INTIMACY Play: "Everyone Should Be Able to Enjoy Nude Teens"

Nymphet Janet and Ephebophile James in INTIMACY

Before you enter the theater on the third floor of the Acorn Theater on west 42nd street, you must pass a sign that reads: Please Note: This show contains nudity, sex and bad language. Enjoy!

The New York City Theater's website states Intimacy is a "[...] "boisterous and revealing" dark comedy about race, sex and intimacy." But for our purposes, I'm going to concentrate on the plays sub-plots of teen pornography, incest, ephebophilia and age-discrepant relationships.

In the play, which was written by Thomas Bradshaw, a professor of playwriting at Northwestern University, James (Daniel Gerrol), the middle-aged next door neighbor, informs Jerry (Keith Smith) that his 18-year-old daughter, Janet (Ella Dershowitz), has nude pictures in the latest issue of Barely Legal magazine and accuses Jerry of being a bad parent. Initially, James and Jerry are understandably distraught.

In a subsequent scene, to console her father, Janet tells him that she loves sex and that she had her first orgasm when she was 13 while watching porn on his computer. Shockingly, Janet encourages her father to masturbate to her nude photograph and "cum" on her face.

"Everyone should be able to look at and enjoy nude teens!" Pat (Laura Esterman) tells her husband after he finds out that his daughter makes porn.

After James, who found religion after his wife died, tells his son Matthew (Austin Cauldwell) that Janet is a "harlot" and that he is ashamed that he masturbates to her nude photographs, Matthew consoles his father by saying, "She wants you to masturbate to her!"

To his utter surprise, after James confronts Janet and tells her that he is infatuated by her "[...] legs, hair and youth," the nymphet tells the ephebophile that she loves him and asks him to her. And like every ephebophile after his first relationship with a nymphet, James was born-again. (Pun intended.)

Despite the playwright's and the play's popularity, the play has received some bad reviews from the media and audience members; however, it's a great example of art imitating a lot of lives in America and Europe - in particular the prevalence of (amateur) teen pornography.