if anything, it's an extended, mostly negative investigation into the protagonist's psyche, although many pages in literary journals have been spent arguing over how to interpret it.)
The First Amendment is pretty clear that freedom of speech/press is protected only from Congress and legislation: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."
Companies and/or websites can ban almost any speech or writing they would like. It's not unconstitutional, because corporations aren't considered a governmental/Congressional body.
That's true; I was objecting to the claim that it was "grandfathered in when child porn laws were written". The reason a law couldn't ban it is because of the First Amendment.
Definitely agree that Lolita is a written text and not a visual depiction of children engaged in sexual activity. So it's not covered by child porn laws, and is still protected by the First Amendment.
But wanted to highlight that the law can ban speech, despite the First Amendment. For example, in 1982 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that child porn was not protected by the First Amendment:
Lolita the book is protected because it fails the third prong of the Miller test. Nabokov's Lolita is considered to have "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific" value. However, that test sets the bar at a completely arbitrary level:
What about Adrian Lyne's 1997 movie, Lolita? It has artistic merit, but arguably not as much as the novel.
What about girls' dancing and gymnastics? Should photography of those activities, even including women's international gymnastics competitions, be banned just because, viewed with an eye toward prurience, they might qualify? Certainly the activities have artistic value, but how much?
What about purely fictional depictions of minors, either in manga (see the case of Christopher Handley's manga possession) or even in fictional stories that may not be deemed to have serious literary merit?
In the case of Christopher Handley, the prosecution ignored the vast majority of his collection, and pursued the handful of manga that actually were straight-up child porn.
It would be pretty unfortunate if literature couldn't even seriously deal with the subject! (Incidentally, it's pretty hard to read Lolita as being pro-pedophilia; if anything, it's an extended, mostly negative investigation into the protagonist's psyche, although many pages in literary journals have been spent arguing over how to interpret it.)