Reading Generation S.L.U.T., by Mary Beckerman, is like watching a teen reality TV show, so it is fitting that the book was published by MTV Books/Pocket Books.
The book begins with a multitude of distressing quotes and statistics about the sexual activities of teenagers. For instance – did you know that, according to a study by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, an average 7,700 American teenagers lose their virginity each day?
Beckerman intersperses a “fictional” tale of several teens with sections of statistics like this. Are Beckerman’s characters based on anyone from real life? You can’t tell, but one gets the impression they are an amalgam of characteristics of many teens the 20-year-old author knew when he was their age.
Sadly, only one of the characters has any real depth, and the situations the characters get into cover just about every cliché in the media about out-of-control kids. If you believe Beckerman, his characters are the new “everyteen” and the upcoming generation of young adults is completely and utterly screwed up with no hope of redemption. Come on, Beckerman, even Burgess gave us a redemptive epilogue in A Clockwork Orange that gave us even a glimmer of hope for the future of his characters.
Beckerman does his research, though. Starting with the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s, he cites many sources that blame today’s promiscuity on the “free love” notions of the hippy era. Beckerman snidely remarks “Free Love? Naaah. In fact, meaningless, uncommitted intercourse was the Sexual Revolution’s only real objective or outcome—and maybe this is why more than half of all Baby Boomers have been divorced at least once, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
Beckerman goes on to quote from Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, which suggested “The exhilaration of liberation has evaporated, however, for it is unclear what exactly was liberated … [Adolescents] are not sure what they feel for one another and are without guidance about what to do with whatever they may feel.”
If there is any sign of hope at all, it is that Beckerman himself lived through that age and looks back at it now with a repulsed, if cynical eye.
208 pgs.
