There’s a woman, I won’t name her but at least some of you have heard of her, because she pops up in the news every so often as an expert on human trafficking. Sex trafficking specifically, because that’s pretty much the only human trafficking anyone wants to read about. Guys brought in to do slave labor in a restaurant or cucumber field? Booorrr-ing. Teens forced to have sex with greasy old men? Titillating!
Anyway, she published a book about her own history as a trafficked teenager. I read it, twice. I have rarely concluded a purportedly nonfiction book believing that virtually every word of it was some sort of fantastical lie, but for this one, I did. Never mind that, though. I come not to accuse, but to go over the Gannett tips box in every story about sex trafficking, the “how to spot it” part. Look for a couple far apart in age, where the younger party keeps their eyes downcast and doesn’t seem to want to be there, who doesn’t speak for themself, etc. etc. This is advice I’ve read over and over, from the aforementioned woman and many others. And every time I do, I think: Great. You’ve just described every reluctant teenager traveling with a parent. And this is straight out of the “Taken” fantasy, that women are literally snatched off the street and forced into prostitution by swarthy men who are no match for Liam Neeson. What else do you have?
And then I see photos of the Epstein girls. Granted, their faces are mostly black squares, but the body language doesn’t suggest sullen resignation. Probably the most famous photo is this one, of Epstein’s Victim Zero Virginia Giuffre and the former Prince Andrew:
Does she look like she’s looking for the nearest exit and wondering if she can reach the gate before they release the hounds? And the many Epstein girls in the latest document dump, leaning in to some older man’s shoulder for a photo, look the same:
Please, mark my words here: I am not saying these girls aren’t victims. I’m saying that we have a lot to learn about how this case began, developed and sustained itself for so many years. And this latest tranche of emails, photos and videos offer a few clues.
Some of it is pretty widely understood by anyone old enough to have watched some nature documentaries: Epstein had a predator’s eye for a certain kind of girl, pretty but on the poorer side of middle class, badly or indifferently parented, far more likely to be wowed by a couple of C-notes slipped into her hand with a sshhh gesture from the man involved. They’d love the helicopter rides, the private plane, the multiple mansions, the Caribbean island. Perhaps some of them had been primed for this duty by a pervy uncle, stepdad or mom’s boyfriend. I recall a quote from some rock star, asked why groupies would willingly present themselves for no-strings sex with some sweaty bassist who wouldn’t even stay in their lives for 24 hours, and he replied that it probably was more interesting than sex with some hometown loser. Giuffre described sex with Randy Andy as short and not particularly satisfying. As a price to be paid for the life that she had? Probably worth it. At least, worth it at the time.
A few people have noted the super-weird emails to Epstein from Soon-Yi Previn, aka Mrs. Woody Allen, who got together when she was a teen and Woody already approaching senior-citizen status. She describes the 2016 sexting scandal between then-Rep. Anthony Weiner and a 15-year-old as…the girl’s fault. She also thanks Epstein for helping their kid get into Bard College. (NYT story, not a gift link.)
This, I’m convinced, is one reason so many scumbags — Peter Attia, Donald Trump, et al — were willing to look the other way. The girls didn’t seem like victims. Yeah, they were disconcertingly…young, but their eyes weren’t downcast! They weren’t sullen and cowed-looking! So just keep your mouth shut and everything will be fine.
We also have to consider the incontrovertible fact that women have traded sex for advancement throughout human history. Bobbie Gentry wrote a song about it. It doesn’t always work out for them, but our First Lady made it to the White House via that route, even though I’m sure she’d rather be back at Mar-a-lago. (What am I saying? She is at Mar-a-lago. She’s clocked less time in the White House than a minor senator from a blue state.)
And what do we make of photos like this?
I’m assuming that foot is under 18 years old. Who wrote that line from “Lolita” on it? The owner, another girl, Alan Dershowitz?
I guess what all this woolgathering is leading to is: Sex trafficking isn’t as simple as looking for the mismatched couple. It requires old men to stop consorting with obvious teenagers, even if they’re brokered by charming Jeffrey, and even if the girls act like they want to be there. (No 17-year-old wants to have sex with Bill Gates, or Ehud Barak, or sweaty Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, or Noam Chomsky. Or even hot-for-his-age Peter Attia.) The thing about teenagers is, they grow up, and they wise up. And they know what happened to them. Of course it was a woman, Melinda Gates, who seemed to be the only person in that whole crew who took one look at this guy and asked, what are all these teenagers doing at this dinner table?
This is too long. But I’m working on a difficult letter on another tab, and I am a world-class procrastinator. Have a good weekend, all.
alex said on February 6, 2026 at 7:25 am
I think I’ll drop the WaPo and take up the Daily Mail, where the reporting on the document dump is not only a lot more titillating but edifying: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15516349/Epsteins-sex-empire-KGB-honeytrap-Paedophile-financier-Putin-Russian-girls.html
Reading between the lines, it appears Bill gave Melinda a Russian strain of the clap.
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Jeff Gill said on February 6, 2026 at 8:22 am
Well, to start with, Nancy get out of my head! Yeah, that’s been a thought chain in my mind this week, and something I’m trying to write about.
More to the point: my wife & I have been discussing lately how, in our mid-60s, we managed to replicate our upbringing without ever really intending to, in terms of making our way into an upscale community on the lower end of the local income distribution. We are & have been for the last twenty years pretty comfortable, no complaints justified, but neighbors & colleagues & fellow parents talk of Greek islands & Caribbean resorts while we started our garden for spring break, that sort of thing.
In this world, we’ve been adjoining parties to and factotums for the ridiculously wealthy, even as I’ve been a parish minister in working class/lower middle class congregations. Among the latter, in terms of age range for couples, I can think of precisely one where there was a significant difference, a guy who ended up divorced and married to his secretary, for which they were still expressing regret decades later (as to how they ended up together). It was maybe eight or nine years difference.
Among the world of wealth, you see three types of major differences. There’s the guy who never married, or perhaps has a divorce somewhere in his distant past, who in his fifties or so marries a very fit thirty-something woman. The spread is obvious, but not obtrusive. Then there’s the guy who has married three or four (or five times), and each time younger than the previous one, to where there’s the uneasy awareness at all social events that the obvious mistake can be made about father & daughter, nervous ha ha ha and dear Lord let it not be me who makes that error out loud. And more to our point, the third guy, who comes to each fundraising dinner or board retreat with a different “girlfriend” who is young enough to make people raise eyebrows just as backs are turned, not infrequently with a bit of an accent, and I don’t mean British.
I once was seated across from a girlfriend, who (spoiler alert) ended up marrying him, just before the dementia set in, so I imagine a happy ending all around? But at this event, where the wealthy man, whose staff nickname was, I kid you not, “Satan,” happened to be far enough away that in an outdoor meal setting we could talk privately… and her conversation was just disturbing enough I ended up having a conversation with a fairly senior administrator about what constituted cause for contacting someone. It turned out his house was filled with high end pornographic art, and he made everyone uncomfortable in private gatherings. An overture to the girlfriend was made in private by an appropriate party, and assurances were given all was well… and did I mention she married him a year or two later?
That last fellow, Satan, has buildings and programs named for him. He was never on Epstein’s island, but he was friends with people who were (yeah, I looked it all up). His friends have their names on bigger buildings and larger programs. And most of them married their terminal girlfriends, as I learn Epstein was planning to (a young lady from Belarus, which sounds like a limerick getting started).
There’s our problem, and I’m not sure how we solve it, other than shunning those obvious semi-predators, but that means walking away from some of your larger donors in a limited pool. Which is not something a development officer says other than through clenched teeth. Money talks, scruples walk.
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Julie Robinson said on February 6, 2026 at 8:24 am
That would be grounds for divorce for sure.
The Colbert show from two nights ago is a must watch. Laura Benanti continued her Melania gig and was hilarious. Then Ian McKellan recited a speech Shakespeare wrote about immigrants. Impressive and powerful for what he said, and also, he’s in his late 80’s! I was spellbound.
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nancy said on February 6, 2026 at 9:09 am
I’ve only been in one house with pornographic art in it, a gorgeously restored — by a gay couple — painted lady in then-gentrifying Victorian Village, Columbus. They had a room with a beautiful wooden bar they’d rescued from some demolition, and behind it, where the mirror would be, they commissioned a mural of a gay Roman orgy. The house was so perfect that the ladies’ auxiliary of a nearby hospital often asked to use it for fundraisers, and the couple obliged, covering the mural with a custom-made drapery. I saw it once, and it may have been a little trope-ish, but it was funny to see a centurion wearing a cock ring.
I also recollect a nasty divorce — in Detroit, maybe? can’t recall — where one of the items being fought over was “a chess set with pornographic pieces,” apparently quite valuable. Your move, honey!
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Deborah said on February 6, 2026 at 10:48 am
And then there’s the current Press Secretary with the grandpa husband, more then twice her age. I don’t know if he was previously married or concurrently married. She had her first child a couple of years before they married, she is totally in on the game and she’s “good” at it. She’s quick on her feet, it’s no wonder she went so far so fast.
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alex said on February 6, 2026 at 10:59 am
In the old-school gay world I encountered a lot of well-to-do older men paired with much-younger trophies, and I still see a lot of that. Some in older generation seem to have had sexual libertinism baked into them, and seem to have a certain sense of entitlement to grope others, but I’ve long found this off-putting and it’s probably why I don’t get invited to a lot of gay parties anymore, not that I care.
I remember in the 1980s that one of my college classmates took up with a 60-year-old widower who came out as gay after his wife died. I had gone to grade school with his children. The couple lived in a big house decorated with high-end pornographic art and threw decadent parties that moved from the living room to the sauna. They ended up moving to warmer climes and opened a gay beach resort. The old guy died and the younger one ended up marrying a woman, last I heard. I’m guessing she must have had money.
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Colleen said on February 6, 2026 at 11:43 am
What I keep asking is WHY are these guys so pervy? And why are there so many of them? And where are the non pervy men to say “Dude. Gross.” When confronted with their friends’ disgusting desires?
Husband and I are 15 years apart…but I was already in my 30s when we met, and I’m not a hot trophy wife, so it really wasn’t creepy, as it would have been had we met when I was 18 and he was 33.
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Suzanne said on February 6, 2026 at 12:58 pm
Our son-in-law is 11 years older than our daughter; he was in his late 30s when they met, she in her late 20s, out of college and working. Had she been 18 and he in his 30s when they met, the creep factor would have entered the conversation.
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Heather said on February 6, 2026 at 1:07 pm
This also brings to mind some hysterical TikTok videos I’ve seen over the years from white women convinced they were about to be trafficked because they noticed a car parked suspiciously near theirs in a Target parking lot.
I have several male friends in their 50s whose wives or girlfriends are 20 years younger. They say “I didn’t set out to date someone younger, it just happened.” They’re good guys and the women are amazing and accomplished… but it’s notable that none of the guys make a ton of money because they are in creative fields. I suspect the women are the main breadwinners. So an inversion of the usual “gold digger” trope. I gotta wonder if they don’t date women their own age in part because those women wouldn’t put up with it. I actually broke up with my last boyfriend because of this type of financial issues. I have enough trouble saving for my own retirement.
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Deborah said on February 6, 2026 at 10:38 pm
I get that there are attractions of people with wide differences between their ages. LB has a good friend who has a boyfriend 20 years older, but there are issues between them that I won’t go into. It always makes me wonder how couples like that can mesh their cultures because 20 years makes a big difference in terms of what people grew up with in their daily lives in a lot of ways. I know it’s not impossible to find common ground of course.
My first husband was a year older than me, we were in college at the same time (same college). My husband now is 3 years older than me and he graduated a year ahead of his class so we wouldn’t have been in college together and sometimes it makes a difference in our cultural memories. It’s nothing important, but there are differences that I find interesting.
When I was growing up one of my good neighborhood friends had a sister who was 4 years older than us and she might as well have been in a completely different generation. But also I get when you’re young a few years apart in age makes a lot more difference than when you get older. The difference between a 30 year old and a 40 year old seems very small but between a 20 year old and a 30 year old seems much wider. To me anyway.
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Jeff Gill said on February 7, 2026 at 8:02 am
I appreciate Heather reminding me there are exceptions; haven’t met them, but I have no doubt they’re out there. It’s just amazing to me, and perhaps it shouldn’t be, how many women had to be directly complicit in Epstein’s operation to keep the supply of ever younger hires coming in.
All of this made me go back into the justice.gov/epstein page and check: “Satan” stayed a client of Epstein’s financial management from 2013 right up to 2016 and the collapse of his business operations, and in a big way. That’s complicity of a different and much more disgusting sort; no way to pretend one was unaware of his issues at that point.
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alex said on February 7, 2026 at 8:43 am
Hubby sent me a glib text this morning. He’s away on business. Too funny.
I did a good deed today.
I had a special remote for the tv bc mine quit working and the front desk gave me a managers remote.
This morning when I was in the breakfast room some asshole turned the channel to Fox News.
I went to my room to grab that remote since you can lock out channels.
So I locked out Fox News in the breakfast room.
I used 6666 as the code.
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Julie Robinson said on February 7, 2026 at 10:38 am
Alex, please pass along that he is doing the Lord’s work.
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Jeff Gill said on February 7, 2026 at 11:01 am
And all God’s people said…
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Dave said on February 7, 2026 at 11:05 am
That’s great, Alex, I hate staying in a hotel and going to the breakfast room to see they’ve got Fox on. There is a local diner here that used to have Fox playing on their TV but somewhere along the way, they quit having it on, we wondered if a lot of people complained.
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Deborah said on February 7, 2026 at 2:15 pm
Alex, hurray for your hubby.
We leave on Friday for our Southern CA trip, I’m so ready to get a few days of warm weather and some nice warm soaks in the natural hot springs at the place where we’re going. We have those here in NM too but so far we haven’t managed to get to any.
I wrecked my back yesterday trying to get the futon frame and futon mattress set up in our sleeping loft of our cabin, helping carry it up the stairs. We went out on Monday to do that but my husband destroyed some hardware for assembling the frame by tightening them incorrectly. They’re called barrel nuts that I had never heard of before but are apparently common in furniture building. We found some at a couple of hardware stores in Santa Fe to replace the broken ones but they weren’t metric we managed to make them work anyway. Tonight we will find out how comfortable the bed will be, it better be comfortable.
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Sherri said on February 7, 2026 at 2:24 pm
Given how often Trump declares policy (such as it is) on his social media account, shouldn’t we know who has access to his account?
I mean, I know a Truth Social post doesn’t really create a law, but it does seem to have the power to direct people who work for Trump into action.
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Brandon said on February 7, 2026 at 3:19 pm
Re: Fox News being played in dining halls: Who remembers Rush Rooms?
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-10-mn-44218-story.html
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