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| Illustration by Kelly via Rookie |
We've referenced a number of books in The Allure of Nymphets about age-discrepant relationships such as Jennifer Gordon’s Jennifer Fever and Belisa Vranich and Laura Grashow’s Dating the Older Man. However, despite their helpfulness, those books weren't written for nymphets. Nonetheless, Tavi Gevinson’s teen magazine, Rookie, filled the void.
In addition to the magazine containing several articles on masturbation, such
as “Do It Yourself”, 22-year-old Amy Rose Spiegel wrote in the
article “Older Men” that “One of the most frequent Just Wondering questions we
get here at Rookie is some variation on the following: “I’m a teenager and I’m
thinking about dating/am intensely attracted to a person who’s significantly
older than me. THOUGHTS?”
Spiegel began by sharing that she “has always been
interested in older dudes” and “has also dated quite a few of them” For
example, Spiegel dated a 28-year-old college graduate when she was a
“smart and self-aware” 15-year-old. She dissuaded the stereotype about
dirty old men by writing “Finally, I don’t mean for this article to read as “A
HORRIBLE OLD MAN TOOK MY YOUTHFUL INNOCENCE,” because that’s not what happened.
I made my own decisions when I was 15, and I enjoyed the majority of the time I
spent dating that 28-year-old as well as the older dudes who came after him.”
And Spiegel wrote that at the time she “romanticized” about being Lolita and
that she “... idealized the thought of someone being single-mindedly obsessed”
with her the way Humbert was obsessed with Lolita. (However, she misleadingly wrote that Lolita was a “...story about an adult
man kidnapping, molesting, and raping an adolescent girl.)
Spiegel comforted the nymphet readers of Rookie by
writing:
- “First, being attracted to older guys is completely and totally normal.”
- “It doesn’t mean you have “daddy issues””
- “Being attracted to someone older just means you are a human person who sometimes thinks other human people are sexy!”
- “YOU ARE VERY MATURE FOR YOUR AGE...So it’s totally fine to moon over people who are older than you!”
- “It’s totally doable, as long as you keep some things (*cough* MY INSANELY WISE WORDS BELOW *cough*) in mind.”
Here are Spiegel’s “insanely wise words”:
1. Spiegel warned that even if a nymphet
tricks an ephebophile into believing that she is of legal age by, for example,
flashing him a fake ID, the ephebophile could still go to jail (for a very long
time) for even planning to have sex with an underage maiden.
2. Spiegel advises that if a nymphet
should feel secure about disagreeing with her older partner, her friends and
family should be respected, and that she should be treated as a peer. However,
if she has doubts about whether or not those aspects of the relationship are
being fulfilled, she should not have a relationship with anyone “older than a
quarter of the years” the nymphet has been alive. Thus, according to Spiegel, a
sixteen-year-old should not have a relationship with anyone over 20. Clearly, Spiegel’s
rule is arbitrary, has no basis and should be taken very lightly.
3. Ironically, Spiegel encourages girls
to wait to have relationships with older men, because girls “can never have a
real high school romance (e.g., “passing love notes in class”) again after 12th
grade is over.” I doubt that this advice will prevent a girl from having a
relationship with an older man, because I have observed that girls who are in
age-discrepant relationships often have young boyfriends as well.
4. Initially, Spiegel advised nymphets
not to get into illegal age-gap relationships because of the possibility of
jail time for the ephebophiles, but in 4 she advises girls to avoid
age-discrepant relationships because “Keeping things underground gets tiring and
frustrating, not to mention a little overwhelming, really quickly...Having a
significantly older partner severely limits the stuff you can do together, too.
You can’t exactly bring a 30-year-old to prom!” Thus, it appears that Spiegel opines that it is more important that a nymphet avoid feeling tired,
frustrated and overwhelmed than it is for the ephebophile to avoid jail time.
5. Spiegel warned “[I]f a person who is
of legal drinking age or above makes a habit of courting people who are in high
school, there’s a good chance they might be a pedophile (or, if you want to be
super technical, an ephebophile). However, as we know from The Allure of Nymphets, The
Red Queen and Are All Men Pedophiles?(2013), all men in fact are ephebophiles; however, only some men act upon it
(e.g., Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Woody Allen, etc.). And it’s worth pointing out that
just like in Lolita, Cruel Intentions 2: Manchester Prep (2000), and Pretty Little Liars - the
book and television series, teen girls are often the initiators of
age-discrepant relationships - not the ephebophiles.
6. Spiegel alerted nymphets against
being manipulated by older men, but everything she warned against often occurs
in age-consistent relationships as well. Teen girls are frequently manipulated,
disrespected, undervalued and controlled by teen boys. Who other than teen boys
gets angry when girls don’t return their text messages “fast enough”?
Spiegel’s “insanely wise words” are somewhat
anti-age-gap relationships; however, she ends the article by writing “And for all the dangers that come with
dating older people, there are upsides...It’s nice to be around people who are
assured of themselves and their interests, a quality that usually increases the
longer you’ve been hanging out on planet Earth...Just be sure—and I say this to
you no matter what age your love interest happens to be—that you and of course
THEY are responsible and respectful in actions and behaviors; that you are
equal partners; that you feel like you can get out of it at any time, for any
reason, without fear; and that you are happy...OK? All right, get along. As always,
be safe and enjoy…”
