Meaningless sex! Rampant drug use! Teen debauchery!

But isn't it possible that teenagers are sad because they're teenagers? Do you really think they are sadder than ever before?

Sure, everybody is sad when they're a teenager -- and I should say that I am really insecure here talking about teenagers, because I'm not one anymore. Right now I'm trying to go to Baghdad for a book on why nations go to war. Talking about teen sex -- it feels like my heart's not really in it. I feel like "Generation S.L.U.T." covers it pretty well. I don't talk to teenagers on a daily basis anymore. I can't be spokesperson for teens nationwide, because I haven't been a teen for years now. "Generation S.L.U.T." is a sweet goodbye kiss to adolescence.

How much of the book is based on your own actual experiences?

Everyone asked that about "Death to All Cheerleaders" -- what was my beef against cheerleaders? Had I dated some cheerleader who broke my heart? But that was just a rant when I was 17 and I saw cheerleaders as the epitome of all the energy I saw in high school kids my age, wasted on jumping in the air and shouting slogans about school spirit. "Generation S.L.U.T." is about a time when you have no perspective. When getting dumped or touching a girl's boob for the first time is an event of cosmic proportions. It's a book for popular kids who hate themselves. There are certainly autobiographical overtones to this book, but I wouldn't say it's ripped straight from my life.

And what is your next project, exactly?

It's called "Jew-boy Goes to Hell: Young America in World War III," in which I visit Baghdad and Tehran and Kabul and Jerusalem and the West Bank. The publisher hasn't signed on the dotted line yet. It's a really expensive project. But it's about how the war on terror will affect Generation Y, because we care more about bongs and PlayStation than the future of planet earth.

So your Jewish identity seems to play a big part in your life and your work.

One time around 11th grade when I was starting to question religion, I went to the rabbi and asked, "Why do we believe in this thing we can't prove?" And he couldn't answer me. He said, "Well, that's what I believe." It pissed me off so much. Now I'm a lifelong agnostic, but the people I know who are religious have more stable lives. I can't say the solution is God, because look at the Catholic Church, for Christ's sake!

Yeah, you're pretty free with the ethnic and religious slurs in "Generation S.L.U.T."

I have been accused of being a racist by people -- including my girlfriend -- but stereotypes are really funny and the more we make fun of them, the better. Generation X was raised on p.c. religion. "South Park" completely obliterated that.

And what about your aggression toward the feminist movement, which you seem to blame in the book for many of your generation's problems?

Feminists wanted it both ways -- they wanted to see the end of men seeing women as something to be protected and cared for. But at the same time they wanted men to see women as -- I don't want to say "superiors," but almost religiously. How do I put this into words? Once women and girls were not seen as special, and men treated them as equals, like they would other guys, not caring for them and not treating them well, they didn't like it. Men don't see them as clean and pure, but as a means to an end, a nice little fuck-hole.

But in your work, it's not just a matter of not being special anymore. You describe them as dirtier than the men, who are doing exactly the same things.

Guys don't see themselves as dirty. In the New York Times I was quoted about a year ago in an article by Alex Kuczynski. Her premise, and it had a lot of validity to it, was that because of genetics, the male tendency is to spread as much seed as possible, while women have a limited number of eggs during their lifetime. Previous generations tended to be more monogamous, but now the birth control pill has conquered nature. Now there is no stigma to the pill; girls take it just to improve their complexions. If guys don't feel filthy it's because historically that's what men do, we are genetically conditioned to act this way. For girls it's still new and not built into the social construction.

So is "Generation S.L.U.T.'s" gang rape a comment on women's sexual behavior, or is it a chronicle of the type of thing you claim actually happens at high schools?

I'm not saying it happens at every school in the nation, but sure, it happens. I went through a very dramatic breakup at college, and that probably soaked into a lot of the fiction.

Were you in the middle of your nasty breakup when you wrote the gang-rape scene?

Yes, part of the bitterness from the breakup poured into the book. I had already written the gang-rape scene, so I wasn't thinking that I was gang raping my ex or anything.

Do you consider yourself a misogynist?

I don't consider myself a misogynist. But at the same time, I'm not going to play along with this p.c. lens of how you can view women and how you can't view women.

What did your girlfriend think of the book?

She liked it, even though she didn't want to be around me for a couple days after she read it.

What is your relationship with your parents like?

I'm close to my parents; they're always involved in my life. My dad is an eye doctor; my mom is a child psychologist. Sometimes they're overprotective. They don't support my trip to Baghdad. They see no reason why I would want to do that. Sometimes I wish they would stop being such Jews.

What do they think of the book?

My father has read the book. He likes it, but said that some of it goes too far. My mom's going to need to be pumped up with Thorazine before she reads a single word. "Don't write about teen sex, Marty! Why don't you write about bunnies?" Fuck bunnies! They fuck each other, Mom -- fuck shaft in the pussy hole!

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