I am absolutely certain that sometime around the birthing years 1985-1987 there occurred a generational lapse. An old generational regime (Y) ended and a new one began. Behavioral evidence overwhelming supports such a hypothesis. Those born post roughly 1987 can be classified as those who grew up in the 2000s; those who were born, roughly, prior to 1987 can be categorized as growing up in the 1990s. The difference between ’90s culture and 2000s culture, unfortunately, could not be starker. In the case of those who grew up in the 2000s, the concomitant youths could not be stupider, sluttier, more narcissistic, self-absorbed and worthless.

Examples: The Backstreet Boys, an absolutely excellent pop group, by far the most popular pop group of the 1990s, and arguably one of the greatest ever. Pop groups typically appeal to teenage girls and boys and are definitive elements of a generation. The most sexually perverse thing a Backstreet Boy ever said in a song was to pose a simple, hypothetically, inoffensive thing like “Am I sexual?” The song “I Want It That Way,” maybe the most popular pop song ever produced, offended my sensibilities like a filet mignon from Peter Luger’s offends my pallet.

Compare this to the songs that define a 16-year-old girl’s summer in 2005. “Better carry big things if you know what I mean.” Or perhaps you prefer: “I sex a nigga so good he just gotta tell his boys.” Maybe the watershed generational moment was when “My neck, my back, lick my pussy and my crack” was released to an unassuming pre-teen set. This garbage makes me sick like dining hall chili. The number one song on the billboard charts recently was “Grillz” a song about Nelly’s shiny dentures, which somehow attract beautiful women like an American soldier in post-WWII France. The fact that children of this bizarre generation are amused by such things speaks for itself.

I have been absolutely shocked, repulsed, and revolted by the patterns of sexual behavior of this 2000 generation. I am absolutely, positively certain this is not the generation I grew up in. I have a step-sister who is a sophomore at a prestigious Catholic school in Westchester. She (verifiably) is very studious and a good girl. However, the stories she tells me would make a NAMBLA convention seem like a Bible conference. She estimates 30 percent of girls entering high school are not virgins, the amount that are not “technical virgins” being much, much higher still. This is corroborated by a recent Atlantic Monthly report entitled “The Monica Generation,” which documents a trend of pre-teen girls engaging in rampant and unreciprocated oral sex. Fellatio has, evidently, replaced handshaking. It presents an argument that the post-2000 incarnation of feminism in teenagers boils down to sucking dick. Girls educated in proper progressive feminist doctrine find in that ethos a reasonable ethical basis for unreciprocated fellatio. She believes that the girl should control the man’s desires and even a sexual scenario entirely, and that she can, and thus should, use such powers to manipulate a situation in her favor. In the ’90s, X-Pac told the world to metaphorically suck it every time he appeared in public. Unfortunately, those in the 2000s took this message seriously.

To conclude, no, this is not the world I grew up in. Not even close. The world my 15-year-old step-sister lives in is a decidedly different one than I had at 15. There was certainly a generational transition. With the end of the Clinton era, Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the collapse of the happy-go-lucky economy and other broad social changes, a new society emerged.

Joe Galante Eisenberg is a junior economics major.