Friday, 13 February 2004
More than just smut: A review of Generation S.L.U.T. - PERSPECTIVES - THE COMMENTARY
By Michael Kwan
"This book is dedicated, with overflowing sympathy, to every eighteen-year-old virgin on Planet Earth. Thank Christ I wasn't one of you . . . for long."
And so begins Generation S.L.U.T., an eclectic collection of stunning anecdotes, statistics, and quotes describing the social and sexual life of the contemporary American youth. Generation S.L.U.T., or Sexually Liberated Urban Teens, has as its backbone the chilling sexual saga of a group of high school students over the course of one week. Very early on in the tale, we find Max, a naïve and alienated young man, having his first sexual experience with Ashley, a prototypical slut:
"Ashley kissed her way down to his chest and stomach, then ran her tongue up and down the shaft of his penis, massaging his testicles with one hand and stroking with the other."
I blush as I type that, despite the fact that this passage is perhaps one of the tamer and more family friendly excerpts from this offering; Marty Beckerman, the author, holds nothing back, unafraid to use vulgar language and explicit descriptions. This isn't to say that Generation S.L.U.T. can be dismissed as simply smut with teenage characters in place of Fabio and his mistress of the week. Indeed, this novella is interlaced with testimonials, comic strips and pseudo-scientific findings (for example, by the age of 14, more than half of all boys have touched a girl's breasts and a quarter have touched a girl's vulva; one half of young people report experience with fellatio and cunnilingus). We even find autobiographical accounts of Mr. Beckerman's own hormone-driven mishaps and erotic exploits from his own teenage sex life. He describes his "make-out session with watermelon tits" wherein he woos, "So can I touch your boobies now?" It is moments like these that remind us that the personas presented in Generation S.L.U.T. are still, at heart, far from mature. Likewise, the real life data brings his fictional narrative closer to reality.
Generation S.L.U.T. is interlaced with quotations. Some of these come from well-known mainstream publications like The New York Times, but of greater interest are the semi-anonymous confessionals from teenagers across the United States. These portions of the text are what give the fictional story some credibility, reminding us that the world presented there is not far from our "real world," as it were. For example, Jessica Jones, age 13, says, "It is like, when you go to a party and get drunk, you get horny. That is just what happens, and you hook up with people. Most people have sex." I don't know if this is the typical day-to-day for a youth growing up south of the 49th parallel (or in Alaska, where Marty Beckerman spent his childhood), but it certainly was not a typical entry in the journal for this scribe at the age of 13. Like all hormone-driven teenage boys, thoughts of girls and sexual acts randomly floated about my head, but at age 13, I, for one, was not prepared for a drunken anonymous sexual romp. Maybe it's just me.
I'm not sure what the take home message is supposed to be. The novella presents itself as a shocker with comedic value, but as the story develops, we begin to see some of the darker sides of teenage promiscuity. We begin to face the realities of teenage suicide, self-mutilation and drug overdoses. We begin to forget that this all happens on a timeframe of one week. Maybe it is true that "All's fair in love and whores," or maybe it is true that if a girl says yes, she's a slut but if she says no, she's a prude. I'm not sure. What I am sure about is that this book is a real page-turner, a book that you will not put down. Yes, it is crude and vulgar, and perhaps it is very alarming to read about the erotic misadventures of Marty Beckerman's fictional (though, in part, based on fact?) teens, but it is for exactly these reasons that this reading is worthwhile.
I fear this book may fall into the wrong hands and be pulled from the shelves shortly after publication. A concerned mother may now begin to worry (even more) what her 15-year-old daughter does on the weekends when she says she is going to a pyjama party. Or perhaps the 18-year-old virgin will now begin to obsess (even more) over giving up his V-card, fearing he is falling behind his 14-year-old brother. But for this 21-year old starving student with a short attention span, Generation S.L.U.T. is a delightful read and, dare I say, a must read for the seasoned veteran and closet pervs alike.
Generation S.L.U.T.: A Brutal Feel-up Session with Today's Sex-Crazed Adolescent Populace (ISBN 0-743-471091) by Marty Beckerman is published by MTV Books. (Prices: $17.95 CDN, $11.95 USD).
Michael Kwan's website, Now That's Entertainment. . ., can be found here http://www.geocities.com/now_thats_entertainment