The man, the myth, the ass-tapper

Now that the Spitzergate hysteria has died down, New York’s sex scandal du jour is the affair betwixt Queens teacher Gina Salamino and teen model Joshua Walter. The incident is ripe for a Lifetime Original Movie, especially with Walters’s line from his interrogation: “I’m tapping that ass and there’s nothing you can do about it.” While I collect bets on what the too-literal title will be (A Model Student? Predator in the Classroom? An Ass Tapped, a Youth Lost?), take a walk down icky memory lane with these similar tales of old broads doin’ it with young boys:

5. In the Bedroom: Hot mom Marisa Tomei has an affair with hot neighborhood teen Nick Stahl, but their hot, sexy time is ended when Tom Cruise’s cousin murders the boy. The Oscary film is mostly about parents Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson coping with their son’s death, but not until after some artistically shot sex scenes, which never feel gross because everyone is so hot. The best thing about the Walters-Salamino relationship is watching all the city publications and tabloid news journalists try not to say what we’re all thinking: how did these two wind up together? Walter is a model, and Salamino is, to put it lightly, no Marisa Tomei. To quote Liz Lemon: “It’s only gross when it’s ugly people.”

4. Lovely and Amazing: Unfulfilled lady Catherine Keener takes a job at a photo shop and falls for her teenage boss, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Writer-director Nicole Holofcener obviously wants us to think Keener’s trying to relive her homecoming queen days, but I’m pretty sure it’s just because Gyllenhaal is at his sensitive-sexy best. If teenage boys were really like that, I’d start hanging around more high schools.

3. The Good Girl: What is up with Jake Gyllenhaal and statutory rape movies? It’s like Diane Lane with all the suburban-lady-having-affairs-with-artists movies, (seriously, I can’t even remember which one had Viggo Mortensen and which had Olivier Martinez) (Yes I can, I just said that to emphasize the fact that they have the exact same haircut). Anyways, do you remember when The Good Girl came out and everyone was like, “Oh, Jennifer Aniston is trying to prove she’s a serious actress by looking homely,” but then all she did was not have her hair flat-ironed? That bothered me for most of 2002.

The sweet sounds of Cat Stevens don't make this any less gross, guy.

2. Harold and Maude: The impossible love between a troubled young man and a 79-year-old woman progresses so naturally and believably in the Hal Ashby film that you find yourself rooting for the couple UNTIL THEY FINALLY DO IT AND THEN IT’S REALLY GROSS AND WEIRD AND NOT AT ALL TENDER NO MATTER HOW MANY BUBBLES YOU BLOW IN BED, BUD CORT.

1. To Die For: Were the genders swapped in the above films (older men going after teen girls), audiences would meet them with disgust instead of acclaim. Gus Van Sant’s To Die For stands out because it’s the only one in this bunch that doesn’t paint the older woman as blinded by love, no matter how improbable–she’s predatory, manipulative and always clearer-headed than her young conquests (Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck). Whether a woman looks like Nicole Kidman or Gina Salamino, her sexuality should be treated as a loaded gun: in need of more control and kept away from minors.