New Book & Blog: Nymphalis carmen: Nympholepsy in Nabokov’s Oeuvre

Our new book, Nymphalis carmen: Nympholepsy in Nabokov’s Oeuvre, and blog, Nabokov's Nympholepsy, are live. 

Nabokov's Nympholepsy

PREGNANCY: A Game | An [Sexually] Abused & Pregnant Hungarian Teen

Over 17 years ago, in the non-fiction section of The Central Library in Brooklyn, I picked up Seymour M. Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot. And consequently, my research into nympholepsy in popular culture began. What was the impetus? The catalyst was one of Hersh's footnotes about Joseph P. Sr. - President John F. Kennedy's father. Here's a summary:

In 1957, Rose Kennedy invited Lyndon Johnson, who was the Senate Majority leader at the time, to their home in Florida for lunch. Lyndon Johnson naturally accepted the invitation and went to the Kennedy beachfront home with an entourage. The entourage included Bobby Baker, the Majority leader’s aide and confidant, who related, “Old Man Joe comes in [from a round of golf] with a seventeen – or eighteen-year-old girl. Doesn’t say boo. Walks right in and goes upstairs and engages in what, clearly and noisily, is sexual intercourse.” 

Over the years, I've written about nympholepsy in almost every medium (e.g., poems, novels, novellas, and Netflix series'). However, other than the Duke Nukem: Forever video game cover art, where two schoolgirls sit at the feet of Duke, I haven't written about nympholepsy in videos games - until today.

Here's the About This Game posted on Steam for Pregnancy:

'Pregnancy' is an interactive short story where the player attempts to influence the decisions of a 14 year old girl about the future of her pregnancy.

Lilla Sandor is the protagonist of 'Pregnancy'. She is a 14 year old girl who lives in Hungary. Lilla gets pregnant after being abused by a criminal and she is confused about what to do with the child she carries in her womb. The player acts as the voice of conscience influencing and guiding the young girl's decisions.

At the end of the story, see how your decisions line up with other players, inspired by games like Telltale's The Walking Dead and Atlus' Catherine.

209 out of 356 Steam reviewers "Recommended" the game. Chance, the gamer, simply opined of : "Very interesting"

Interestingly, a famous gamer was criticized on Twitter for playing Pregnant, and the Hungarian nymphet was changed from being abused, as described in the About This Game, to being raped. But "abused" is ambiguous too, because the age-of-consent in Hungary is 14-years-old. 

VELMA (2023): Nude Coolsville High Students, DILF City and Teen Lipstick Lesbians!

Per HBO Max: “Velma is an adult animated comedy series telling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. gang. This original and humorous spin unmasks the complex and colorful past of one of America’s most beloved mystery solvers.”

Mindy Kaling executive produced the series, and she played Velma. That news set off our nympholepsy and teleiophilia alarms, which was warranted because, about a minute into the first episode, viewers were entertained by nude nymphets showering in the Coolsville High locker room, which was followed by a nude teen catfight. (Viewers were entertained by the nude showering coeds in episode 10 as well.)

As for teleiophilia, Velma expressed her attraction to (much) older men - more than once. For example, in episode 1, after Fred showed Velma a social media post of his tall and blond father, Velma responded, “Zam, DILF city!”

Oxford Languages: DILF noun | a sexually attractive older man, typically one who has children.

Urban Diction: DILF acronym | "Dad I'd Like to F***".

Toward the end of the first episode, Velma shared that she would like to see a naked picture of LeBron. And in episode 5, in response to learning that Norville was dating Gigi, a cool girl, Velma said, “Damn, this makes me think I could bag Don Lemon.”

As for nympholepsy slash ephebophilia, in episode 2, Velma related that 18-year-old Sarah had a Sugar Daddy, and “Her parents are cool with it.”

In episode 4, at the Crystal Cove Town Hall, Velma unveiled the Top 5 Coolsville High Hot Girls to Mayor Dave whom responded, “Ooh, they are so hot. Daddy likey.”

In episode 8, Daphne shared, “But a while back, I was low-key obsessed with someone […]” What was Velma’s response? “Oh, so like me and Neil deGrasse Tyson.” And in episode 8, Gigi said, “Norville, I wanna go with you to my cabin in the woods [to have sex].” But before Norville could respond, the Coolsville High elderly and balding janitor whispered seductively, “I’ll go.”

In pop culture, nympholepsy is typically coupled with teen lipstick lesbianism. And Velma is no different, as Velma and Daphne, apparent teen bisexuals, had an on-again\off-again affair. (Interestingly, the “hot” Betty and Veronica kiss in the Riverdale pilot was referenced, which was when, in an effort to increase their chances of being picked for the cheerleading team, Veronica passionately kissed Betty in front of the cheerleading captain and her assistants.)

In addition, there were other random bits of salaciousness in the animated series. For example, in episode 1, the owner of Spooner’s Malt Shop, the town’s most popular diner, shared the secret to the diner’s success with Velma: “Just good food, great tunes. And I let teens have sex in the bathroom.”

In episode 6, Daphne and her father dined at Nana’s Nipples - a strip club where Velma’s father pleaded, “Velma please. Can’t a father and daughter just enjoy a nice meal at a strip club without it being awkward?” Subsequently, to the onlookers dismay and despite a neon sign that read 18+ Only, Daphne took to the stripper pole. And in episode 3, while visiting Fred in prison, Velma lifted her fountains and asked Norville, “Is it obvious I have two bean bags in my bra?”

Despite its repeated use of the allure of nymphets for streams, Velma received a measly 41% Average Tomatometer and a 7% Average Audience Score; however, it was (somehow) renewed for second season.

Kepnes' YOU LOVE ME: Budussy & Teen Age-Gap Love Triangle

Here is Penguin Random House's plot summary for Caroline Kepnes' You Love Me:

Joe Goldberg is done with the cities. He’s done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe.

He gets a job at the local library—he does know a thing or two about books—and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won’t meddle, he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old-fashioned way . . . by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they’ll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town.

The trouble is . . . Mary Kay already has a life. She’s a mother. She’s a friend. She’s . . . busy.

True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He’s ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.

As you can see, there doesn't appear to be any nympholepsyany in the novel. Or so I thought, until I read the last 25 pages of the 385 page turner. Interestingly, the two previous novels in the series, You and Hidden Bodies, didn't contain any nypholepsy. However, season two of the Netflix adaptation did take advantage of the allure of nymphets.  

You S02E03

For example, in episode 3 of season 2 of You, Joe confronts Ellie Alves, his 15-year-old neighbor, about "chasing an internship" with Henderson, a famous much older comedian. Joe advised Ellie, because Delila, Ellie's older sister, informed Joe that when she was 17, she was drugged with GHB, raped and photographed in Henderson's sex dungeon. 

Ellie didn't take Joe's advice well, she assumed that he wanted her to call him Daddy, and she asked him if he wanted to "fuck" her, because, "Everybody wants to fuck the 15-year-old!" 

In You Love Me, like Penguin Random House shared, Joe met Mary Kay, but the publisher didn't relate Nomi, Mary Kat's teen daughter, who had an extended age-gap relationship with Seamus, a short CrossFit enthusiast with "piercing blue eyes and a strong jaw", who went to high school with Nomi's mom, where they had sex when Mary Kay was 17. Seamus inherited Cooley Hardware, the local hardware store, where Nomi worked, "But just for a few months."

There were clues about Seamus' nympholepsy. For example, at the gym:

"[...] Seamus is working out two feet away, singing along to Kid Fucking Rock, who waxes nostalgic-pervert about his whisky-soaked glory days mounting an underage girl by a lake."

And Seamus scolded Joe, but Joe and I assumed that Seamu was referring to Mary Kay:

"Whole shit ton of girls out there, Joe, and you just had to fix your eyes on mine."

"The worst part about all this, oh man, she tells me she wants you and she says that me and her can be friends."

"One week ago, one fucking week ago she was in my cabin with me and you come back outta nowhere and boom. Finito. She'd be here right now if it wasn't for you, you bookworm piece of shit." 

Photo: The Bibliofile

But during Joe and Marky Kay's wedding, Nomi:

"She wants to dance and this is wrong - eighteen is too close to seventeen - but she leaves me no choice. I rest my hands on her hips and I hit bare skin, but if my hands go any lower, they're on her ass, if they go higher, they're on her chest. She looks up at me and there is moonlight - Are people looking at us? - and she smiles [at Joe]. "I owe you."

"[...] and she runs the tips of those fingers through my hair."

Subsequently, Nomi filled Joe in on her age-gap relationship with "Uncle Seamus":

"He told me he was gonna 'teach you a lesson' for trying to steal me away, like it's not my choice. Such a jerk."  

Apparently, Nomi and Seamus' age-gap affair took place throughout Nomi's high school career:

"He could be sweet, though, like driving to Seattle to pick me up from Peggy and Don's to take me to his cabin. I don't think I would have gotten through high school without those weekends."

Nomi even shared how her age-gap relationship started:

"But kids here...they're like kids everywhere. They suck. Seamus was just, I mean one day I was bored hanging out by the creek near my old middle school and...there he was." 

Joe attempted to convince Nomi that she was a victim:

Joe: "He's a rapist."
Nomi: Now she sits up. "You stop it. Nobody raped me, Joe."
Joe: "It's call statutory rape. And it's wong."
Nomi: "Oh really, Mr. Morals? Mr. Hiding in the woods watching me...."

And of course, Joe incorrectly diagnosed Seamus as a pedophile. 

Very interestingly, Kepnes made Joe a Woody Allen fan: "[...] say what you will about him...his movies have a lot of great female leads." And Joe even suggested Woody to Nomi:

Nomi: "Now you're gonna tell me that you didn't push me to watch your favorite movie..."

Joe: I hate that this is true-I did that, I pushed a teenage girl on Woody Fucking Allen [...]

Although Joe denied it, Nomi was under impression the Joe was suppressing his nympholepsy:

"One word," she says. "Budussy."*

"That that whole time you helped me at the library you were making eyes at me all nervous about getting caught and you keep looking to see if my mom noticed. You were so cut, Joe, So cute."

*Per Lena Dunham, budussy is: "[...] butt, dick, and pussy,[...] I mean, it’s a useful word.”

Nomi's an avid reader. But did she read The Red Queen, because she knows that most men are nympholepts\ephobophiles. And she shared that she's an (open) teleiophile:

Joe: "I'm horrified by what Seamus did to you but I am not like that."

Nomi: "He didn't do anything to me. I like older guys. You and Seamus like younger girls. Almost all guys like younger girls. There's nothing wrong with that [...]"

To avoid any more spoilers, I'll abruptly stop here, but I'm certain that you see Kepnes' use of the allure of nymphets. 

Lastly, of You Love Me, Stephen King opined: "Hypnotic and scary...totally original.

 

Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen": A Man Declines a Teen's Seduction

 

Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen" has been popping into my head for years, but not until recently did I have an inclination that the song involved nympholepsy. And my inclination was correct! Per Will Layman's PopMatters post "JAZZ TODAY: The Strange, Mixed Fate of Steely Dan" (10 April 2006): "Gaucho's "Hey Nineteen" was about a middle-aged man's disappointment with a young [19-year-old] lover."

"Hey Nineteen" is track No. 2 on Gaucho (1980), which was Steely Dan's seventh American rock studio album. 

Stewart Mason (incorrectly) posted on AllMusic that "Hey Nineteen" is about man trying to unsuccessfully seduce a "nubile young lass of the titular age".

Hey Nineteen" was the song that finally came right out and told the baby boomers that not only were they not kids anymore, but that the kids of 1980 thought they were a bunch of boring old farts. The song's narrator is with a nubile young lass of the titular age, putting on the same moves that had worked on the sorority girls "way back when in '67" and getting nowhere at all.

However, the song's lyrics make no reference to "the kids of 1980" whom considered the band members a "bunch of boring old farts". The narrator simply shares that in '67, he was a member of Gamma Chi who was privy to "Sweet things from Boston\So young and willing".

Way back when in '67

I was the dandy of Gamma Chi

Sweet things from Boston

So young and willing

And it's posted on SongFacts that the narrator is unsuccessfully attempting to seducing the nymphet. "In this song, an older man is seducing a 19-year-old girl." But that's fiction. 

Boto from 52404 commented: 

I thought if it as more of a 19 year old coming on to him and although he was aware of the age difference, after trying to convince himself it wasn’t a great idea he thought what the hell.

Boto from 52404 is correct, because the chorus is clearly shows that the narrator is rejecting the advances of the teen groupie whom desires to dance and converse with the man.

Hey, nineteen
No, we can't dance together (We can't dance together)
No, we can't talk at all
Please take me along when you slide on down

And after the man discovers that the teen isn't familiar with Aretha Franklin, he double downs on the fact that he is declining her offer to dance and talk. And he adds: "Hey, nineteen\No, we got nothin' common":

Hey, nineteen

That's 'Retha Franklin

She don't remember the Queen of Soul

It's hard times befallen

The sole survivors

She thinks I'm crazy

But I'm just growin' old

Hey, nineteen

No, we got nothin' common

No, we can't dance together

No, we can't talk at all

Please take me along when you slide on down 

Of course, only the nympholepsy naive would opine that a teen groupie wouldn't make an attempt at seducing a much older man. For example, we previously wrote about 16-year-old Nancy Spungen whom, per Lena Dunham's The C-Word podcast (July 8, 2021):

[...] bragged that she had sex with the entire rock group Bad Company but that she only gave hand jobs (simultaneously) to two members of the rock band Aerosmith. In addition, Spungen reportedly had sex with Keith Richards, members of The Who, J. Geils and The Allman Brothers.

Famous Teen Groupie Lori Maddox

And Nikki McWatters shared in the Huffington Post post “Predatory Teenage Girls”:

“Lori Maddox, a famous teenage groupie from LA, is alleged to have lost her virginity to David Bowie at the age of 13. [And] [s]he was [24-year-old] Jimmy Page's steady girlfriend while still underage [i.e., 14-years-old]."

Lastly, per Wikipedia, "Hey Nineteen" was a hit.

"Hey Nineteen" peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1981, number 11 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and number 68 on the R&B Singles chart. With a chart run of 19 weeks, "Hey Nineteen" is tied with "Peg" and "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" for being their longest-running chart hit.

"Hey Nineteen" | Lyrics 

Way back when in '67\I was the dandy of Gamma Chi\Sweet things from Boston\So young and willing\Moved down to Scarsdale\Where the hell am I?

Hey, nineteen\No, we can't dance together (We can't dance together)\No, we can't talk at all\Please take me along when you slide on down

Hey, nineteen\That's 'Retha Franklin\She don't remember the Queen of Soul\It's hard times befallen\The sole survivors\She thinks I'm crazy\But I'm just growin' old

Hey, nineteen\No, we got nothin' common\No, we can't dance together\No, we can't talk at all\Please take me along when you slide on down

The Cuervo Gold\The fine Colombian\Make tonight a wonderful thing\(Say it again)\The Cuervo Gold\The fine Colombian\Make tonight a wonderful thing\The Cuervo Gold\The fine Colombian\Make tonight a wonderful thing

No, we can't dance together\No, we can't talk at all

Faw's ULTRALUMINOUS: A Teen Bartering Sex

Some of the books that we review are focused on nympholepsy (e.g., Emily Prager's Roger Fishbite) while others are peppered with nympholepsy (e.g., Lauren Myracle's ttyl). Katherine Faw's Ultraluminous is of the latter sort but very much worth a post.

Here's part of Alexandra Schwartz's description of Faw's Ultraluminous that was posted on The New Yorker:

[...] the novel’s narrator is chiefly motivated by heroin. She’s a high-end prostitute who has just returned to New York after ten years in Dubai, and quickly establishes a roster of clients: “art guy,” who lives in a luxury condo in Williamsburg and takes her gallery-hopping; “calf’s brain guy,” who takes her to exotic dinners at trendy restaurants; “junk-bond guy,” now retired to the apartment he shares with his unsuspecting wife on the Upper West Side; and “the guy who buys me things,” who takes her shopping at Prada and Hermès. [...] “Ultraluminous” is a sort of “American Psycho” from the prostitute’s point of view, a damning, often hilarious account of toxic masculinity and Wall Street money culture.

And here are the relevant excerpts:

K, the narrator, shared that she began prostituting as a teen:

I was terrified of the first man who paid me. I was eighteen. It was my first time overseas. He took me to a restaurant that I would learn to make fun of but only later. I was convinced they could tell, the driver, the waiters, the hotel staff, him. I wanted to appear professional [...] 

But K exchanged sex in a bartering transaction before she was 14:

The first man I ever had sex with was British. He didn't pay me but it was an exchange. He was the manager of a club I wanted to get into [...] It was on Bleecker and Thompson. I lied and told him I was fourteen [...] 

But K first learned of her (sexual) power when she was 12:

I was twelve. It was the first warm day after four brutal months and I walked down Avenue B, all arms and legs, and suddenly I had this power. Since then it hasn't stopped.

This is how K was enticed into prostitution:

I was dumb like any eighteen-year-old. This girl told me her friend's sister did it. She said she went over there for one year and made enough money that she wouldn't have to work for five. 

"You have to do all the pervert shit, not just fuck them. You have to do whatever they want. Like old men, like with harems."

"I get it," I said.

"They buy you stuff, too, whatever you want," she said.

We were doing coke in the bathroom at a club in Chelsea where we were both bottle girls. 

Interestingly, when K was 10 or 11, a man inappropriately assumed she was a prostitute:

I was on the subway without my mother and in the crush before the doors opened a man stuck his hand up my skirt and grabbed my crotch and asked how much I cost. I was wearing one of my outlandish outfits but in an instant all my confidence disappeared. I knew it was my fault. I had rolled the waist on the skirt, twice. I remember his hoarse, bossy whisper in my ear. I remember it being a new sound. I was ten or eleven. 

Schwartz started her New Yorker piece by sharing that she devoured - no “inhaled” Ultraluminous.

Nabokov's Favorite French Author Robbe-Grillet: Incest, Dead Children & Porn Dream Research

Nabokov was asked in a 1964 Playboy interview, "Are there any contemporary authors you do enjoy reading?" Nabokov replied: 

"I do have a few favorites—for example, Robbe-Grillet and Borges. How freely and gratefully one breathes in their marvelous labyrinths! I love their lucidity of thought, the purity and poetry, the mirage in the mirror."

After reading in The Paris Review that Nabokov spent two months in Cambridge working on the English translation and commentary of Eugene Onegin - for over 17 hours per day, I found it interesting that the novel in verse was about how the poet Lensky invited 26-year-old dandy Eugene Onegin to dinner with his fiancée, the nymphet Olga, and her family. During the dinner Tatyana, Olga's 13-year-old older sister, became very infatuated with Onegin, but her innocent love for the older man was (initially) unrequited. 

Thus, I suspected that Nabokov's contemporary favorite authors would write themes of ephebophilia as well. And my suspicions were confirmed when I picked up a copy of Robbe-Grillet's nouveau roman novel Recollections of the Golden Triangle [French: Souvenirs du Triangle d'Or]. 

Here's part of the plot summary from the back cover:

It plots the tortuous investigation of a murder that leads to the revelation of the depraved activities of the Society of the Golden Triangle. Robbe-Grillet unravels the story in a dazzling hash of lurid images - a secret doorway, an illicit photograph, the bodies of dead children washed up by the tide-and echoing the pornographic dream research of the twisted Dr. Morgan. 

As it states on Amazon, "Recollections of the Golden Triangle challenges the reader to find his own meaning in its descriptions, clues, and contradictions, and to play detective by assembling the pieces of the fictional puzzle." But what is clear is that this novel falls into the dark side of ephebophilia. Here are two examples\scenes:

To celebrate her 17th birthday, Caroline's father took a whole box at the Opera House. Caroline was commanded to face the stage while straddling two armless red-velvet chairs before her father "[...] pressed himself shamelessly against her buttocks in order to caress her in greater comfort [...] The insidious fingers are no longer satisfied with stroking [...] They pass back and forth in wave after wave, tirelessly, over the bivalvular lips [...] One tiny, fragile rock resists and stiffens [...]"

"[And] little Violetta, who on the pretext that she is ill is enjoying a lie-in after breakfasting in bed, leafs through an illustrated children's book recounting exciting episodes from ancient history. The child surreptitiously begins caressing herself under the sheets."

Recollections of the Golden Triangle was published in French in 1978 - a year after Nabokov's death; however Robbe-Grillet's The Voyeur [French: Le Voyeur] was published in 1955. Here's part of Amazon's plot summary:

Mathias, a timorous, ineffectual traveling salesman, returns to the island of his birth after a long absence. Two days later, a thirteen-year-old girl is found drowned and mutilated. With eerie precision, Robbe-Grillet puts us at the scene of the crime and takes us inside Mathias’s mind, artfully enlisting us as detective hot on the trail of a homicidal maniac.

It has not been confirmed that Nabokov was a serial active ephebophilia, but it's clear that his oeuvre is liberally peppered with nympholepsy, and that (some of) the authors he relished peppered their oeuvre with nympholepsy as well. 

AND JUST LIKE THAT (2021): Sexy Teen [Asian] Selfies

Here's IMDb's description of And Just Like That  - the Sex and the City reboot: 

The series will follow Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.

Lily, Charlotte & Rose

From the description, it doesn't appear that the HBO Max streaming series has anything to do with nympholepsy or nymphets but what IMDb leaves out is that Charlotte has two teen daughters: Rose Goldenblatt and Lily Goldenblatt.

Rose is a confused nymphet who doesn't seem know if she wants to be Jewish or atheist, cisgender or (butch) lesbian, human or alien. And if it turns out in, possible, subsequent seasons that Rose is a (butch) lesbian - that could make for some disturbing age-gap story lines. 

Rose's "Sexy" Workout Wear IG Selfie

On the other hand, we learned in s01e08 that Lily is a sneaky nymphet who has a "private" Instagram account where she posts selfies in what she described as "workout wear" (i.e., crop top and spandex bottom).

Mare of Easttown

Lily reminded me of Mare whom said, "Trust me. Teenage girls are fucking sneaky."

However, Charlotte said that Lily's workout wear selfie was "sexy" and that Lily had a [seductive] "look" in her eye. 

colin55 opined that Lily's crop top, spandex bottom, and look in her eye was "hawwwwwwwt"; however, Charlotte wanted to know if Lily was a teleiophile and if Colin is 55-years-old. 

In the next episode, Lily decided that she wanted to learn how to use a tampon. After Charlotte reminded, "[...] there's really only one hole that it can go into." Charlotte demanded that Lily, "Just stick it in! Jam it up there Lily! Just do it!" Ultimately, Lily shared, "It's in." #voila

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

It appears that And Just Like That is going to use the Tina Fey approach to portraying nymphets, which is peppering nympholepsy throughout the series, which is unlike Mindy Kaling who focuses her series' around nubile nymphets. 

Never Have I Ever

Seidel's PEACHES GOES IT ALONE: Poetry About Nude Schoolgirls & More...

We profiled the poet Frederick Seidel in The Allure of Nymphets and he continues to write about nympholepsy and age-discrepant attraction in his latest book Peaches Goes It Alone .. 

For example, the poem “Miss Charlotte” is about “undressed” schoolgirls “lying on top” of one another in a dorm-room of an all-girls boarding school, which caused aristocrats to take “cold showers”:

Bring back the all-girls boarding schools for pedigreed girls

Where, morning and night, girls dressed and undressed.

Luxurious lawns and trees rode to hounds.

Horses the girls owned waited in padded stalls. 

Think of the cold showers these aristocrates took.

Think of the dorm-room mirrors which sometimes saw

A cold girl lying on top of a warm girl

While a pretty girl with a pimply face on her bed on her back watched

The scene in the dorm-room reminded me of a scene in the controversial National Bestseller The End of Alice where imprisoned Chappy shared a story about his teen penpal:

She writes of the memory of one particular afternoon [...] The story is of coming into the cabin to collect her tennis racket and finding the two little girls from Louisville, Kentucky [...] lying across the top bunk, head to toe, the brunette’s narrow foot sweeping back and forth across the strawberry blonde’s nipple, the blonde’s jumpsuit unzipped and parted to the waist. When the lovebirds sighted the girl and smiled at her, there was a flash of light like an explosion, as the sun, reflecting off the brunette’s metal tooth-braces [...]

And I was reminded of a story that Humbert related in Lolita about one of Lolita’s tent-mates:

Her astounding tale started with an introductory mention of her tent-mate of the previous summer, at another camp, a “very select” one as she put it. The tent-mate [...] instructed her in various manipulations. [...] I wanted to know if either mother learned of those sapphic diversions? “Gosh no,” exhaled limp Lo [...] 

In 2016, Seidel was approximately 80-years-old; thus, his reference in the first two stanzas of “Thanksgiving 2016” to a girl with a “charming” face, a charming voice and a “beautiful ass” who could cure “depression” is revealing:

The girl with the face

As charming as her voice

Has a beautiful ass

Filling out her tan pants.

Depression doesn’t stand a chance

Confronted with this one!

What planet are you on

In your beret, singing?

“Near The New Whitney” is about the poet being “moonstruck” by Emily, a “gently lovely” maître d’, at a “charming restaurant” in the Meatpacking District. But after discussing the transformation of American art, the poet ended the poem with a desirable double entendre:

I drank an after-dinner tumbler of whiskey

Not far from the new Whitney,

A present from the maître d’.

Sweet Lagavulin single malt filled me with infinity

Sixteen years old, while the girl 

Smiled softly

Emily appears again in the fifth and sixth stanzas of “Worst When It’s Poetry”. This time she’s referred to as a “maiden” and “so young”:

There’s an Emily I met downtown recently.

Dante’s Beatrice suddenly appeared to me!

I don’t know her last name.

Dante famously never was the same.

A maiden I don’t know transfigured me

In one brief moment for eternity.

From one brief meeting with someone so young,

Dante translated to a higher sphere and left our days of dung. 

And the book is lightly peppered with stanzas that allude to nympholepsy. For example, in “In Late December”: She’s reading a paperback of Lolita, stealthily, behind the sign. And in “Abusers”: The little girl whose father invaded her/Became a woman who could not outgun/The little girl inside her who’s her father’s wife.

Lastly, here's one of the blurbs from the back of the book:

"There had never been a poet like this one before: the poet of a new contemporary form, a highlight reel-one spectacular feat after another [...]" - Dan Chiasson, The New York Review of Books

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3, MAD MAX & THE LOVELY BONES: 3 Films Unknown for Age-Gap Sex?

In some films, such as American Beauty (1999) and Donny’s Bar Mitzvah (2021), the nympholepsy is apparent. But in some films, like Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) and Borat Subsequent Movie (2020), it's not so apparent.

Here's part of Wikipedia's plot summary for Paranormal Activity 3:

In 2005, Katie delivers a box of old videotapes to her pregnant [younger] sister Kristi [...] which holds footage of young Katie and Kristi with their mother, Julie, and her boyfriend Dennis. 

In 1988, in their house in Santa Rosa, California, Kristi begins interacting with an imaginary friend named Toby. Dennis notices that since Kristi's friend appeared, strange things have been happening around the house. Dennis and Julie try to make a sex tape, but are interrupted by an earthquake. The camera shows dust fall from the ceiling and land onto an invisible figure in the room. While reviewing the footage, Dennis notices the strange incident. His friend Randy suggests that Dennis place cameras throughout the house to capture any other incidents. That night in the girls' bedroom, Kristi wakes up and talks to someone off-camera. When Dennis questions her the following day, Kristi tells him it was Toby. 

The plot summary goes on for several paragraphs but what it doesn't make explicit is that Toby, who is described in the film by Kristi as being "old like Grandma", wanted to have sex with Kristi to produce a male heir. The Villain's Wikia sums it up better:

Toby was growing impatient and wanted to mate with Kristi to father her child in hopes of producing the male heir he had been promised. Kristi [initially] refused to give in to his demands and told Toby to stop talking to her. In a rage, Toby gave Kristi a high fever and brutally attacked Katie and Dennis' assistant Randy the following day. Later that night the furious demon trashed the girls' room and dragged Katie into his crawlspace, holding her hostage until Kristi agreed to do as he asked. Toby told her to go to Lois' [the grandmother's] house to prepare for a binding ritual.

The film ends as Lois lures Kristi and Katie upstairs saying, "Let's get ready," before Kristi excitedly request that Toby join them.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is approximately two hours of almost non-stop carnage as Immortan Joe violently attempts to recover his five, much younger, wives whom escaped with warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) with the help of Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy). 

Lastly, the novel and the film The Lovely Bones (2009) is about how 14-year-old Susie Salmon was raped and murdered by George Harvey - her 36-year-old neighbor in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Interestingly, the film doesn't make it explicitly clear that Salmon was raped.

In Paranormal Activity 3,  Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Lovely Bones, it appears that the underlying theme of nympholepsy is lost in the entertainment.

Marie Calloway's WHAT PURPOSE DID I SERVE IN YOUR LIFE: Age-Gap Virgin Sex & Young Prostitution

Lena Dunham has been a reliable source for examples of nympholepsy in pop culture; thus, my nympholepsy radar went off when I read Dunham's tweet about Marie Calloway: "Her prose is crisp/subject matter titillating! 4 stars."  

Let's take a look at Calloway's titillating subject matter in what purpose did i serve you in your life - Calloway's biographical fiction\autofiction "novel'. 

In the first chapter, "portald, oregon 2008", Calloway described losing "her" 18-year-old virginity. Even though she "[...] had been watching pornography regularly since elementary school [...] ", she thought her first time having sex would be different:

“It hurt a lot. He was fucking me really hard and fast (later he would admit he was incredibly excited to be having sex with an 18 year old), but somehow I loved the feeling and thought things like, “It hurts, but it hurts so good…” 

Subsequently, the "gorgeous blond" man asked her to leave, because he didn't want his friends to know that he was having sex with an 18-year-old:

“He said his friend was on his way over and I had to get going right away, because to be honest he didn’t want his friends to start gossiping about how he was sleeping with an 18 year old.”

Wait, did I mention that the man was a stranger: 

“I didn’t know if I wanted to see him again. It didn’t go with the idea I had in my head of losing my virginity to a stranger and then never seeing him again.”

However, within 48 hours, she emailed him for sex: 

“I emailed him two days later: “Let’s sleep together again.”
“Monday night? 10pm? CoffeeTime?”
“Okay.”

The next chapter is titled "sex work experience one". In the chapter, she made 200 pounds for having sex with a stuffy, bald and "two pump chump" middle-aged banker. 

The rest of the book is littered with graphic age-gap sex and peppered with her reasons for becoming a[n] (age-gap) prostitute, which are revealing  - yet not surprising:

I just want lots and lots of money and expensive things so I don’t ever have to be afraid of what’s going to happen to me again, no matter what I have to do to get it. 

I thought his cock tasted and smelled sweaty, but I thought of all the sushi and margaritas I would be able to buy after this and kept going.

I need money for BareMinerals foundation and MAC lipstick and soy lattes and pizza. If I earn money I will no longer be a financial burden on my parents; I will be productive and accomplish something. I will be a commodity, and I will be in demand and valuable. I am so beautiful and young that men will pay three hundred dollars to have sex with me; sex work will reify my youth and beauty.

Thus, unlike some young prostitutes who are forced into sex work (e.g., actress Demi Moore),, Calloway's character is like some of the Roman and Japanese teen prostitutes whom do it for luxury goods.  

And lastly, as for some age-gap relationship quotes:

His response felt awkward, and I wondered if he felt weird about me being so much younger than him, rather than excited like I had expected and hoped for.

The bartender asked to see our IDs. I wondered if we looked weird to him, or if it was typical for girls to go to bars with men twice their age in New York.

I felt like a lot of people were giving us dirty looks. I couldn’t tell if it was for smoking or for him being twice my age.

[…] I was actually trying to explore my reverse Lolita complex with him [...]