Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity
What makes Loose Girl moving is the sheer amount of tragic honesty Cohen puts on the pages. No punches pulled, nothing watered down, just detail after promiscuous detail of a young woman desperate to be loved and her years looking for this love in all the wrong places, usually under the sheets. While this journey of self-examination is commendable and at times powerful in its scope and honesty, Cohen leaves something to be desired.
Again, praise to Cohen for a captivating memoir detailing her descent into promiscuity and addiction to male attention, but what matters here? At times riveting but little attention is paid to the consequences of her actions. Not a slight against Cohen’s skill as a writer, she’s detailed years of attempting to garner love from boys and men by handing over her body in an attempt to control them and exercise power, but it all seems a little unresolved, a little too trite.
What’s ultimately missing? For lack of a better term, karma. Cohen delves into years of poor choices centering around her sexual desires, and what drives her need for companionship and fulfillment, but despite her reckless behavior everything turns out hunky dory.
Now, it isn’t about wanting her to fail, not in the least, and who doesn’t need more hunk and dory in their life? The ultimate failing of Loose Girl resides in its inability to garner any sense of triumph as we watch our protagonist come to grips with her lifestyle choices.
No easing into things slowly. The beginning pages drop the reader headfirst into Kerry’s world of divorced parents, unfulfilled desires, and her initial steps onto the road of teenage promiscuity. At times, this can be dark stuff, and we keep turning the pages in order to see what happens, maintaining the hope that while it’s rough going getting into the head of this teenager, at some point along this road lies consciousness; the realization that despite her troubled past, Kerry is a person of value who needs to love herself before seeking the love of others.
Cohen is almost cavalier about her sexual exploits. She can see what drove her behavior, but there is no sense of remorse for the damage her choices caused to herself and others—and therein lays the real tragedy of this memoir.