Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet was nick-named the “Lolita Express”, and unless you live under a rock, you know where the name comes from. The book “Lolita” by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov.
Okay, maybe Trump can’t read. We’ve heard from numerous aides and advisors close to him that he DOESN’T read, so possibly he is actually illiterate.
That’s no excuse. There have been two movies made based on the book. One in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, and one in 1997 directed by Adrian Lyne and written by Stephen Schiff. You can’t tell me 47 never heard of or watched the movies.
The other guys who flew on that plane? The ones we’ve heard about are presumably literate. And “Lolita” is a well-known novel.
The protagonist of “Lolita” is a middle-aged adult man, Humbert Humbert, who marries Charlotte Haze in order to gain access to her 12-year-old daughter, whom he nicknames Lolita. It’s something we therapists know real-life pedophiles do — marry single women with children to gain access to them.
Jeffrey Epstein made that unnecessary for pedophiles. He simply filled an island with female children and invited his friends.
What did they know and when did they know it
This is not a commentary on the book or the movies. This is a commentary on the mindset of men who would accept invitations to ride on a private jet nick-named “Lolita Express.”
Where did they think the name came from? Where did they think such a plane was most often headed? Possibly to an island where teen-aged girls were held captive and provided to grown men for sex?
Even if, when they were aboard the plane, it wasn’t headed to the island, surely they wondered how the nick-name came about. The name Lolita has become synonymous with young girls whom grown men (pedophiles) consider sexy.
It pains me to even type that sentence. Yet, that’s exactly how Epstein and the men he took to his island think. They think pubescent and adolescent girls are “sexy”.
Grown women can be sexy. Young girls are not.
However, they may be sexualized at an early age by being molested. It’s a vulnerability that pedophiles sense in young teen girls who’ve been previously abused. Early sexualization does NOT make a young girl “sexy”.
Very likely, many of the girls recruited to the island were previously molested as children. Again, I speak with general knowledge of such things as a therapist.
What’s even more tragic
It’s an even greater tragedy that some of the well-known men whom Epstein befriended had the power to rescue those girls. They should have been their saviors, not simply one more abuser or someone who kept silent.
Once any of them stepped foot on that island, they had the moral responsibility to stop what was happening there. Those that simply heard the rumors should also have put a stop to the travesty.
That’s another reason we can extrapolate that they knew exactly what the Lolita Express was and where it flew the most often. If the men Epstein flew to the island didn’t know where they were going, and what would await them there, then they should have been horrified once they did see it for themselves. And then done something to stop it.
Other powerful men who heard the rumors also should have stepped forward to put an end to the abuse of young girls by grown men.
The men who went to the island weren’t horrified. Apparently, neither were those who heard the rumors. They still aren’t. The ones we know were on the island are simply chagrined at being found out. Others, such as Trump, are claiming ignorance. Again, who DOESN’T know what the name Lolita means?
He and they knew, or at least could have guessed, what Epstein was doing. Based on the plane’s nickname alone.
Trump didn’t get upset about Epstein and the exploitation of young girls, until, by Trump’s own admission, Epstein started hiring teen-aged girls away from the staff at Mar-A-Lago. He claims that is when he threw Epstein out of Mar-A-Lago, and stopped associating with him.
Grown women can be sexy. Young girls are not.
One girl Epstein “hired” away from Mar-A-Lago, Virginia Giuffre, was 16, and working as a locker room attendant.
According to Giuffre, she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell to work as a “masseuse” for Epstein and his friends.
This is what upsets Trump? That a teen-aged girl was recruited away from working for him, not that she was recruited away by a pedophile. Not that she was a victim. Not even that she died by suicide. But that he lost a “staff member.”
Guiffre’s family contest even that.
So yeah, even after Epstein “hired” young girls away from working at Mar-A-Lago, he and Trump maintained a relationship.
Maxwell recruited Guiffre in 2000. In 2002, Trump said this about Epstein:
That doesn’t sound like someone who was angry that Epstein “stole” staff from Mar-A-Lago two years before.
It does sound like someone who knows what “Lolita” means.
And knowing makes the silence unforgivable.
. . .
Update: The New York Times published photos and a story August 5, 2025, about Epstein’s mansion and it’s contents. In his office he prominently displayed a First Edition of the book “Lolita.”
Thank you to
for editing.
Just in case I need bail, you can contribute to that fund here. https://ko-fi.com/carolsantafe
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This post was previously published on New Choices.
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