Hey, you there. Are you aged between 18 and 34? Excellent. Here are a few fun questions, purely in the interest of furthering serious sociological study. Have you ever had sex with a stranger? Did you like it? Have you ever made love with more than one person at the same time? Care to elaborate? Ever masturbated? Okay, now to politics: You can either screw others over or get screwed yourself. Agree or disagree?
These, a genuine sample of a 149-question, pan-European survey into Millennial attitudes, are questions that really ought to be answered with a question. Who’s asking?
Generation What? (RTÉ Two, Tuesday, 10.30pm), which began as a televised survey in France in 2013, and has since spread to respondents in 14 European countries hungry for simplistic snapshots, is apparently so down with the kids it can cut right to the chase. Damn, homies, it's so chill it even asks if you've ever smoked a doobie with your freakin' parents! Oh, no you di'int, Generation What! Strange, then, that it should shy away completely from one of the most obvious and heated questions facing this generation.
The Irish edition is presented by Eoghan McDermott, whose leather biker jacket seems a more honest choice than a lab coat. McDermott teases out the results with a professor of history ("On a frivolous note, the way Millennials speak . . . " he prods), a pair of sociologists on high stools, a panel that includes a politician, a journalist and a very apologetic priest, a conspicuously diverse studio audience, and a galaxy of talking heads filmed at home in Ireland and abroad.
The show will only stick with the topic for the first quarter of its running time
It is the last of whom that convey most sense. Take one man’s levelheaded response to this presumably poorly translated doozie: There is too much sex. Yes or no? “The way they use sex to sell everything now, it’s pathetic,” he says. Isn’t it, though? Thus shamed, the show will only stick with the topic for the first quarter of its running time.
Still, the intersection of sex and politics is certainly an urgent issue for young people today, who, to breeze through the other findings, are identified as mostly liberal, broadly feminist (two thirds of female respondents agree Ireland is a long way from gender equality, versus just under half of men), bitterly alert to income inequality, supportive of social welfare, significantly appreciative of same-sex relationships, welcoming to immigration, and, by an overwhelming majority (80 per cent), utterly indifferent to religion.
Why, then, among the generation most likely to be affected by the issue, is there not a single question, answer or opinion volunteered on the subject of abortion? Did a survey that wonders so frankly about your experience with sex toys and S&M, same-sex marriage and public displays of gay affection, never think to ask about pregnancies, wanted or otherwise?
It's here that the whole operation, and the Irish undertaking especially, seems unforgivably craven. Remember, Millennials, don't trust anyone over 34. Generation What? won't stop asking you about sex, but when it comes to consequences, it doesn't want to know.
