Generation S.L.U.T.: A Brutal Feel-up Session with Today's Sex-Crazed Adolescent Populace [Paperback]

Marty Beckerman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 24, 2004

The first exploration of the sex lives of modern teens, as reported from the frontlines by twenty-year-old Marty Beckerman.

Innovatively combining fact and fiction, the book is filled with mind-shattering stats, news reports, and confessions from adolescents nationwide about the new American "Hook-Up Culture," in which 7,700 kids lose their virginity every day.

Far from religious proselytizing, Generation S.L.U.T. seeks to find the balance between sexual freedom and sexual responsibility, and even the most cynical readers (not to mention parents) will find themselves speechless and heartbroken. Blunt and brutal, tackling everything from preteen oral sex to gun violence, sexual assault, and suicide, Beckerman's tour de force through contemporary adolescence will leave you stunned, breathless, and ultimately horrified.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

S.L.U.T. is Beckerman's acronym for Sexually Liberated Urban Teens, and in this outrageous, chilling blend of fact and fiction, the 20-year-old author characterizes his view of his generation: hypersexual, emotionally vacant, and disturbingly tolerant of abuse. Beckerman sets his story in a high-school social scene in which parties are seemingly joyless orgies of detached sex. Naive, sensitive Max is an anomaly, unlike his crass friend Brett. Julia is a new girl with soul and integrity; Trevor is a precocious young tycoon, adored by his parents, who is actually a rapist and a pornographer. The slight story about Max's first crush and Trevor's profound villainy is overpowered by Beckerman's purposeful unveiling of the vicious social climate: there's an extremely graphic gang rape, several kids attempt suicide, and parents are caricatures of ineffectuality. Beckerman runs into some trouble with occasional autobiographical segments that show he is clearly a participant in the world he chronicles; a swagger (references to the state of his penis and his favorite sexual position, for example) seeps into some of his writing, undermining what seems to be his strident message: a generation is being lost. He reinforces that message much more effectively with the deeply unnerving "S.L.U.T. Stats," culled from journalism and medical studies, that appear throughout the book, and it's this skillfully edited compilation of contemporary teen attitudes toward sex that is perhaps this disturbing book's best justification for purchase. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Hunter S. Thompson Good work, you morbid little bastard.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: MTV Books; Original edition (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743471091
• ISBN-13: 978-0743471091
• Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 6 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,137,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marty Beckerman is the author of #1 Amazon.com bestselling parody THE HEMING WAY (St. Martin's Press), which USA Today called "laugh-out-loud," and most recently '90s ISLAND. He has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, Playboy, Maxim, Wired, Mental Floss, Nerve, Salon, Discover, the Daily Beast and MTV.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 62 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Three for Honesty April 23, 2004

By Gautner

Format:Paperback

I borrowed Beckerman's book from a friend after seeing him appear on Bill O'Reilly's "The Factor." I almost immediately began to like Beckerman as he drug out two verbal cannon balls that absolutely no one any older than Beckerman would dare drag out. First, was his insinuation that there was a backlash from the feminist revolution affecting Generations X and Y. Secondly, he slipped a comment about parents buying their 13 year-old daughters thong panties in under the wire, and neither Bill nor his other guest either heard it, or knew quite how to respond. The fact that Beckerman is willing to raise these issues in such a point-blank fashion earns him three stars.

Here is where he loses two stars. Firstly, he detests the culture of teen sex without emotional connection, but MTV publishes the book. This is the reason I borrowed the book rather than buying the book. If I am as outraged by the trashy `poptarts' in the malls being `chaperoned' by their `fifty-going-on-fifteen' mothers as Beckerman, I am unlikely to be a big fan of MTV - the largest purveyor of classless and clueless as cool. He should have held out for a more credible publisher. Secondly, Beckerman's `story and stats' technique doesn't work for me. If he wanted to write a story it would have had to have some subtlety (see the short story "Lust" by Susan Minot for example), and if he wanted to write social commentary, he should have simply done it (see "A Return to Modesty," by Wendy Shalit, or "Modern Sex: Liberation and its Discontents," edited by Myron Magnet).

Ultimately, Beckerman's language and stylistic tactics are products of the same generation's relativism he is so critical of. Beckerman is right to indict a shameless generation, and incriminate the parent's for the part they've played in it. He is right not to play the pedantic games sociologists, psychologists, and the various others with an agenda to propagate do; however, what he lacks is maturity, and this should not be confused with pedantry. With maturity will come depth, and with depth durability - Beckerman may yet write what will become this generation's testament, but this book is not it.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Silly stick figures May 12, 2005

By Dan Brady

Format:Paperback

I'll admit it - the quoted review by Hunter S. Thompson was a large factor in my decision to buy this book. After having read the book, I can only assume that when he read it, Thompson was, well ... Hunter S. Thompson.

This story may have some relevance to some small segments of today's teens - but it's certainly not representative of the majority of them. The 'bad guy' is an overblown Eddie Haskell (anyone else remember Leave It To Beaver?), held up as an icon of success by parents, fantastically wealthy from his own earnings, amazingly sadistic, and totally without fear of consequences - easy to despise, difficult to believe at all.

Are there parents as absent and ineffectual as this book depicts? Certainly. Are there teens as vicious and depraved as are shown in this story? Oh, probably. Is anyone as shallow and unthinking as the author claims is typical in the generation being "exposed" in this book? If there is, I've never met them.

By the author's own admission, he was unable to lose his virginity until he was 18, yet he describes a high school world of casual sex and weekend orgies with no consequences at all. In essense, he whines about being excluded from this world he invents while he sneers at it.

Some titilating scenes, a fair narrative voice - not a total waste of time, but it certainly does not live up to the hype.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Scary, Yes. True, No. February 5, 2005

By Cathy

Format:Paperback

There are two very frightening things about this book: the fact that the author seems to believe what he's saying, and the fact that others who haven't recently been teenagers may believe him also. But there aren't any actual facts in Generation S.L.U.T. Even many of the statistics that Beckerman has compiled are disputable and based on questionable data collection methods. His analysis of why today's adolescents are "sex-crazed" is that the feminist movement is to blame, yet he does no analysis of the male villain of the fictional sections of this book, a young man who turns disturbing power fantasies into reality. In fact, all of his fictional characters lack development-Beckerman created so much external drama that the real internal struggles are never apparent. Which is sad, because there is a lot to be said for the young and depressed who are often feeling too alone to say anything for themselves.

This book purports to be a voice for Generation Y, but Beckerman is too caught up in his own misogynistic universe to really analyze the situation with true depth. If you want to find out what's really going on with today's young people, I suggest you speak to someone a little more balanced . . . unfortunately, the balanced ones don't seem to be published.