Loose Girl

Walt Mueller:

Brokenness has plagued our world since our first parents indulged themselves in the garden. I have to believe the Scriptures when I'm told that there is nothing new under the sun. But over the course of the last several years, it at least seems to me that brokenness is running deeper and wider through our culture, particularly among our young. Maybe it's always been this way and it's my eyes that are being opened to a reality that's always existed. Still, that doesn't take away the hurt and pain.

This week I've been finishing up a painful little book that's offered a peek into one form of brokenness that runs far too deep and wide in today's youth culture.  Loose Girl is Kerry Cohen's first-person account of her admittedly dead-end efforts to squelch and eventually anesthetize her own broken self through a sexually promiscuous lifestyle that she thought would be redemptive. Not surprisingly, it didn't work. She admits in the book's introduction, "I slept with close to forty boys and men before I figured out doing so was not serving me well." Oh if only our kids would hear and heed Cohen's conclusion. Alot of pain and suffering might be side-stepped. But like Cohen, so many go down this road in search of proof "of being worthwhile" and finding "proof of being loved."

Read the rest.