Famous Age-Gap Couple: Michael Wolff & Victoria Floethe

Micheal Wolff's Petronella Wyatt

I've read a number of Michael Wolff's page turners - including Too Famous, which is peppered with nympholepsy. For example, Wolff wrote that, in terms of his affair with his step-daughter, Woody Allen said, "the heart wants what it wants". Wolff related that Petronella Wyatt, a friend of Rupert Murdoch's daughter, said that, [among a number of other famous elderly men], Murdoch ogled her when she was a nymphet. And per Wolff, Jeffrey Epstein told Steve Bannon that one of Epstein's masseuses, a 14-year-old whom said she was 18, told the police that she lied about her age: "[...] because she was afraid she would never be allowed into the house and never be invited back."

Victoria Floethe and Michael Woflff

In addition to Wolff's books, I've been (curiously) impressed by Wolff's impeccable since of style, which caused me to be doubly astonished when I read Richard Johnson's Page Six headline: "Michael Wolff expecting a baby with girlfriend 30 years his junior" (February 6, 2015)

Johnson wrote that 61-year-old (married) Wolff starting dating having an affair with 34-year-old Victoria Floethe in 2009 (i.e., Wolff was 55 and Floethe was 28).

Consequently, per Gawker, in 2014: "Wolff filed a matrimonial action against his wife in the Supreme Court of New York"; however, Wolff did not inform his wife whom found out via Gawker. 

Who is Victoria Floethe? Per WagCenter, Floethe is a model (L’Oreal SoColor), an actress (Broken Windows [theater]), a host (LookTV's SEXY. NOT SEXY), a writer (Slate), and she interned at Vanity Fair where she reportedly began her age-gap affair with Wolff. 

And unsurprisingly, per Gawker, Floethe is an (open) teleiophile. Owen Thomas wrote in his Gawker piece, "Victoria Floethe, the New Media Ingénue" (02/26/09), that prior to Wolff, Floethe dated Melik Kayla and Lawrence Osborne - both older (travel) writers. 

The "travel writer" boyfriend whom she never names in the Slate piece is Melik Kaylan, a widely published journalist much older than her. At the time Floethe and he were going out, Kaylan was married. He helped introduce her to Wolff, who got her an internship at Vanity Fair. According to our tipster, to Kaylan's dismay, Floethe switched her affections from Kaylan to Wolff. 

She's also dated Lawrence Osborne, the travel writer ex of founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers. And at an Interview party, she was photographed clinging to the side of English writer Adrian Dannatt.

Lastly, per the New York Times, Wolff's divorce was finally finalized, and he and Floethe are currently married.

The Young Copywriter's Thing for Way Older Men

In The Cut's "Sex Diaries" (JUNE 6, 2021), a 23-year-old Brooklyn based copywriter confessed: "Somehow I only ever want to date men who are way older." [Emphasis added]

And she "impulsively confess[ed]" her feelings for a scientist, whom she shared of the man who's 11 years her senior,: "Funny how I can’t go a day without thinking about him now."

However, The Scientist informed the copywriter that he liked her but "[...] the timing is wrong."

She thought, while on a date with an indie-pop musician whom she met in high school,: “Wow, I wish I was with The Scientist right now.”

Ultimately, The Scientist informed her that he hadn't: 

"[...] been in a serious relationship in years, that he has a lot on his plate at the moment, and that his emotionally distant personality and strong love of threesomes is bound to “make me miserable.” [Emphasis added]

Even though, The Scientist told the copywriter that he "still likes" her, by 11:55 p.m. on DAY SEVEN, he hadn't responded to a text that she sent on DAY SIX at 5 p.m..

Famous Ephebophile: Gabriel Matzneff | Tales of Vanessa Springora & French Schoolgirls

Angelique Chrisafis wrote in The Guardian article "French publishing boss claims she was groomed at age 14 by acclaimed author":

The French literary world is in shock after a leading publishing director, Vanessa Springora, alleged in a new book [Le Consentement (Consent)] that she was groomed into a damaging relationship from the age of 14 with an acclaimed author who was 50.

Springora, 47, the head of the Julliard publishing house, claims that in the 1980s she met the author Gabriel Matzneff at a dinner with her mother when she was 13 and he was 50.

So, how did the famous award winning French author allegedly "groom" the nymphet:

He pursued her with letters and followed her in the street, and she began a relationship with him when she was 14, according to the book.

Springora claims Matzneff would wait for her outside her school and at one point moved into a hotel with her to avoid a visit to his flat from the police, who had received anonymous letters warning of an underage relationship.

And what was the immediate result of the author's seduction of the nymphet: "[...] she ended up skipping school and falling under his control."

Matzneff's nympholepsy was (openly) condoned by some in French literary society, and he openly expressed the allure of nymphets on French talk shows. For example, Matzneff shared on “Apostrophes” (March 2, 1990):

I have never had any success with women 25, 30 and over [...] A very young girl is kinder [For example] Marie-Elizabeth, I knew her when she was 15 years old.

Matzneff wrote in Mes amours décomposés about the conquest in three consecutive days of three strangers - two of whom were virgins: Mari-Agnes, Aude and Brigitte S. with whom he made love to almost sans interruption.

The Canadian writer Denise Bombardier, who is no fan of Matzneff, admitted on the show that "little girls" can be attracted to writers and that Matzneff's "reputation" was attractive :

Monsieur Matzneff tells us that he sodomizes little girls aged 14 and 15. [And] that these little girls are crazy about him. We know that little girls can be crazy about a man who has a certain literary aura. Besides, we know that old men attract infants with candy. [But] Mr. Matzneff attracts them with his reputation.

Matzneff defended himself by stating that the age-gap sexual encounters in the book were consensual, that he is the opposite of a "macho", and that he didn't force anyone nymphet to do anything.

Interestingly, Chrisafis reminded the readers: "In France, a child under 15 is considered a sexual minor but they can still be considered able to give their consent." Thus, per Orthodox Jews and Muslims, Matzneff's crime was actually fornication. And since, allegedly the sex was consensual, the post-pubescent nymphets would be guilty of fornication as well. 

Erin Zaleski reiterated in The Daily Beast article "Outing the French Literary World’s Jeffrey Epstein" (Jan. 19, 2020):

Matzneff] was venerated in literary and media circles alike, often appearing as a guest on prestigious talk shows, where, positioning himself as a sort of literary libertine, he would boast on air about his affinity for young teens.

Like former Congresswoman Katie Hill, Springora previously considered her relationship with Matzneff to be consensual, but despite the fact that the age of consent in France is 15, that stance changed with the publication of Le Consentement (Consent) which per Zaleski: "[...] quickly sold out at many Paris bookstores, as well as on Amazon."

Woody's A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK (2019): Amy, Gorgeous & Sexually Advanced, Performed Oral @ Bar Mitzvah

Woody Allen appears to have broken a record. A Rainy Day in New York (2019) contains not one, not two, not three but possibly four age-gap affairs:

After Gatsby (Timothée Chalamet) and Ashleigh (Elle Fanning), two Yardley college students, visit New York City, Ashleigh becomes infatuated with Roland Pollard (51-year-old Liev Schreiber), a famous film director, whom she is interviewing for the school's paper. Ashleigh said referring to Roland, "I can see why all the leading ladies fall in love with him."

Later in the film, Roland asked, "I want us to get to know each other Ashleigh. Would you consider coming with me to the South of France?"

That left Gatsby wondering, "What the hell is it about older guys that seem so appealing to women [...] All they are is [sic] decrepit. What's sexy about short term memory loss [...]"

Moments later, Gatsby ran into Chan (Selena Gomez), a fashion student at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, who has a date with a "[...] very handsome, very rich [and] very clever" dermatologist. In addition, Chan is Amy's younger sister, and Amy was Gatsby's gorgeous and sexually advanced Jewish high school sweetheart. 

Gatsby shared, "Amy was gorgeous and so sexually advanced. Word on Amy was she performed oral sex at a Bar Mitzvah. I think they should make that a part of every Jewish holiday [...] And what a great Hanukkah gift."

 

While accompanied by Ashleigh, Ted Davidoff (46-year-old Jude Law), a writer, gets into an argument with his wife who assumes that Ashleigh is Ted's 15-year-old concubine.

Subsequently, Ashleigh meets the actor Francisco Vega (39-year-old Diego Luna). Francisco asked. "Do you have a boyfriend?" To which Ashleigh replied, "He's a mere youth." Consequently, after a joint and some whiskey, the age-gap couple proceeds to have sex until Francisco's girlfriend arrives unexpectedly. 

In the end, Gatsby summed up the movie well when he said to Ashleigh, "You were loved spiritually, emotionally, and physically by three different gifted men."

Famous Teleiophile: Joyce Maynard | Teen's POV of Age-Gap Sexual Affair

Joyce Maynard summarized her affair with J.D. Salinger in the preface of the 2013 edition of At Home in the World: A Memoir. She shared:

“I did not seek out J.D. Salinger. He wrote me a letter. I was eighteen years old. He was fifty-three.”

“By July, I’d moved in with him, and in September I gave up my little off-campus apartment and my scholarship and withdrew from Yale.”

“But I had loved him once, and more even than loved, had worshipped him.”

“He told me what movies to watch, what music to listen to, what food to eat. Jerry told me what to think, and write, and not write, what was real and what was false. He told me who to be, and because I adored him, I wanted to be that person.”

“The relationship lasted just eleven months, and ended [...] when I was nineteen years old.”

18-Year-Old Maynard

In chapter five, Joyce wrote that Salinger followed up his letters by inviting her to “spend the weekend.” And that her mother was “very proud” that Joyce had “[...] attracted the attention of such a famous and brilliant man.” During Joyce’s first visit, Jerry did not attempt to have sex with her, but they kissed. 

Until her next visit, Joyce and Salinger spoke on the phone “[...] every night, and sometimes in the day [...]” The letters continued too. 

Ten days after Joyce started working at The New York Times, Jerry drove five hours to pick her up. They purchased “[...] a bag of bagels and lox on the Upper West Side”. Then Jerry drove “[....] very fast, the full five hours straight back to New Hampshire.” Joyce wrote: “This time, when I walk into his house, I know where I’m headed (i.e., to Jerry’s bedroom where Joyce stood at the foot of his bed in one of her “short little-girl dresses” ).”

It turns out that that was the beginning of the end of their age-gap relationship, because Salinger opined that Joyce was “shallow”, “worthless”, “corrupted”, “worldly”, “greedy”, and “hungry” for (writing) fame. In addition, despite a number of failed treatments, Joyce suffered from severe “tightness of the muscles surrounding the vagina” and, consequently, could only perform oral sex on Salinger. 

Joyce shared that after they left a doctor’s office for the last time: “Jerry Salinger put those fifty-dollar bills in my hand and told me to clear my things out of his house [...]”

Joyce related some additional age-gap relationships in At Home in the World. For example:

On page 57, Joyce related: “It was not regarded as outrageous or particularly unusual on the Yale campus of 1971-72 for a graduate assistant or even a tenured professor to have an affair with a student.”

Judith, a family friend, became “[...] involved with an eminent Russian poet many years older [...] her teacher at the Ivy League university where she’s a freshman. “A dashing man with a Russian accent and a pipe, reciting poetry?” (185)

On page 87, Joyce reminded me that before they met, Salinger: “[...] hung around places like the Stork Club in New York with Eugene O’Neill’s daughter Oona before she married Charlie Chaplin---a marriage that took place when she was eighteen and he was fifty-three.” 

Max, Joyce’s father, was a professor of English at the University of New Hampshire where Laura Ferris, one of his students a year or two before he retired, became “infatuated” with him and sent him “[...] notes, leaving odd little gifts of candles and incense at his office.” (191). Subsequently, Max left Fredelle, Joyce’s mother, and he and his former student planned to move to “[...] England, where Laura will teach at a Waldorf school and learn to play the cello. They want to have a baby by artificial insemination.” (198)

Interestingly, Joyce shared that during “cuddle time” with her mother, who earned a Ph.D. in English literature from Radcliffe College (Harvard University), they would kiss on the lips and her mother would comment on her “pink childish nipples.” And “as late as junior high” Joyce’s mother would apply Zambu, a Canadian cream, to her vagina. When her mother was reprimanded about her raunchy incestuous behavior, she replied, “Joyce just can’t get enough of snuggling. Can you imagine how she’ll be with men?” (39) And on page 96, Joyce wrote that “The Early Colonist’s [did not have a ] Perception of Childhood.” 

Amazon's I LOVE DICK: A Teen Masturbates, Watches Porn & Studies Impressionism

Self-Portrait with his Wife and a Glass of Champagne, 1902

Above is Lovis Cornith's Self-Portrait with his Wife and a Glass of Champagne, 1902. 43-year-old Lovis, a German artist and writer, fell in love with Charlotte Berend, his future wife, when she was 21. But what led me to this painting may be more intriguing than their 22-year age-gap - especially since Charlotte wasn't a true nymphet.

I saw the billboard for "I Love Dick" in a Manhattan subway. I naively refused believe that it was a sexual pun, and I made no plans to watch the Amazon series. However, after I read a Jennifer Krasinki piece in the Village Voice that the women on the show were going to: "speak directly to the camera about their sexual histories", I was intrigued. 

In the spirit of Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies and Tavi Gevinson's Rookie, Chris shared: 

"Dear Dick, I've been horny since I was six. I used to press my crotch into the belly of my stuffed Rhino [...] I'd love to hump him in front of our sitter Karen Harris. I used to say that Rhino was hungry and that I needed to feed him [...] In high school, I wanted to fuck anybody - male or female."

Chris

Toby shared with Dick that her dad "was an expert on children", which he thought "allowed" him to "touch" her, and when she was a nymphet, she was exposed to porn, which she couldn't get out of her head. 

And with the porn still "stuck" in her head, Toby entered Columbia at the age of 16 where she studied 19th century diagrams of the ideal breast shape; hence, Lovis' Self-Portrait with his Wife and a Glass of Champagne, 1902.

Toby

Alberto Moravia: Italy's Most Famous Writer | Old & Young (Teen) Italian Sex

Clyde Haberman wrote in the New York Times' Obituary section that Alberto Moravia: “[...] was Italy's most widely read author in this century, his works having been translated into some 30 languages and selling in the millions around the world.” 

Haberman related that: 

“[m]any literary scholars argue that Mr. Moravia was not only his country's best-selling modern writer but also simply its best, on the strength of his starkly worded studies of emotional aridity and his blunt openness about sex.” 

“[H]e endured as a national monument and was considered almost an institution in his native Rome.” 

“The President of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, issued a statement in which he praised Mr. Moravia as a 'biting but also highly sensitive narrator of Italian society in the 20th century[...]''' 

And Haberman shared that Moravia lectured at Columbia University. Frank MacShane, a writer and a professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, related: ''Moravia was a very daring writer. He was one of the first European authors to write honestly about sex [...]”

Let us review one of Moravia's translated novels and short stories to see what all the fuss was about. 

In The Empty Canvas [Italian: La Noia], Dino, an extremely bored painter, lived in his Via Marguttag studio that was three doors down from Balestrieri. Although, they often, yet briefly, met and spoke, Balestrieri exuded an “extreme, almost insulting coldness” which may have been due to Balestrieri perceiving Dino as a potential rival. 

Dino shared that “Balestrieri's studio was continually visited by a large number of women” which included young girls. Dino was so fascinated by 65-year-old Balestrieri's life that he spied upon him and learned that for ten years the elderly painter had approximately five different females per month, a new one about every six weeks which averaged two visitors of the opposite sex per day until Balestrieri died a sudden death. Rumor had it that he died while having anal sex with Cecilia, his mistress, who was no more than 17, but looked 15 due to the “slenderness of her figure and the childishness of her face” and “childish lips”. 

However, she had a “magnificent bosom, full, firm and brown” and “curly brown hair”. The only confirmed information about Balestrieri's death was that he “had been found half-naked on the bed, and that the girl herself had run out and called the caretaker, wearing a dressing gown with nothing underneath”.

Cecilia met the elderly painter when she was 15 at the home of Elisa, her 17-year-old friend. Balestrieri had been giving Elisa drawing lessons. Cecilia repeatedly requested that Balestrieri give her drawing lessons too, but to the nymphet's dismay, he refused her pleas for over three months until she “[...] resorted to a trick.” Cecilia, who had fallen in love with Balestrieri, invited Elisa to lunch and informed her that Balestrieri canceled her lesson. Cecilia went instead and she and Balestrieri made love. 

Dino asked Cecilia why she had fallen in love with Balestrieri, a man old enough to have been her “father's father”. Celicia replied, “There's no reason for falling in love with someone. You just fall in love and that's that.” When pressed for a reason, Cecilia shared that Balestrieri reminded her of her father whom “she had a real passion for” and, à la Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies, “dreamed about at night.” 

Until he died, Balestrieri was constantly in “need” of Cecilia. Initially, they only made love: “[...] once or twice a week, then every other day, then every day, then twice a day.”

Subsequently, to 35-five-year-old Dino's eventual dismay, he and 16-year-old Cecilia began a sexual relationship. The crux of Dino's frustration came from the illusion that since Cecilia allowed Dino to consistently make love to her, as much as he wished, every way he wished, and every time he wished, that he possessed her. But it was merely a physical possession – not mental, because the indifferent, quiet and mysterious nymphet had no qualms about having multiple sexual relationships with other men which almost drove Dino to an early death.

The Empty Canvas [La noia] (1963)

As usual, the novel is superior to the 1963 film adaption where Cecilia was played by 18-year-old Catherine Spaak.

“The Devil Can't Save the World” is a short story in Moravia's Erotic Tales [Italian: La Cosa]. In the story Gualtieri, an approximately 35-year-old famous scientist, makes a Faustian bargain. Gualtieri is described as being: “tall, thin, and elegant, with a charming face […] penetrating eyes set in the shadow of thick black eyebrows; silver hair; a large, hooked, imperious nose, and a proud, noble mouth.” And with: “the gentlest voice and the most persuasive manner imaginable.”

In an effort to get the scientist to sign over his soul, the devil decided to disguise himself as a female before approaching Gualtieri, because: “[...] it combines the temptation of success with the often irresistible temptation of desire.” The devil appeared: “as a girl studying at the university”, “as a married woman at some social gathering or club”, and as a prostitute, but Gualtieri displayed an “indifference” that was both “relaxed and effortless”.

However, after “beginning to despair”, the devil happened upon the scientist in: “[...] the public gardens. He was sitting on a bench with a book in his hand, but the book was closed. He seemed to be watching something very intently […] With an air of profound attention he was watching a group of twelve-to fifteen-year-old girls a little further on who were playing [hopscotch] […] the game they were playing lifted their skirts bit by bit  above their knees.” Consequently, the devil: “[...] had discovered not only the disguise in which to approach him but also the way to make him sign the infernal pact immediately”. 

The devil: “[...] got up from the bench, went into a thicket of trees , and transformed […] into a little girl around twelve years old with a thick head of hair, slender bust and long, muscular legs.” She joined the game, but she hitched up her dress to improve her jumping but cunningly “a great deal more than necessary.” Gualtieri immediately noticed that the nymphet was not wearing any panties. He suddenly buried himself in his book, “gripping it tight in his hands.”

The devil was certain that she had: “[...] hit the bullseye of his most intimate target [on the] first shot.” And with “a typically cheeky little girl's voice” asked, “I'm collecting signatures. Will you sign my book?”

Who would have thought that a former president of PEN International would write such salacious material? Only the naive. Lastly, for some reason, I was not surprised to learn from Boyd's Vladimir Nabokov, The American Years that Nabokov met Moravia. Boyd wrote that: “[t]he day after Lolita's English publication, the Nabokovs set off from London for Rome.” While in Rome they “dined” with Moravia.

THE GIRL IN THE BOOK (2015): The Writer and the Nymphet

Alice, a book editor and writer, is assigned to handle the re-release of Milan Daneker's book Waking Eyes. Daneker had an affair with Alice when she was a nymphet and Waking Eyes is a roman à clef of that affair.

The affair began after Daneker started helping Alice with her writing. Strategically and conveniently, the tutoring sessions took place in Alice's bedroom while her parents, both book agents, were away. During his initial visits, Alice and Daneker spoke about her writing, but the sexual tension inevitably became too strong. Consequently, Alice kissed Daneker on the lips after he kissed her on the head. Subsequently, Daneker massaged Alice's fountains before he helped her reach her virginal orgasm.

However, the age-gap affair took another turn after Daneker ignored Alice while he dined with her parents, and he flirted with a woman. 

Lastly, Nabokov's Pale Fire made a cameo in the film, which reminded me of:

"Otar, a pleasant and cultured adeling with a tremendous nose and sparse hair, [who] had his two [thin-legged and green eyed] mistresses with him, eighteen-year-old Fifalda (whom he later married) and seventeen-year-old Fleur [...], daughters of Countess de Fyler, the Queen's favorite lady in waiting."

Nabokov's Pale Fire Makes a Cameo

Famous Ephebophile: Author J.D. Salinger

I wrote about J.D. Salinger's affair with 19-year-old Joyce Maynard in The Allure of Nymphets, but I didn't know the extent of the famous author's ephebophilia until I read the review in The Village Voice of Salinger (2013), the documentary about the author's life.

The review mentioned that Salinger was "[...] enraged that Charlie Chaplin, well past 50, once stole his girlfriend." The girlfriend the article is referring to is Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. 

Salinger's affair started when O'Neill was 16-years-old, but ended after the Pearl Harbor attack and Salinger joined the Army. After which, O'Neill moved from New York City to Los Angeles and married 55-year-old Charlie Chaplin. 

Oona O'Neill and Charlie Chaplin

According to New York magazine, after Salinger finished his stint in the military and moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, he [boldly] started entertaining high school girls and openly "escorted teenage girls to school dances and sporting events." 

Those exploits lead Salinger to meet 19-year-old Radcliffe preppy Claire Douglas. Salinger and Douglas eventually married and had two children. The marriage lasted a little over a decade until Douglas filed for divorce after Salinger continued to lock himself in his writing studio for over 14 days at a time.

Claire Douglas

Salinger was so impressed by Joyce Maynard's "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back On Life" article in the April 23, 1972  issue of The New York Times Magazine that he mailed her a letter. After they wrote each other approximately 25 letters, Maynard visited Salinger in New Hampshire, withdrew from Yale and moved in with the author.

But the affair ended after approximately ten months, because, per Maynard, Salinger opined that she was “shallow”, “worthless”, “corrupted”, “worldly”, “greedy”, and “hungry” for (writing) fame. In addition, despite a number of failed treatments, Joyce suffered from severe “tightness of the muscles surrounding the vagina” and, consequently, could only perform oral sex on Salinger.

Maynard shared that after they left a doctor’s office for the last time: “Jerry Salinger put those fifty-dollar bills in my hand and told me to clear my things out of his house [...]”

Joyce Maynard