The lollipops and little skirts are tropes of girlhood and that turns viewers on, but no one is fooled that the models are anything but adults. And the women in chains? Might they also exist in a world where pain is an enticing idea, but only an idea — a place where whips draw no blood?

I have no way to evaluate these things, no context in which to put them, it is true. But maybe the idea of fucking the lollipop girl or torturing the bound woman is like Danny Conrad’s kiss. I fantasized about it all summer, but when it happened — a sticky lamprey-like attack — I didn’t want it. Until later, when, in fantasy, I wanted it again.

I have no firm answers, but I am able to formulate a few hypotheses. For instance: desiring something is not always the same as wanting it.