LOOSE
GIRL
BY
KERRY COHEN
THE
BLURB:-
“There
is a new boy I like. I see him every other day when our classes let
out at the same time. He has long, dark hair and unbelievably
beautiful eyes. Almost immediately I can feel the energy between us,
the promise of something to come.”
Kerry
first noticed the power she had over the opposite sex at the age of
eleven. By the time she was in her teens she was obsessed by boys,
and soon she needed sex just to feel alive.
Sleeping
with countless partners, Kerry's misguided search for love was
getting out of hand. But would she ever find what she really
needed?
THE
REALITY:-
This didn't come across
as a diary of a sex addict- I've read before about the desperation
involved with using sex like a powerful drug and that tipping point
where the addiction begins to control the addicted- that obsessive
crave whilst searching for the next fix and total breakdown when denied
it. Rather, this came across as a journal of a thoroughly normal
young woman's sexual conquests!
Maybe that came from
being brought up in a small town. It was the kind of place where
eleven year old girls think they are pregnant by an eighteen year old
“boy”; the kind of place where a fourteen year old girl has a
baby and there are six possible candidates for the position of
father; the kind of place where a fifteen year old girl keeps a sex
diary listing the twelve or thirteen boys she has fucked, with boxes
ticked for fellatio, cunnilingus, anal, a bit of finger etc; the kind
of place where a twelve year old loses her virginity and, a couple of
years later, takes out a group photograph of her male "friends", pointing, laughing and boasting about who she's been out with, got
off with or just plain shagged. This, sadly, is all true. Although with the latter female, I've always thought that half the fun with regard to having sex is
the boasting about it afterwards. A bit blokeish, me!
When I moved to London,
in my early twenties, I was surprised how innocent and decent the
girls were when it came to sex. Maybe it's because, in the
provinces, there is nothing much to do and no future to plan other
than getting married and having babies. And with that comes too much
focus on the former experimentation and exploration. I'm glad I
don't have a teenage daughter. If I'd had a child, I would have
made sure I did the preliminaries at an early age; those being making
sure the poor little mite had such a bigged-up sense of self esteem
that she didn't feel the need to validate her worthiness via the
media of sex. The peer pressure to perform at an earlier and earlier
age is absolutely colossal (and depressing.) It was there when I was
at school and, like autobiographical Kerry in the book, my parents
had to take a large share of the blame where my particular behaviour was concerned.
Like Kerry, I also noticed my power over the opposite sex at the age
of eleven. I won't tell you how- it's rather freaky and for my next
novel. Like Kerry, I also used sex as a weapon, although for her it
was to shore up her shattered sense of worthiness and for me it was
an act of rebellion and sticking one in the eyes of my verbally
abusive and morally self righteous parents, and getting my own back
on certain vile boyfriends. One teenage suitor in particular was a
nasty, jealous, insecure, possessive bastard who wasn't fit to even be in my presence. I stayed
with him because I was young and innocent and didn't know any better.
But to this day I haven't cheated on someone as much as I cheated on
him. And I'm proud of it! I'm not sorry that I lowered myself to
get him and my parents back! It shows that I thought very little of
them, which is exactly how they deserved to be thought of! But it's
not necessarily a good way to behave and thankfully I grew out of it
and raised my standards. Kerry's parents must take some share of the
blame in the novel. They both come across as too hedonistic and the
boundaries seem to be blurred where sex is concerned. For instance,
Kerry's mother touching Kerry's sister Tyler's breasts and mentioning
that it can feel quite nice when a man does it. Or Kerry's dad
getting into bed with teenage Kerry just for a cuddle, because he
needs comfort. Neither of them are perverts, but uuurrrggghhh!
That's too much familiarity.
I was glad that this
book was only 300 pages long and that the writing was well-spaced, as
it meant it was over quickly. It didn't seem that great. What I
would have loved to have read were gory descriptive details laid out
there, such as who had a walloping big penis and who was hung like a
toddler; who was a fantastic shag and who was a jackrabbit who came
in two seconds flat. This had all the power to be humorous but just
came across as a bit depressing. I also found it hard to relate to
some of Kerry's situations and choices as Americans always seem to be
so well-off in comparison to us British. Their standard of living is
certainly better than ours. The book did, however, make the very good point that a lot of young women use sex as a means of attracting attention. Again, parents wise up and do your job properly, then maybe youngsters won't feel so inclined to seek emotional fulfillment outside of the family home. This is probably a book a teenage girl
would find enjoyable but for me it was just okay and nothing more.
