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Generation S.L.U.T.: A Brutal Feel-up Session with Today's Sex-Crazed Adolescent Populace
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.
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.
- GenresNonfictionSexuality
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 4, 2011
I fucking hated this book. I read it a couple of years ago, and at the time it struck me as being very sensationalist, not very well written, and pretty misogynistic. There was a lot of hype surrounding the book because the author was really young when it came out and because the subject matter, part of which is presented as journalism, was "controversial". Personally, I think it would have been much more compelling to present a more well-rounded view of teenage sexuality. Interspersing gory rape scenes with gross quotes from "real" teens about how detached they are and what fucked up sex lives they have basically amounts to shock value. There was no insight and no feeling behind any of this, and no mention of the possibility that someone, teen or otherwise, could possibly have a well-adjusted or healthy attitude about sex. I guess that would have made for a boring read.
May 7, 2020
Yes, he can write. But choosing to write a misogynistic and clichéd novella liberally sprinkled with stats and sensational newspaper stories is a poor choice of applying his skills. The boys in this book are mostly reprehensible and the girls completely undeveloped and non dimensional (sic). Even twenty years ago it wasn’t cool for the boys to treat the girls like this. It lacks insight into the hearts of these kids (and this generation) despite claiming to be just that.
April 26, 2016
This book attempts to be the hooking-up bible of Gen-Y, both celebrating and despairing of the directionless, sad, loveless lives of SLUTS (sexually liberated urban teens) circa 2001. About half the book is a fictional novella (broken up along the way by snippets of alarming statistics, news clippings, “anonymous” teen testimonials, and author Beckerman’s own essays and biographical anecdotes as a sexually active Gen-Y teen) telling a somewhat melodramatic, tragic story of the results of the heedless sexual exploits of the young. Brett and Trevor are high school celebs (rivals and former friends with a dirty secret) with many notches on their belts, Ashley a suicidal girl of easy virtue, Quinn (Brett and Trevor’s girl, consecutively), Julie the new ostensibly “nice” girl in the neighborhood, and Max, the only guy in the story who seems to have traditional morals and is branded a bit of a dork for wanting true love amid all the decadence.
Beckerman’s novel within this “teen-sex-for-dummies” format is kind of sub-par Brett Easton Ellis (Less than Zero territory) crossed with Larry Clark’s exploitation-cum-cautionary-tale film Kids. Most of the male characters are crass, brutal, misogynistic, insensitive, arrogant, cocksure, and profane – particularly Brett and Trevor – and the way they talk about, and to, girls is cringe-inducing, but that is the way of the player.
Of course most of the kids are, at heart, sensitive, just misguided. The book is not some Christian moralistic alarmist treatise in disguise, and Beckerman more or less admits that balancing the good and the bad of contemporary sexual freedom is a difficult feat. The book thus contains mixed messages, though they are understandably unavoidable. Much angst about 911 is thrown in for added attempts at gravitas.
The book is not unlike a Michael Moore documentary, a jumble of opinions, statistics, disjointed facts and creative fiction meant to illustrate a higher truth, and for that I respected the book. It’s a bit of an oddity, but with all the sex and drama it was hard to put down. And I have to admit, the cover turns me on. FYI, the back cover has the lower legs and feet of the girl’s hookup (with his boxers around his ankles), so that if you open both covers you can see the two standing next to each other.
I appreciated the reference on page 73 to the English teacher Mrs. Lovelace giving the students an oral exam. Look up the movie Deep Throat, in case you’re a member of Gen-Y and don’t get the inside joke.
I'm probably rating this a star higher than it deserves, but it kept my attention.
Beckerman’s novel within this “teen-sex-for-dummies” format is kind of sub-par Brett Easton Ellis (Less than Zero territory) crossed with Larry Clark’s exploitation-cum-cautionary-tale film Kids. Most of the male characters are crass, brutal, misogynistic, insensitive, arrogant, cocksure, and profane – particularly Brett and Trevor – and the way they talk about, and to, girls is cringe-inducing, but that is the way of the player.
Of course most of the kids are, at heart, sensitive, just misguided. The book is not some Christian moralistic alarmist treatise in disguise, and Beckerman more or less admits that balancing the good and the bad of contemporary sexual freedom is a difficult feat. The book thus contains mixed messages, though they are understandably unavoidable. Much angst about 911 is thrown in for added attempts at gravitas.
The book is not unlike a Michael Moore documentary, a jumble of opinions, statistics, disjointed facts and creative fiction meant to illustrate a higher truth, and for that I respected the book. It’s a bit of an oddity, but with all the sex and drama it was hard to put down. And I have to admit, the cover turns me on. FYI, the back cover has the lower legs and feet of the girl’s hookup (with his boxers around his ankles), so that if you open both covers you can see the two standing next to each other.
I appreciated the reference on page 73 to the English teacher Mrs. Lovelace giving the students an oral exam. Look up the movie Deep Throat, in case you’re a member of Gen-Y and don’t get the inside joke.
I'm probably rating this a star higher than it deserves, but it kept my attention.
November 13, 2007
Really didnt learn anything from this.. but i thought it was a very interesting book.. and very exciting... this book was really good.. i ended up reading it in 3 hours or so.. i would not reccomend this book to anyone under 13 cause there is a lot of drug use, fould language, etc.
January 27, 2011
Alright, I tend to steer away from MTV products, but this one intrigued me. I barely paid attention to MTV when I was a teenager, and I would say I was the venerable outcast in High School. I think this book is designed to try to get you to identify with at least one of the characters. I was not part of that "party scene" that is talked about, not only here, but in books & movies concerning college. I was the kid that most people only saw at school, because I typically stayed home, played guitar, read books, and played video games. That was my life. I did have a girlfriend and a few friends that would come over, but that's about it. So I'm not some sex crazed whacked out druggy alcoholic that can reminisce about scenes in this book, nor was I tempted to be one of these people as most of the "outcast" kids are portrayed in this book.
While I can't personally relate to the "party scene" in this book, I thought it was an interesting read overall. Is this the reality of the situation this book tries to portray? Well, not every High School will be like this, not every teenager will do these things. On the other side, there ARE some teenagers that do this and there ARE High Schools that have these problems. Not everyone has parents who don't care about them. Not all of these statistics are 100% accurate. I'm a Financial Analyst and math is kind of my thing. And anyone who knows anything about Probability & Statistics knows that you can easily lie or misconstrue the truth with them. So I take stats with a grain of salt, but I did find them interesting. I also found the way they worked into the book a very creative and unique idea (and yes, a good idea as well). I also thought it was a very interesting and good idea for the author to have little personal stories between the chapters.
I think the books message overall is a good one, but I don't think everything is a major problem and it's not just an "America" issue like some people think. Throughout history there have ALWAYS been people that fall into this category and roles (i.e. the sex crazed party maniac). I mean there are ancient rulers that had harems, it's not like this group sex concept is totally new and revolutionary. I think the more disturbing part is that people find this "shocking" as if it's never happened before. I think the books message of being a general wake-up call IS the point. People do need to wake up. I think this points out that the lack of parenting in some cases is becoming a problem. My parents are both High School teachers and I, too often, here stupid stories of uneducated parents trying to point the finger someplace else for their childs misdeeds. The parents are usually the first ones to say it's the schools fault, when if the parent had been around more then maybe something wouldn't have happened. This is also a societal problem, because the parents aren't around just becuase they don't want to be (all the time), in a lot of cases they are at work. Society now demands the work of TWO parents in a household a lot of times. Being a stay at home mom or dad is not that easy anymore. And no, this isn't just an American problem, it's going to be Global as the third world more and more joins the forces of our growing economy.
I think, in the end, maybe the book was a little over the top in it's portrayal of sex scenes, but a lot of times you need to go to extremes to get people to pay attention these days (within logical reason of course). I think he wrote an engrossing story with characters people can get into, even though just about all of them are tragic characters. The book was not very long so character development was sort of minimal, but I think the point there was to get our ADHD plagued society to sit still for an hour to read a book that might mean something to them. I'm sorry but "To Kill a Mocking Bird" didn't really speak to me generationally when I was in High School and I doubt it does now even though some may enjoy the story.
While I can't personally relate to the "party scene" in this book, I thought it was an interesting read overall. Is this the reality of the situation this book tries to portray? Well, not every High School will be like this, not every teenager will do these things. On the other side, there ARE some teenagers that do this and there ARE High Schools that have these problems. Not everyone has parents who don't care about them. Not all of these statistics are 100% accurate. I'm a Financial Analyst and math is kind of my thing. And anyone who knows anything about Probability & Statistics knows that you can easily lie or misconstrue the truth with them. So I take stats with a grain of salt, but I did find them interesting. I also found the way they worked into the book a very creative and unique idea (and yes, a good idea as well). I also thought it was a very interesting and good idea for the author to have little personal stories between the chapters.
I think the books message overall is a good one, but I don't think everything is a major problem and it's not just an "America" issue like some people think. Throughout history there have ALWAYS been people that fall into this category and roles (i.e. the sex crazed party maniac). I mean there are ancient rulers that had harems, it's not like this group sex concept is totally new and revolutionary. I think the more disturbing part is that people find this "shocking" as if it's never happened before. I think the books message of being a general wake-up call IS the point. People do need to wake up. I think this points out that the lack of parenting in some cases is becoming a problem. My parents are both High School teachers and I, too often, here stupid stories of uneducated parents trying to point the finger someplace else for their childs misdeeds. The parents are usually the first ones to say it's the schools fault, when if the parent had been around more then maybe something wouldn't have happened. This is also a societal problem, because the parents aren't around just becuase they don't want to be (all the time), in a lot of cases they are at work. Society now demands the work of TWO parents in a household a lot of times. Being a stay at home mom or dad is not that easy anymore. And no, this isn't just an American problem, it's going to be Global as the third world more and more joins the forces of our growing economy.
I think, in the end, maybe the book was a little over the top in it's portrayal of sex scenes, but a lot of times you need to go to extremes to get people to pay attention these days (within logical reason of course). I think he wrote an engrossing story with characters people can get into, even though just about all of them are tragic characters. The book was not very long so character development was sort of minimal, but I think the point there was to get our ADHD plagued society to sit still for an hour to read a book that might mean something to them. I'm sorry but "To Kill a Mocking Bird" didn't really speak to me generationally when I was in High School and I doubt it does now even though some may enjoy the story.
February 18, 2016
This book was not what I expected. From a research standpoint, this book would be a good resource to grab some of the statistics that the author includes in the book - but other than that this book doesn't have any academic value.
While I do agree with the social commentary that is attempted, the story that the author creates seems, in my opinion, extremely far-fetched. As I read through the book, there were certain scenes and situations that made me think "yea, that is true with some teens / people Ive met /etc" but at other times I thought to myself "nobody I have EVER met [or have heard about] talks like this / would say something like that / etc"
Even if the entire story does apply to some teenagers, I think that the way it is depicted in the book makes it seem that this is how every typical teenager talks and acts, which certainly isn't the case.
Overall I didn't hate the book but I didn't think it was that great either
While I do agree with the social commentary that is attempted, the story that the author creates seems, in my opinion, extremely far-fetched. As I read through the book, there were certain scenes and situations that made me think "yea, that is true with some teens / people Ive met /etc" but at other times I thought to myself "nobody I have EVER met [or have heard about] talks like this / would say something like that / etc"
Even if the entire story does apply to some teenagers, I think that the way it is depicted in the book makes it seem that this is how every typical teenager talks and acts, which certainly isn't the case.
Overall I didn't hate the book but I didn't think it was that great either
February 23, 2014
I can see why someone would hate this book. I did all the way up until the end when my perspective changed.
It's a fast read and pretty immature. "omg, teens are having sex and drinking and don't connect like in the good old days. How nihilistic and meaningless and horrible."
That being said, the author of the book was 20 years old when this was published which I think gives this book perspective. It hints towards the alienation and feelings of hopelessness of the author in a time when he is still growing up and becoming an adult. The book may seem immature since the author is not fully mature, but I think viewing it as the perspective of an disheartened young adult gives it merit.
And yea, the writing sucks but whatever.
It's a fast read and pretty immature. "omg, teens are having sex and drinking and don't connect like in the good old days. How nihilistic and meaningless and horrible."
That being said, the author of the book was 20 years old when this was published which I think gives this book perspective. It hints towards the alienation and feelings of hopelessness of the author in a time when he is still growing up and becoming an adult. The book may seem immature since the author is not fully mature, but I think viewing it as the perspective of an disheartened young adult gives it merit.
And yea, the writing sucks but whatever.
July 1, 2008
This book was a few things: a) a very quick read, b) mildly amusing and concerning at the same time and c) a nice collection of statistics.
It's a nice book to prop up on your bookshelf and does well to raise eyebrows when strangers scan your titles. Even better if you leave it on the coffee table and use it to start a conversation. However past that, I found it pretty useless. It's not a 'curl up and read it' kind of book nor a 'use as a source for a Sociology paper' book.
It's a nice book to prop up on your bookshelf and does well to raise eyebrows when strangers scan your titles. Even better if you leave it on the coffee table and use it to start a conversation. However past that, I found it pretty useless. It's not a 'curl up and read it' kind of book nor a 'use as a source for a Sociology paper' book.
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April 7, 2009For my age this book is realy nasty and I never want to read a book like this again. I can be mature if somebody says the word "sex" but this book uses every other word I dont want to here at this age. On the other hand it does teach you what can happen if you get ingaged in sexual intercourse at an early age. I only recommend this book to people that can handle it and are interested in things like this.
June 11, 2009
this book is not that bad. I would recommened it to people who do like books like these. But i think that it just gives facts and facts about sex and todays life in teenagers. Does this book have a 2nd generation? How come the stories are so so long? my FAVORITE part of the book is in all the chapters the explain facts like for example out of every ..... and it includes some comics also!!!!
February 25, 2011
I have no idea how to review this book: I was intrigued by all the statistics (from 2003) and horrified at the same time. Some of the actual story part wasn't all that fun to read and I wish there had been less of the novel part and more of the statistics/quotes part. Eye-opening and frightening.
October 18, 2013
Es un libro interesante que a manera de cuento nos da una idea de lo que sucede con los jóvenes (en este caso americanos, pero que se puede adaptar a todos los países) y los peligros que corren con el tema de drogas, alcohol y sexo. Es un libro de facil lectura.
June 23, 2007
Great premise, horrible and cliched writing.
September 19, 2007
a romp thru over sexed and over drugged teens. the story is meant to shock you and it has some dubious stats thru the story about what teens are "actually" doing.
December 29, 2009
marty beckerman is a god. and he wrote this at the awesome age of 20. read it. love it.
July 14, 2010
It would scare any teenager straight.
June 15, 2024
Cifras alarmantes sin lugar a duda. Es necesario inculcar muchos buenos valores.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews