Slate's ICYMI: Why Are Adults Obsessed with Teen Sex?

On Slates ICYMI podcast, "The Girlboss-ification of Casual Sex" (April 23, 2022), Rachelle and Sarah Marshall attempted to answer "the big question".

Why are adults so obsessed with how much sex teens are having? i.e., "[...] how and why and where are teens fucking?"

Before answering the question, Rachelle described the history behind what she referred to as "The Invention of Teenager" where she related that the teenager is an invention of capitalism:

"It's kinda important to note that teenager as a concept didn't exist until about the 1940s [...] it's all about capitalism baby [...] they became their own distinct social class because at this point teens were another market to access [...] It's kinda all a big marketing scam."

And Rachelle went on to relate that before the invention of the teenager, teen sex wasn't a concern to "adults" because it was normal for teens to have [post-marital] sex and concieve: 

"Before the invention of teenager [...] teen sex wasn't a concern because "[married] children were having children and that was just normal."

18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo

Consequently, the invention of the teenager has been a success, because sex sells to teenagers and teen sex sells. #theallureofnymphets

Marshall said that the Internet gives teens "unthinking access to sexual content" that they are experienced at accessing:

"Once the Internet entered the picture, suddenly it's a whole new rodeo; so, the Internet offers a sexual experience that's entirely unmitigated by geographic boundaries, by parents [...] Before the Internet, teens could only get sexual content via physical objects (e.g., Their dad's Playboy magazine); however, the Internet offers unthinking access to sexual content, which teens are more proficient than [most] of their parents at accessing."

Rachelle shared that she began watching porn as a child and that the extremely graphic but viral Two Girls One Cup was viewed in her middle school band room:

"[...] Two Girls One Cup was passed around in my middle school band room [...] but, like, thinking about Two Girls One Cup in the band room - I'm just like, "Wow, that's cute." Like, I'm sure there's something far worse out there right now, and it's just all normal, and it washes over you."

Gossip Girl

Rachelle and Marshall opined that the plethora of "The Dangers of Online" exposes are full of hyperbole, which Marshall said is a variation of the same fear that came out after teen dramas became "ubiquitous". Marshall referenced: Beverly Hills 90201, Dawson's Creek, Degrassi, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Gossip Girl  and Euphoria. 

Euphoria

And Marshal elaborated:

"These shows all helped build a cultural understanding of what teenagers are doing and that has always included [teen] sex."

In the end, Rachelle and Sarah Marshall didn't (clearly) answer their question: "Why are adults so obsessed with how much sex teens are having? i.e., "[...] how and why and where are teens fucking?" Of course, the answer is the allure of nymphets. 

STREETWISE (1984): "Dates" for Sex | Seattle's Teen Prostitutes

Here's is part of the Criterion Channel's synopsis for Streetwise (1984):

Seattle, 1983. Taking their camera to the streets of what was supposedly America’s most livable city, filmmaker Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall set out to tell the stories of those society had left behind: homeless and runaway teenagers living on the city’s margins [...] “Streetwise” follows an unforgettable group of at-risk children—including iron-willed fourteen-year-old Tiny [Erin Blackwell] [...] who, driven from their broken homes, survive by hustling, panhandling, and dumpster diving. Granted remarkable access to their world, the filmmakers craft a devastatingly frank, nonjudgmental portrait of lost youth growing up far too soon in a world that has failed them.

It turns out that Tiny starting "hustling" when she was 13. The synopsis refers to Tiny's teen prostitution as "husting", and Tiny referred to her johns as "dates". Tiny said that her older dates are strange but she likes the money.

"I think it is very strange that older men like little girls [...] I mean, I like the money but I don't like them."

Tiny [Erin Blackwell]

How much did Tiny make as a teen prostitute, and how often did she work in downtown Seattle? Tiny made up to $400 - just about every day.

"I used to at least bring in $300, $400 and for a blowjob it would be 30 on up. And for a lay it would be like 40 on up."

"[...] I used to turn dates lots and lots of times just about every day I be pulling dates day and night."

And Tiny shared that the older prostitutes charged more "[...] than us little kids do." 

Tiny didn't know her "real" father. Consequently, she feared that she may have "dated" him: 

"My real dad I've never known [...] I could have dated him for all I know."

Kimberly Marsh

Tiny's (biological) mother reluctantly condoned Tiny's "hustling" and referred to it as a "phase". And so did Kimberly Marsh's (adopted) mother.  Consequently, Kimberly's mother was flabbergasted to learn that Kimberly wouldn't loan her any money.

"I know that you're a [teen] prostitute and everything and I know what you're doing and stuff. And I know that you got money [...] Fine! Thanks a lot! I'll remember this!"

Kimberly decided to become a sex worker after a friend informed Kimberly that (teen) prostitution was "great" because she was making a lot of "easy" money.

"Oh yeah, it's great man [...] I'm making so much money. And it's so easy. Money comes so easy and everything. It's great! You oughta do it!"

Consequently, Kimberly would call jonhs, repeatedly, from a payphone to see if they wanted a "date".

"Hi Dan. This is Kimberly again. Yeah. So, have you decided? Do you want a date tonight?"

In end, we have some (rhetorical) questions. Why were Bell, Mark and McCall "nonjudgmental". Why didn't they call the police on the underage prostitutes? (The age-of-consent in Seattle is 16.) And why were Tiny, Kimberly and the other teen prostitutes able to openly "hustle" in downtown Seattle? #theallureofnymphets

Lastly, the Streetwise documentary reminded us of the German teen prostitutes in We Children From Bahnhof Zoo - more so than the Roman teen prostitutes in the wealthy district of Parioli.

Famous Age-Gap Couples: Noor Alfallah, Mick Jagger & Al Pacino

Caroline Blair reported for Page Six that "Al Pacino, 81, grabs dinner with Mick Jagger’s ex Noor Alfallah, 28 (April 11, 2022)

Al Pacino (81) & Noor Alfallah (28)

That's correct. 81-year-old Al Pacino was reportedly on a date with 28-year-old Noor Alfallah whom, reportedly, previously dated 74-year-old Mick Jagger, which was when Alfallah was 23. 

 Mick Jagger (74) & Noor Alfallah (23) 

But Boshwell and Parker posted for the Daily Mail that Alfallah, who appears to be a total teleiophile, denied that she was dating then 88-year-old Clint Eastwood. The denial came after 23-year-old Alfallah was spotted in the backseat of Eastwood's car while leaving West Hollywood's Craig's.

Noor Alfallah (23) and Clint Eastwood (88)

However, it was additionally reported by Boshwell and Parker that 24-year-old Noor dated 60-year-old Nicolas Berggruen, a billionaire philanthropist, in 2018. 

Noor Alfallah (24) & Nicolas Berggruen (60)

Lastly, we would imagine that Noor's father, a Kuwaiti, condones age-gap relationships, but we would figure that he would prefer that Noor would marry. And we would imagine that Noor (Arabic: نور), for obvious reasons, has not had premarital sex with Pacino, Jagger nor Berggruen. 

Noah Hawley's ANTHEM: Like Jeffrey Epstein, The Wizard's Insatiable for Teen Sex

We learned about Hawley Noah's Athem from the New York Times post "16 New Books Coming in January". Here's the book's synopsis from the post:

A cast of teenagers defend against a number of adversaries — from a widespread mental health crisis years after the outset of the coronavirus pandemic to a malevolent man resembling Jeffrey Epstein — in this new thriller from Hawley, known for his work on TV series such as “Bones” and “Fargo.”

Naturally, we focused on the "malevolent man resembling Jeffrey Epstein" (i.e., E. L. Mobley) whom is profiled in the chapter "The Wizard", which opens with materialistic similarities between Mobley (aka The Wizard) and Epstein:

When they write about E. L. Mobley, they often describe him by the things he owns. The private 737, the six-story, fifty-room mansion off Madison Avenue, the five other palatial estates from Florida to Tokyo to Rome. He is a man with his own Caribbean island and possibly a gold mine in West Africa. Journalists list the presidents he befriended, the Russian oligarchs and Chinese party leaders who call him on his cell phone.

By the second paragraph, we learn that The Wizard "[...] likes women, the younger the better." e.g., "[...] some as young as fourteen." And that, "He has slept with thousands. [Because] [i]n New York City they are plentiful and cheap." He calls them "animal brides" and "[...] in a special chamber [...] he violates them, their cries ringing inside the perfectly honed acoustic bowl."

Like Epstein, The Wizard has "rabbateurs" whom procure “[...] young women for his entertainment, his amusement, his consumption [...] sometimes seeing three different girls a day [for "massages"]."

Massages, that’s what he pays them for. Have you ever given a massage, sweetie? And then you see how far they will go once you’re naked on the table. If you roll over and lower the sheet. If you put their hand on it, force their heads down.

Interestingly, like Epstein's masseuses, Hawley portrays The Wizards masseuses as "helpless" and “[...] girls with trauma in their past, girls with self-esteem issues, eating disorders. Victims, in other words.” And like Epstein, The Wizard has a high school student, the Troll, whom “[...] bribes young girls to come to the Wizard’s parties.”

Per Netflix's Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (episode 1), one of Epstein's Trolls was 16-year-old Haley Robson. Interestingly, Robson didn't appear to have the characteristics of a victim as she was a competitive equestrian (#moneyteam), her mother was a banker (#moneyteam), and her father was a police officer (#WTF).

Haley Robson

In the documentary, Robson shared that she volunteered to deliver Epstein nymphets for $200 per head!

Detective: The girl that was going knew she would have to massage him?

Robson: She knew everything.

Detective: How long have you been working for him?

Robson: I probably worked for him for a year.

Robson went on to share with the documentarians, "I probably recruited maybe 24 [underage] girls."

Robson: Those girls brought other girls, too.

Detective: Okay.

Robson: So, it's like a train.

Detective: Who else was underage?

Robson: Under 18? All of them.

In addition, Robson informed the documentarians that she recruited her high school friends ($200 per head) whom she drove to Epstein's house: 

"I would recruit girls that were friends. I would just casually bring it up. And we would drive together to his house. I would take them to the room, and then I would walk out. Sometimes I would wait out by the pool. When the girls would leave, Jeffery would come outside to pay me [...]"

Somehow, unlike Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Robson was never charged with a crime. This is despite the fact that a detective informed Robson that she clearly implicated herself in a second-degree felony:

Detective: "At this point, you've clearly implicated yourself in a crime. Okay? You've taken girls to somebody's house for the purposes of [teen] prostitution [...] Now that's a pretty significant second-degree felony."

In addition, it appears that Hawley's Bathsheba DeWitt is based on Epstein's Maria Farmer. 

Maria Farmer's Nude Teen Paintings

Per Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (episode 1), Epstein and Maxwell asked Maria to do an artist-in-residency in a 26,000 square foot home behind Les Wexner's house in New Albany, Ohio. For an unexplained reason, Maria decided to do a series of paintings "[...] about puberty - girls partially nude [in] voyeuristic kind of private moments but not sexual." The paintings were based on nude photographs that Maria took of her nymphet sisters. For example, Annie was 12-years-old in her nude photograph! #art

Lastly, Hawley wrote that DeWitt "[...] was seduced by her math teacher when she was just fifteen, after a long campaign of notes and calls ending in her deflowering in the back of his Volkswagen."

But in IRL and in fiction, unlike popular assumptions about student-teacher affairs, typically, the student is the seducer of the teacher whom can't resist the allure of a nymphet. Hawley even wrote of DeWitt:

At first her [young] body would give her power [over boys and men]. She would be the puppet master, Salome on a dais, and they would follow her with their eyes the way dogs will follow the food in your hand.

And the same goes for teen prostitutes. In a number of cases, they're underprivileged teen prostitutes, but in a number of cases, IRL and in fiction, like Robson, they consensually exchange teen sex for money.