Nymphet
A
nymphet is a sexualized adolescent girl in the early days of
puberty. The term was coined by
Vladimir Nabokov in the novel
Lolita, in which the main character, a self-described "nympholept", uses it to describe the girls (aged 9 to 14) to whom he was attracted.
The archetypal nymphet is the character
Lolita of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, from which the term originated.
Lolita has been filmed twice: the
first adaptation was made in
1962 by
Stanley Kubrick, and starred
James Mason,
Shelley Winters,
Peter Sellers and, as Lolita,
Sue Lyon; and in
1997 starring
Jeremy Irons and
Dominique Swain.
Nabokov was nominated for an
Academy Award for his work on the earlier film's adapted
screenplay, although little of this work reached the screen.
Nabokov describes these nymphets as being "Deadly little demons" with feline features and thin, downy limbs. Nymphets are not always the type of girls a normal man would consider the prettiest, but they have a demonic ability to attract men at least ten years older than themselves.
Faunlet
The term
faunlet, also coined by Nabokov and used by the character of Humbert Humbert, is used to describe the young male counterpart of a nymphet, in the same way that the mythological
fauns (or
satyrs) were the counterpart of the nymphs.
Nympholept
Nabokov borrowed the term
nympholept, in past times meaning "a person seized by the condition of nympholepsy", in order to describe one who could "discern" nymphets from other girls. In Humbert's own words:
"[A nympholept is] an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy with a bubble of hot poison in [his] loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in [his] subtle spine."
*
Lolita*
Indecent pseudo-photograph of a child*
Lolicon*
Constructions of Childhood in Art and Media: Sexualized Innocence, Alexandra Wood.
