Why I’ll never apologize for loving Sex...and the City
I recall the airing of the series finale vividly. It was a Dad weekend. So I was in Roswell, at my then step-Mother’s house. I holed up in my room that was just a guest room but with a tv and bathroom so I claimed it as my own on my weekends. It had a big queen sized bed with what felt like hundreds of pillows, and a chest right at the foot of the bed to keep all the decorative pillows while you slept. The room itself from what I can remember was draped in neutrals and I pushed every soft thing to the foot of the bed and immersed myself in the pillowy mound as I prepared to watch as Big flew to Paris to get our girl.
My father, the cheapest man in the world, didn’t understand why I insisted they have HBO if I were going to visit. I would faithfully lock myself in my room on my pillow mountain for each episode and refused to be disturbed. I didn’t want to explain why, and at 16 I reasonably was unjustified. But God, I’m glad my parents just gave me free reign to devour the world of Sex in the City.
Then—I saw myself as a Carrie. A romantic realist who was a shoe addicted, fashion loving writer. I mean it made sense. My walls throughout high school and college were covered with the pages of high fashion magazines. I’ve never been attracted to anything reasonable. No, it has always been Hermès, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Halston. “Most people don’t even know who or what Halston IS!” I recalled when I bought my first Halston bag. It was army green with gold hardware fixtures. I wanted it because it was beautiful, but also because Carrie wore Halston. Some people flock to celebrities, my heroes are fictional characters.
I asked an ex of mine which character he thought I most embodied. A game my girlfriends and to be honest, a game most of us who came of age in the 90s and had the luxury of premium cable play. “Am I a Carrie? A Samantha, a Miranda or a Charlotte?” I waited holding my breath waiting for him to affirm me as “a Carrie” because of my daring fashion and love of “looks” no matter how stylized or over done I was. He answered without thinking “oh you? You’re Big.”
To say my world was shattered would be an understatement. BIG? I was emotionally unavailable? Opulent but ultimately set in my ways and stubborn? Successful and ambitious but socially disinterested and a homebody? You don’t know me! Tongue firmly pressed in cheek here.
When the movies came out, I saw each on opening day. I had to. I still can’t watch the first movie without yelling at Big to get out of the limo. A regret frozen in time played on a loop. It’s a circle of hell for me, Carrie’s wedding. Is that normal?
Even now, as I approached 30, I went through something of a sexual awakening. I started “having sex like a man” and when most of my friends were worried something was wrong, Samantha Jones let me know I was just fine. I even called my antic Samantha Jones life labeled by year: #SamJonesLife2015, (...some of 2016 and a tanch of 2017).
These women were revolutionary for the time. I didn’t care they were white. That their rent to income ratios didn’t make sense. That there were problematic tropes—nobody even SAID the words “problematic trope” in 1995. I don’t look for art to be perfect, I look for art to move me. And this show grew me and a whole generation of girls into women. VARIED and different kinds of women. Women who appealed to the modest tradition of Charlotte or the overly pragmatic Miranda. Most often Samantha was seen as the wildcard, and Kim Catrall (one of my FAVORITE actresses—seriously ask anyone how many times I’ve seen Mannequin, and Sensitive Skin is phenomenal) nailed it. Threesomes? Yup. Lesbian experience? Yup. Breaking up with a beautiful man who loves you because you’re just not into “it”? YUP
Rihanna made headlines this week for “just being tired” of men, tell me your girl isn’t a Samantha!
It showed us:
- The power of sisterhood
- The issues that really impact and are of concern to women
- the LGBTQ community as HUMAN
- the ebbs and flows of love and relationships, moments of deep passion and also of deep regret
- Imperfection
Sarah Jessica as Carrie has always been a fight with every boyfriend I’ve made to watch Sex and the City. They argue with me about how attractive she is, citing her not beautiful or sexy enough to be a leading lady and love interest for a show about sex. To wit, I put on my EFFrespectability armor and rip into them about the false relationship between attractiveness and talent. And, mind you, I think Sarah Jessica is beautiful. Who determines what’s acceptable beauty anyway? I don’t need a man’s affirmation to solidify my opinion. And just like that, I was a feminist.
Because of SATC I had conversations openly with my girlfriends about sex, love, relationships and health. I do it because they modeled for me what a powerful union of women can do and be and I wanted to do and be just like them.
Sometimes my step-mom would watch with me. We never discussed it to process, but I would fill her in on the backstory. In hindsight, I wonder if the show was her first time seeing women be so free? I didn’t know what I was watching then. I didn’t know I was witnessing a whole gender be legitimated and be made human for a culture that truly only saw us a objects to be possessed. Ornamental. Trophies. I am no man’s trophy.
Boldly I have used each characters lines during break ups and transitions. “Maybe men are just to have fun with and my girlfriends are my soul mates”. “You can drive up and down the street all you want to because I don’t live here anymore! We’re so over we need a new word for over” “I love you but I love me more” and yes even “I can’t, I’m sorry, don’t hate me.”
I prescribe episodes like medicine. Because for me, and most of my friends that’s what it is. It’s therapy. It makes us feel normal. And helps us to remember that no matter who broke your heart or how long it takes to heal, you’ll never get through it without your friends.