Hulu's PEN15: Teen Middle School Girls | Masturbation, Thongs and Handys

Here's PEN15's plot summary that's posted on Hulu:

PEN15 is middle school as it really happened. Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle star in this adult comedy, playing versions of themselves as thirteen-year-old outcasts in the year 2000, surrounded by actual thirteen-year-olds, where the best day of your life can turn into your worst with the stroke of a gel pen.

"[...] Heather gave a hand-job to both Brandt and Dustin L. this summer."

Episode one begins with Maya informing Anna that, "[...] Heather gave a handjob to both Brandt and Dustin L. this summer."

"That ho bag."

"Such a slut. Also, I heard that Connie M. grew double-ds last night at camp."

"Connie M. Grew Double-Ds"

Later in the episode, Maya informed Anna, "I wanna be in the room with you for our first finger." And Anna shared, "Stacey Davies told me that she gave him [Brandt] a handy when his dad was sick to help make him feel better [...]"

Emily Nussbaum wrote in her New Yorker piece "Middle-School Mortification on “PEN15”" that the Hulu series has "story beats that are familiar". 

Stacey Davies

Consequently, Zoe Lizbeth Jardine opined in the Elle post "7 Women on the Highly Awkward Pen15 Moments That Make Them Feel Most Seen" that: "At long last, girls get to be in on all the masturbation jokes." PEN15's masturbation episode (three) reminded Jardine of the time she had an "all-girl" discussion on the bus ride to Paul Revere Middle School where she shared that she had discovered a "cool" new thing that she could do with the removable shower head that gave her a "strange tingly" feeling. 

Maya’s explosive urges

Maybe, I should not have been surprised that Nussbaum wrote: "The best episodes tend to center on Maya’s explosive urges [...] In a particularly daring episode, Maya discovers masturbation, and gets so overwhelmed that she can’t stop touching herself, grinding away in a school-bathroom stall, as Anna, clueless, chats about tickets to a B*Witched concert."

In Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, she related that Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden was a *“*groundbreaking collection of women’s sexual fantasies”. (Interestingly, when the book was published, Friday was married to Norman Pearlstein - the editor-in-chief of Time, Inc..) 

In My Secret Garden, Friday wrote that when Dawn was 15, she enjoyed sauntering around her house in the "[...] summer when her parents were out [...]" and having breakfast in the nude. On one such morning, she noticed that her dog, "[...] had this huge hard-on [...]" while he tried to climb upon her. And since that day, she said that she has fantasized about that scene "[...] a thousand different ways, complete with the dog's prick inside me, and my family walking in on the scene [...]".

In addition, Friday wrote that Nina "[...] discovered the delights of masturbation, at the age of seven [...]" Consequently, Nina used to imagine that her (pre-teen) girlfriend was rubbing between her legs or that her girlfriend's dog was licking her vagina. On PEN15, Maya and Anna were shockingly informed that "[...] Connie M. puts peanut butter on her crotch and has the dog lick it."

Heather's pink thong

In episode five, Maya and Anna stole Heather's pink thong and took turns wearing it to school to bask in the newfound attention. 

In episode six, Brandt asked Maya teasingly, "[...] can I get a $5 hand job?"

Maya Desires a Man

Episode seven is about Maya's quest to take an online relationship with a older man offline. 

In episode eight, Maya and Anna make-out with a bed. And in episode ten, Brandt asked Maya, "Want me to finger you?" To which Maya replied. "Yeah." 

Sonia Saraiya wrote in her Vanity Fair piece "Netflix and Pen15 Are Changing the Way TV Does Teen Sex" that: "[...] Pen15 is more directly autobiographical [...] It feels like middle school brought to life again, startlingly real and way, way too familiar."

NPR's Linda Holmes wrote in "Looking At Middle School Through Grown-Up Glasses In 'PEN15'" that the series is a "gem" that "[...] never feels false for a minute [...]"

And interestingly, New York magazine's Vulture name PEN15 a Best of 2019.

POPTV's FLACK: A Teen Lipstick Lesbian Sex Tape

Despite showing no obvious signs of nympholepsy, I was immediately drawn to the advertisement on the Uptown 6 platform for PopTV's Flack. And when that happens, there is typically something in the content that's relevant to this blog. 

For example, here's PopTV's plot summary for episode 2 of Flack:

Robyn [a PR executive] tries to distract the press from the fact that her [17-year-old] pop star client is being dropped by her record label by creating a [teen lipstick lesbian] sex tape.

FLACK (Season 1 Episode 2)

Ultimately, the 17-year-old's mother took her place in sex tape, because the nymphet was a virgin. Unsurprisingly, the nymphet couldn't bear to watch her mother perform oral sex. 

If you've never heard of POPTV, according to Wikipedia:

Pop, commonly referred to as Pop TV, is an American basic cable and satellite television network operated as a joint venture between CBS Corporation and Lionsgate Entertainment. It is a general entertainment channel, focusing primarily on programs pertaining to popular culture.