A new American television series is being brazenly promoted as Sex in the City for teens. Gossip Girl may mean little yet to parents, but it's the show almost every teenage girl already knows she wants to watch this autumn.
It's based on the controversial Gossip Girl novels written by Cecily von Ziegesar, which have sold more than 4.5 million copies.
First published in 2002, the eleven novels (so far) are ostensibly aimed at girls in their mid-to-late-teens, but can often be found secreted in the satchels of girls as young as 10.
So what's the big deal? Gossip Girl follows a group of wealthy New York teen socialites. Although these impossibly beautiful, over-privileged and already decadent teens go to the very best Upper East Side New York private school, they do almost no studying. Instead they spend their time discussing sex, having sex,
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drinking, taking drugs, gossiping and shopping.
In a scene from the book Nothing Can Keep Us Together, Nate Archibald has sex with the ethereally beautiful Serena van der Woodsen in a dressing room in Bergdorf's department store: "Nate was practically bursting as he followed Serena… He grabbed her camisole and yanked it away from her body, ripping it entirely in half…"
Not surprisingly, Gossip Girl has been blasted by teachers and social critics. Post-feminist writer Naomi Wolf has slammed the novels for offering young teen girls "corruption with a cute overlay". She says: "This is not the frank sexual exploration found in a Judy Blume novel, but teenage sexuality via Juicy Couture, blase and entirely commodified."
The reaction to the TV series is sure to be as fierce. It is being produced by the creators of the 
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US telly porn
