ACADEMY X: A Prep School Student Seduces Teacher for Princeton

Here’s Amazon’s synopsis for Andrew Trees’ Academy X (Bloomsbury, 2006):

[Mr.] John Spencer, an English teacher at the elite Academy X, is struggling through the final weeks of the spring semester [...] Pushy parents demanding higher grades lurk behind every corner and a favorite pupil suddenly reveals a cunning and sophistication far beyond her years [...] John digs himself deeper into trouble, until his very career is at stake. [...] Academy X is a priceless peek into New York City's top private schools [...] where parents risk all for their child's academic resume and no price is too high (or pressure too great) to achieve a coveted admission to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.

It may be beneficial to read my recap of Academy X with the knowledge that Trees wrote the novel while he was an English teacher at the Horace Mann School - a New York City prep school whose most infamous alumna is inarguably Swiffer Girl. 

In Academy X, 18-year-old Caitlyn Brie, the antagonist, was “attractive and slim”. Her “six-hundred-dollar haircut and three-hundred-dollar highlights [...] gave her a glamorous, tousled look.” She was “handsome, clever, and rich” and “sophisticated beyond her years”.

Mr. Spencer admitted that Caitlyn was “incredibly attractive”, but he blamed his attraction on Caitlyn’s outfits that “fell somewhere between skimpy and obscene.” For example, during class: “Caityln stretched her arms above her head and managed to make her top, which was already verging on the theoretical, nearly disappear altogether.”

To keep his “libido firmly on the straight and narrow”, Mr. Spencer stopped walking around the class during discussions. Why? Mr. Spencer shared:

“[...] I had stopped doing that because each day I was confronted with another of Caitlyn’s wispy thongs - at least on the days that she decided to wear any underwear at all.”

 

Phil Snopes, the head of college counseling department, was re-named Mr. Ivy by the Academy X students. Connectedly, he was “rumored to be the highest paid employee at the school.” 

Snopes told Mr. Spencer that Caitlyn had been accepted to Wellesley, but that she preferred to go to Princeton. Consequently, Snopes asked Mr. Spencer to write Caitlyn a recommendation letter. Mr. Spencer had already written Caitlyn “a very strong letter of recommendation”, but Snopes requested, indirectly in exchange for courtside Knicks tickets,  “another letter, a stronger letter.” 

Subsequently, during class, after Mr. Spencer asked, “Does the boy always have to be the one to ask [for a prom date]? Caitlyn replied, “I think that, if you know what you are doing, you can make a boy do anything you want him to [...] and by boys I mean all men.” 

After class, Mr. Spencer entered the cafeteria, and Caitlyn decided to tease her English teacher with some sexual innuendos and kino, which began by Caitlyn implying that her Mr. Spencer wanted to eat her. 

“Mr. Spencer,” said Caitlyn, “you are looking at me as if you haven’t eaten in three days.”

She laughed, and the other girls laughed with her. 

“I mean, looking at my food,” she said with a giggle.

The girls around her exploded in shrieks and screams.

“Save my seat. I need to talk to Mr. Spencer,” she said. 

After joining Mr. Spencer, Caitlyn placed her hand on his arm and implied that she wished there was a way that she could repay him for writing her (another) recommendation letter.

“I just wanted to say thanks. Mr. Snopes told me about your letter. And I really appreciate it.” 

“I hope things work out for you,” I said, pretending not to notice her hand.”

“I wish there was something I could do to show you how much I appreciate it,” she said.

While Caitlyn “fingered her bra strap”, Mr. Spencer encouraged her to be an empathetic classmate and prevent bullying on campus to which she replied with an innuendo:

“Are you trying to mold me now?”

“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I turned away before she could begin fingering some other undergarment [...] 

For an assignment, Caitlyn wrote an erotic essay. Consequently, Mr. Spencer was “appalled” yet “a little turned on”, and he found it difficult to stop “dwelling on the sexual details of her essay”. 

Günter, another Academy X student, advised Mr. Spencer to ignore the erotic essay, because Caitlyn had an agenda, which was to provoke and get a reaction out of her teacher. 

Mr. Spencer complained to Günter that if the parents couldn't prevent the students from writing erotic essays, they should, “[...] at least impose some control on wardrobes” to which Günter advised Mr. Spencer to enjoy the scantily clad schoolgirls, which reminded Mr. Spencer that a number of the Academy X nymphets were in age-gap relationships:

“You should enjoy it. Other men your age do,” he said. “There are girls here who date men in their twenties and thirties.”

He was right, of course. That year, one senior girl was dating a man in his fifties. He was famous, an artist, and French - each quality apparently taking about decade off of his age.”

During class, Caitlyn shared with her classmates that she wrote about, “You know, sex.” And she defended her choice of topic by stating that even the New York Times [and the Washington Post] wrote about (middle school) sex.

“But you can even read about it in the New York Times,” Caitlyn said. “Remember that article about how middle school girls give boys blow jobs as a way to have sex but keep their virginity?”

And Caitlyn looked at Mr. Spencer “intently” and advised him to be more comfortable with his sexuality, because humans are inherently “deeply sexual”.

And speaking of school sex. Since it was the spring semester on Academy X’s campus, “[s]ex was in the air”; thus, Mr. Spencer: “[...] tried to avoid using any out-of-the-way stairwells in the afternoon.”

And, per Günter, the Academy X schoolgirls were having unprotected teen sex and were, consequently, on antibiotics. Günter encouraged Mr. Spencer to read the next issue of the school newspaper, which would be a “double-page spread” that connected the “[...] sexual dots among the senior class.” The piece would analyze “[...] an array of drunken one-night stands, dances, overnight trips, and summer flings”. Günter stated that the piece would be a “testament to the flagging sexual ardor” of the Academy X senior class. 

After class, Caitlyn informed Mr. Spencer that Mr. Snopes informed her that it appeared that Princeton was going to accept her off the waiting list. Mr. Spencer informed Caitlyn that Laura, another Academy X student, “insisted” that he check Caitlyn’s essay for plagiarism. The paper in question had been submitted to the Turbridge Student Essay Prize committee. Fearing that plagiarism could prevent her from going to Princeton, Caitlyn attempted to seduce her Mr. Spencer slash Turbridge Student Essay Prize committee member.

Caitlyn “leaned forward and slid her hand” up her English teacher’s thigh and said, “You know I think so much of you…” Caitlyn smiled, took her teacher’s silence as “acquiescence and confidently”, slid her hand higher towards her teacher’s penis, and she shared that she found “[...] older men so much more … interesting.”

“Stop!" I shouted, pushing her hand off my leg.

As my fragilely maintained view of student innocence came crashing down, I couldn't help imagining Günter saying that he told me so.

"I think you'd better go," I said.

"But, Mr. Spencer, I find older men so much more . . . interesting." She looked at me like I was a particularly tasty ice cream cone that she intended to lick.

“Go!”

She stood up reluctantly and left. 

Subsequently, Mr. Spencer learned from Snopes that Caitlyn had been officially accepted to Princeton. Consequently, Mr. Brie attempted to bribe Mr. Spencer into overlooking Caitlyn’s plagiarism with a hundred thousand dollar (fake) advance on a novel. 

The readers learned via Caitlyn’s lawyer’s “confidential notes” that Caitlyn opined that Mr. Spencer was cute, but she wasn’t sure if she was attracted to him, but she did enjoy provoking him, because teens tested boundaries and explored. 

“I’m I attracted to him? I don’t know. I enjoyed provoking him. I guess I thought he was cute…To be honest, I feel like I am more of an adult than he is. I obviously have more life experience [...] I guess you could say some of my behavior was inappropriate, but I’m only a teenager. Isn’t this what we are supposed to be doing? Testing our boundaries? Exploring?”

Due to the (seemingly) unsuccessful bribe, Caitlyn, seated across from Mr. Spencer and dressed in a “flimsy” miniskirt, took off her t-shirt to reveal her bra “[...] that seemed to be in the planning stages of construction.” Then she donned a torn t-shirt from her Prada bag, said, “I just want you to know that I didn’t want to do this,” ripped the torn t-shirt to reveal “double-barreled trouble”, and screamed. Lastly and unsurprisingly, Mr. Spencer was accused by the Head of, “Groping a student in a sexual manner,” and he was asked to resign. 

Allen Salkin reported in the New York Times piece “Private School, Public Fuss” (Nov. 18, 2007) that, due to writing Academy X: “Andrew Trees had been informed that his contract at the Horace Mann School, one of the nation’s most academically respected high schools, would not be renewed.” However, the Washington Post opined that Academy X was: “Smart, on-target and very funny.” [Emphasis added]

The Hidden Price of Sugar: A Sugar Baby Desires True Intimacy from Sugar Daddy

Frankie Beach posted the piece "The Hidden Price Of Sugaring: Does being a sugar baby bolster capitalism?" on Killer and a Sweet Thang (NOVEMBER 13 2019). In the piece, 22-year-old Beach shared that she's a sugar baby, because she "needed money". [Emphasis added]

However, Beach was disturbed by the cold and transactional nature of sugaring. After an older sugar daddy informed Beach, "in a business-like manner", that he would pay her after they were "intimate", Beach was: "[...] lost for words, attempting to conceptualize an intimacy that exists isolated from a relationship: an intimacy that is performed." She wrote: "If intimacy is a service provided, is it intimacy at all?"

Despite their non-verbal debate over semantics, Beach and her sugar daddy met at a hotel room where for an hour, she gave him her young mind and younger body, and he gave her $500. 

At a hotel room, close to work, we met for an hour. I gave him my mind and my body and he gave me five hundred dollars in cash; to him it was a traditional relationship stripped to its bare bones, without any superfluous time spent or energy expended. Only the minimal requirements, an experience that offered a cathartic mental and physical release, then abruptly ended.

Interestingly, Beach wrote that most sugar babies don't consider sugaring to be sex work! Why? Because sugar daddies don't only pay for sex. In addition, they pay for "the illusion of intimacy". In other words, a sugar daddy pays for how much time he spends with his sugar baby, when and where they're intimate, and the nature of their intimacy.

By most who engage in it, it is not considered sex work. I don’t know if it is or not, and I don’t think it makes a difference either way. There’s nothing wrong with sex work for people who are fulfilled by doing it. But the fact remains that he was not only paying for sex, because he could do that a lot more cheaply and easily. What he paid me for is the creation and maintenance of a specific illusion, namely, the illusion of intimacy. He pays to be able to control how much time we spend together, when and where we spend our time, and the nature of the time spent. He pays to curate the experience of intimacy he wants.  

Despite, Beach's claims, there still appears to be very little difference between a john and a sugar daddy and a sugar baby and prostitute. #semantics For example, subsequently, Beach wrote: 

"[...] I was selling my body for sex." 

"And After he pressed the cash into my hand at the hotel room, I felt a rush. I felt a rush because having money made me feel powerful."

Unfortunately, Beach is convinced that her "personal value" is determined by how much money she makes, "[...] because money is the dominant societal indicator of value." And unfortunately, Beach has an inferiority complex and feels "worth less as a person", because she makes less money than most of her friends and family. 

We grow up convinced that our personal value is determined by how much money we make, because money is the dominant societal indicator of value. I know this is true because of the inferiority I feel at making less money than most of my friends and family, like I am somehow worth less as a person. 

Without fail, every piece of age-gap non-fiction we've recapped is littered with contradictions. For example, Beach shared that she's "in a place of privilege" and that her sugaring is simply done to make her life "a lot more comfortable". And she confessed: "I am not in a desperate situation." But then Beach blamed sugar daddies for the woes of sugaring. She wrote that she "cannot ethically support" sugaring, because it: "[...] encourages a practice of “intimacy” that ultimately benefits men."

I acknowledge that I am in a place of privilege. Although sleeping with men for money would make my life a lot more comfortable at this point in my life, I am not in a desperate situation. Not yet, at least. But sugaring is not empowering for me anymore because it requires me to avoid the truth that I am engaging in a system I cannot ethically support. Sugaring, in encouraging the creation of transactional relationships, also encourages a practice of “intimacy” that ultimately benefits men. Other forms of sex work don’t necessarily aim to construct such a controlled illusion of intimacy; they are straightforward about the service and the reward. 

In the end, it appears that Bleach would rather be a traditional prostitute, because she "cannot ethically support" "the illusion of intimacy" that comes with sugaring - despite the additional comforts that comes with the extra money.

SNL's "Weekend Update" and Bumble: “Gen-Blend”/Age-Gap Relationships Are Rising

On Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" (s49e05), Michael Che reported, "The dating app Bumble says that next year, they expect to see a surge in relationships where one person dates someone considerably older." Then Che joked, "Because those student loans ain't gonna to pay for themselves."

Alexandra Klausner and Tracy Swartz elaborated on Che's reporting in their New York Post piece "Leo was right all along? Age-gap relationships to surge in 2024, Bumble says" (Nov. 16, 2023). Klausner and Swartz wrote that 63% of Bumble's 26,800 users shared that "age isn’t a defining factor in dating", and 35% confessed that they don't look down upon age-gap relationships. 

Cross-generational relationships — also known as “gen-blend” relationships — are expected to surge next year, Bumble reports as part of its annual dating trends forecast.

63% say age isn’t a defining factor in dating [...] according to a global survey of over 26,800 Bumble app members conducted in September.

35% of women confess they are less judgmental about age-gap relationships. 

Source: New York Post

The Mirror's Gemma Strong reported in the piece "Age-gap relationships are set to boom in 2024 - dating expert explains" (16 NOV 2023) that Toby Ingham, the psychotherapist and author, posited to there is no perfect relationship age-gap range.

"There used to be an idea that, as a rule of thumb, half your age plus seven was the guide to the younger age a partner should be," he said. "That may now be outdated [...] Now, the [societal] accent being on inclusivity and normalising difference might eradicate such ideas."

Lastly, Klausner and Swartz went on to write that "[a]ge-gap relationships aren’t new, of course." And they referenced "Leonardo DiCaprio, 49, and Vittoria Ceretti, 25"; thus, providing more evidence that it appears that DiCaprio does have an ideal age-gap range, which, is his case, is 25-years-old or less. 

Salacious Schoolgirls vs Hot Teachers: Who Has The Power in Student Teacher Sexual Affairs?

On the “Hollywood Groomers [...] feat. Bekah Day” (Jul 24, 2023) episode of Shannon McNamara’s FluentlyForward podcast, McNamara read a definition of child grooming and some of its forms. She read:

Child grooming is the act of influencing children or young teenagers to befriend or trust an adult for the purpose of sexual manipulation later in the future. Forms: victim selection, gaining access, isolating the victim, developing trust, keeping secrets, and giving gifts [i.e., literally and/or emotionally (e.g., “attention”)]

Connectedly, Anne Barnard, in her New York Times piece “What does ‘grooming’ mean in sexual abuse cases?” (Dec. 2, 2021) related that grooming: 

[...] is a gradual process whereby an abuser wins the trust and cooperation of a potential victim, starting with interactions that seem normal and benign, like paying special attention or offering compliments and gifts.

Next the abuser acclimates the victim to physical touching and sexual references, breaking down ordinary boundaries. Gradually, the predator exposes the victim to sexual behaviors, like light touching, to desensitize them.

Then McNamara shared with Day that she had a high school history teacher whom had a number of affairs with his students. And that he “picked” well-developed students whom were raised by single-parents - thereby, implying, implausibly, that an under-developed student with two parents would not have an affair with a teacher. And McNamara implied, erroneously, that student-teacher affairs are always initiated by teachers; however, minutes later, Day and McNamara shared that student-teacher affairs can be initiated by students. 

For example, Day shared that when she was a 16-year-old high school student, she “loved [getting] attention from, like, older people - older men”. And based on McNamara’s question, it’s safe to infer that the “older men” Day was referring to were teachers. 

McNamara: Did you ever, like, have a creepy, like, teacher [...] that, like, everyone knew about? 

Day: [...] personally, when I was in my sixteens and seventeens, is when I started to, like, become more adult. You know what I mean? Start [to] become an older teenager. You know what I mean? And I started to feel like I was 16 going on 25. You know what I mean? And, like, loved attention from, like, older people - older men. You know what I mean? And looking back now, as an almost 26-year-old woman. I’m like, “Girl, what was going on?”

Interestingly, McNamara went on to take the blame for student-teacher affairs away from grooming teachers and placed that blame on Lana Del Rey. McNamara opined that Lana Del Rey “[...] made a lot of 16-year-olds be like, “Like, dating my teacher would be amazing?”” [Emphasis added] 

McNamara: Can I ask, were you listening to Lana Del Rey? ‘Cause, like, I feel, like, there needs to be an parental advisory on some of those albums, like, it made a lot of 16-year-olds be like, “Like dating my teacher would be amazing?”

McNamara was referring to the fact that Lana Del Rey referenced Lolita in a number of her songs. For example, “Little Girls (Put Me In A Movie)” is a song on Lana Del Ray (2010). Here is a (self-explanatory) excerpt from the lyrics:

Lights, camera, action

If he likes me, takes me home

Come on, you know you like little girls

Come on, you know you like little girls

You can be my daddy

You can be my daddy

Day added that in addition to being influenced by Lana Del Rey, the student-teacher affairs in Pretty Little Liars were influential as well. But most revealingly, Day confessed that she takes half the blame for having a (consensual) student-teacher affair. 

Day: Like, honestly, you got me there. And I was also watching Pretty Little Liars. [...] I found myself in some bad situations. As many of us did. And I think looking back there’s always, like, you, like, look at it and you’re like, “I shouldn't have done that.” But at the same time, I’m like, “They shouldn’t have done that.” You know what I mean? 

As for Pretty Little Liars, the ABC Family show had, not one, but two student-teacher affairs. The affair between Aria and Mr. Ezra Fitz (i.e.,  Ezria), Aria’s English teacher, is inarguably the most famous (fictional) student-teacher affair in popular culture; however, before Ezria there was Ezrison - the student-teacher affair between Alison DiLaurentis and Ezra. And just like with Aria, Ezra met Alison in a bar, where, just like Aria, 15-year-old Alison lied about her age.

On the podcast, Day went on to relate that, like McNamara’s high school, student-teachers affairs were prevalent in her high school as well.

Day: So I think, like, and I think there’s a lot of girls who had that [...] but a lot of people who have that experience don’t talk about it [...]

We're not surprised by Day's assertion that "there’s a lot of girls who had [student-teacher] affair. We've written extensively about how fictional and non-fictional student-teacher affairs are portrayed in popular culture. And on social media, from Tumblr to Twitter to TikTok, schoolgirls have posted about their attractions to teachers.

In the end, Day had a student-teacher affair, because she desired attention from older men, and she was influenced by Lana Del Rey’s lyrics and the student-teacher affairs portrayed on Pretty Little Liars; however, like Day said, her teacher should have had more power (over himself) to resist, which is were the power imbalance should have come in, but commonly, teachers do not have the power to resist a nymphet, which raises the question: Where is the power imbalance in student-teacher relationships? 

Alisson Wood wrote in her memoir Being Lolita that she had the power in her student-teacher affair with Mr. North - her English teacher.  Wood wrote that she was a beautiful 17-year-old who boys called a “Disney princess”. Yet it wasn’t until after she met Mr. North that she said: “I wasn’t suicidal anymore.” Alisson’s suicidal ideations stemmed from the fact that she felt that her body was her: “[...] only possible source of power.”, which she blamed on Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, MTV, Fiona Apple, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Victoria’s Secret. 

However, Alisson used the power of her body on her English teacher. Alisson related that she knew that she had power over Mr. North but that she wanted the power of sex and the safety of childhood: “[...] my breasts, all of the things that shifted the way men looked at me. If this was power [...] I wanted the safety of childhood and the power of sex. I wanted it all, in my life and in my body.” 

And Maggie shared in Lisa Taddeo’s (non-fiction) book Three Women, that she had the power in her student-teacher affair. Agmand that the source of her power was her age and the fact that her illegal lover was a teacher.

Lastly, artist and writer Betsy Karasik opined in the Washington Post op-ed "The unintended consequences of the law addressing sex between teachers and students" (August 30, 2013) that: [...] consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized."

Karasik went on to submit that schoolgirls don't have to be groomed to have affairs with teachers, because schoolgirls have "sex on the brain" a lot. Consequently, a number of Karasik's high school classmates had consensual sexual relations with teachers, which Karasik fully condoned - with consensual being the keyword.

"When it comes to having sex on the brain, teenage boys got nothin’ on us. When I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, the sexual boundaries between teachers and students were much fuzzier. Throughout high school, college and law school, I knew students who had sexual relations with teachers. To the best of my knowledge, these situations were all consensual in every honest meaning of the word..."

Despite, Karasik's Washington Post piece, the law addressing sex between teachers and students hasn't changed; therefore, teachers must use their power to resist the allure of salacious schoolgirls - and vice versa.

Times Square: School Girls and Teen Porn Galore

Jane Dickson's School Girls, 2023

We went to the Karma in Alphabet City slash the LES to see Jane Dickson's Promised Land, which we learned from the gallery's press release was inspired by photographs Dickson took from her Times Square apartment and/or from One Times Square. 

Specifically, we went to see Dickson's School Girls (2023), which is an oil stick on linen painting that profiles the Anco Theatre’s marquee where That’s My Daughter and Schoolgirls XXX were playing when both films took advantage of the allure of nymphets to sell tickets. 

The Rialto Theater | Anita: Swedish Nymphet (1973)

Of course, the Anco’s marquee wasn’t the only theater in Times Square that advertised nubile nymphets and/or salacious schoolgirls. For example, in Taxi Driver (1976), Travis (Robert De Niro), a New York City taxi driver, had a desire to save Iris (Jodie Foster), a pre-teen prostitute, from her abusive pimp. In one scene, while Travis was driving through Times Square, the marquee of the Rialto theater advertised Anita: Swedish Nymphet (1973) [Swedish: Anita – ur en tonårsflickas dagbok], which is about a 16-year-old nymphomaniac slash teleiophile. 

And the title made an appearance in the B-roll of Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer (2021). (The marquee of Rialto II advertised A Teenage Pajama Party (1977).)

The Rialto II | A Teenage Pajama Party (1977)

Lastly, we would imagine that Traci Lords was not the only underage teen to use a fake ID to break into the (early) porn industry. 

LOOK AWAY (2018): A Sexual Sinister Schoolgirl

Here's IMDb's (brief) synopsis for Look Away (2018):

Maria, an alienated high-school student, has her life turned upside down when she switches places with [Airam] her sinister mirror image.

Let’s begin by elaborating on the fact that 17-year-old Maria was masturbating in her luxurious bathroom when she discovered Airam.

Later in the film, which we saw on Netflix, Airam, in her schoolgirl uniform in her prep school’s classroom, wrote “Smell Me” on a piece of notebook paper, rubbed the note on her vagina, and passed the note to a schoolboy whom obediently followed her orders. 

Subsequently, Airam attempted to seduce Maria’s father. The first attempt happened after Airam showed up, unannounced, to her “father’s” plastic surgery office where she sat on her “father’s” desk, held his face and gave him a long sensuous kiss before she shared, “I missed you.”

Airam’s second attempt as a teen seductress happened when she returned to her “father’s” office and removed her schoolgirl uniform’s top. Despite her "father’s" protest, Airam removed her schoolgirl skirt, removed her panties, and asked her “father”, “Do you think I’m beautiful? 

The daughter-father seduction scenes are interesting - especially when one considers the fact that Airam informed Maria, “I know you. I know your secret desires. Your fears. Who you love. Who you hate. I understand you completely.”

Lastly, and talking about using the allure of [nude] nymphets for streams, 17-year-old Maria and Airam, who were played by India Eisley, a nymphet passing adult, appeared nude in Look Away several times. In addition to the nude daughter-father scene, Assaf Bernstein, the film’s writer and director, filmed Eisley nude while bathing and while having passionate teen sex.