In an early scene of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Polly Trotsky, a sexually precocious pre-pubescent girl, has just traumatized a little boy who was “reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play” expected of children their age. 

Polly is anxious to establish her innocence before a nurse, tasked with overseeing the children’s frolicking, and a group …