The money/beauty tradeoff is nothing new — the thing is, there are just as many lovely women, apparently vying for an ever-shrinking number of big spenders. "There's much more competition,'" says one self-described golddigger. Adds another: "'When we go out there are usually four guys buying us drinks. Now there is only one...Guys just aren't going out as much. Plus, men aren't buying bottle service so there are no tables to invite women back to.'" Ted Morgan, co-author of How to Marry a Multi-Millionaire: The Ultimate Guide to High Net Worth Dating, says, rather distastefully, "There is an increased sense of desperation among women about dating, and men can sense this." As to less permanent relationships, a piece in today's Telegraph says that wealthy men are cutting back on mistress-associated costs, too: "More than three-quarters of the adulterous multi-millionaire men surveyed said they planned to spend less money on gifts and treats for their lovers, and 82 per cent planned to cut their regular payments."

Of course, it goes both ways: "Will I knowingly date somebody who is in the sh—ter right now? Probably not," says "Sammy." Basically, it's a straightforward barter system and everyone needs to pull his weight. What's weird is that none of the women seem prepared to rearrange their social lives: they'd rather vie with more competition at the same pricey bars each weekend than maybe take up a hobby or date the way the rest of us do. The thing is, all the women quoted in the piece are employed — real estate brokers, models, even women who themselves work in finance. And yet the goal of marrying — or at least dating — up seems so entrenched that even as they're fully pragmatically aware of the situation, they can't break out of it. If that's a dream to someone, it's depressing enough — finding everlasting love with a Mr. Big who — whoops! — also happens to be a gazillionaire is unlikely. But the pragmatism is more dismaying still. If there's an upside to this financial devastation, hopefully it's that some people will be forced to reevaluate, get lives that have nothing to do with Carrie Bradshaw and, maybe, be the happier for it.

Desperately Seeking Sugar Daddies [Page Six Magazine]
Wealthy men cut gifts to mistresses during financial crisis [Telegraph]

The writers surveyed, who include the very talented Rachel Kramer Bussel and Nerve editor turned Salon employee Sarah Hepola*, had various opinions on why sex writers are getting the ax, from lack of innovation to a mainstreaming of sex writing to lack of talent to an excess of exhibitionism or all three at the same time. What they failed to mention, however, is the Carrie Bradshaw effect.

Before Sex and the City, very few papers had columns exclusively devoted to the sex lives of a single (almost always young, female) writer. After Carrie Bradshaw and her minions became a cultural touchstone, I think many, many media outlets scrambled to have a Carrie to call their very own. The problem is, they weren't looking for originals, they were looking for real life facsimiles of an already sort of annoying fictional female. So, when the time came to cut some unwanted fat, these Manolo-clad also-rans were kicked to the curb.

*None of the sex writers mentioned here or in the Salon article are Carrie Bradshaw-esque at all. They are clever and talented and do not talk about expensive footwear!

Sex Writing Goes Limp [Salon]
Sex Doesn't Sell [SF Gate]

The novel follows Julie Jensen, a single New Yorker in her late 30s, one of those typically fictionalized females with a nonspecific media job (this one's in book publicity!) and four of her unmarried 30something friends. (See, it's so totally different from Sex and the City because there's five of them.) Anyway, the premise is that our heroine Julie can't figure out why she and her friends, all attractive, successful ladies, can't find husbands. She's sick of her job, so Julie pitches the following idea to her boss:

I was frankly tired of America, with all our indulgences and our myopia, I was stuck and tired. And suddenly I realized what I wanted to do. I wanted to talk to more single women. I wanted to know if anyone out there was doing this single thing any better than we were. After reading all the self-help books that I have, it was ironic — I was still looking for advice…so on Monday, I walked into my boss's office and pitched her an idea for a book. It would be titled 'How to be Single' and I would travel around the world and see if there is any place in the world where women are better at being single than here.

And taking a trip around the world to figure out why you're still single isn't indulgent at all. Look, I know there are myriad societal pressures on women to get married and have babies. However, the book pretends to be attempting to answer a societal question when really, it's trying to answer a personal one: why is Julie still single. And the answer to that question is explained in the first chapter. Julie's friend Serena says, "It's no mystery. You dated bad boys until your mid-thirties, and now that you've finally come to your senses, the good ones are all taken." Which isn't entirely true, but it does say something about the choices that Julie makes. She spends most of the novel dating a French dude with an open marriage. Not really the road to white picket fences! Then after 350-odd pages of navel gazing masquerading as multicultural quest, Julie comes upon what she admits is a total cliche. "I wondered again how I could sum up what I had learned from the amazing women all over the world…I think we are going to have to love ourselves. Fuck."

And that last word describes how I felt after spending so many pages with another utterly self-obsessed female character. Tuccillo is certainly an engaging writer and the book is something of a page turner, but when this movie comes out to inevitable fanfare and Sex and the City tie-in marketing, I suggest saving your $12: you probably already spent that much watching Sarah Jessica Parker and her monied buddies tromp around New York. Or you could see it anyway and be like Julie: making the same mistakes over and over and then whining about it.

New Line options Tuccillo's 'Single' [Variety]
How To Be Single [Amazon]

My problem is not that Bushnell calls herself a feminist — she is, without a doubt, as is anyone who believes that men and women are equal — but I still don't understand what that has to do with Botox, Jimmy Choos, not eating or bitchy, wealthy Park Avenue fauxialites.

Again, I feel the same way about Candace Bushnell as I did about Jenna Jameson. I get the idea that we're supposed to respect and look up to these women because they're self-made. Because they made a lot of money and have a head for business. But they both also did so while pushing agendas — in Bushnell's case, rampant materialism, and in Jameson's case, porn catering to the male gaze — that aren't things which are particularly admirable. For Bushnell, it seems that "capitalist" is the "ist" she most embodies, rather than "feminist."

However, both Bushnell and Jameson offer their brand of power as funneled through highly palatable packages. In Turner's profile of Bushnell, she writes, "Her looks were her entrée to New York highlife. Too short to model, with no acting talent, she began chronicling the Studio 54 set in a New York Observer column that became Sex and the City. Later her beauty was her supreme marketing tool: she posed discretely naked for New York magazine."

I don't fault Bushnell for her choices or begrudge her success, I'm just sick of her and her fucking expensive shoe fetish. If I never write the word "Manolo" again, I can die a happy woman. Can't we find better icons than this?

Finding True Love, By Sex And The City's Candace Bushnell [Times of London]

The characters in Friends are poorer, but their lifestyle is healthier and closer to that of me and my friends." As for herself, Li Yuan ends her column on an "empowering" note that is Carrie-esque in its hollowness:

The city hasn't let me down. In my five years living here, I've worked very hard, made mistakes and had a few sleepless nights. But I've also met many fascinating people, made a few great friends, have a job I like a lot and feel great about myself.

I can't afford Manolo Blahniks but I do have many pairs of shoes — too many for anybody visiting my small Brooklyn apartment. I don't feel the pressures to settle down, get married and have kids that a woman in her mid-30s would face in China. Nobody has told me — yet — that I'm weird. Above all, I don't feel guilty about enjoying my life. I'm proud of my choices, just like the characters in the show are.

Which is, you know, just great, Li Yuan, but I couldn't help but WONDER if maybe, speaking Chinese and all, you might have been able track down one of those rare transplants who does feel a little bit let-down, like one of the guys working 14 hour days and living in 6 bedroom apartment that used to be a 2 bedroom apartment after enduring months-long trips in container ships like all the characters in that story about Chinatown in Sunday's Times:

The journey that brought Mr. Zheng to Forsyth Street from Fujian Province in southern China began in 1991 on a fishing boat. The boat broke down in what he called “the sea of nowhere,” and the passengers were near death from starvation when they were rescued by another boat. Eventually they made their way to Guatemala. On his arrival in New York the following spring, Mr. Zheng moved into a one-bedroom apartment on East Broadway that was already occupied by 10 other men.

Seventeen years later, Zheng's doing okay for himself, but poverty among Chinese immigrants in the neighborhood has actually gotten worse.

Lin Ah-jiao, a pixielike 43-year-old from Fujian, sells tickets for a company called New Today’s Bus. She works 13 out of every 14 days, often from 10 in the morning until 11 at night. “Chinese people work very hard,” she said proudly. “Every day, working.”
…
Her family’s bedroom is dominated by a bunk bed that her husband built from scraps of wood. She and her husband share the bottom bunk; their daughter, 21, sleeps on top. Because there are no closets, the space beneath the bottom bunk is packed tight with bunches of clothes, and bulky plastic shopping bags hang from nails on the wall.

In the kitchen, a tight passageway with grease-spattered walls, a gold-and-red paper decoration bears the saying, “A good family brings in money.” Scrawled in pencil on the same wall are hundreds of tiny Chinese characters.

“My uncle likes to write poetry when he gets drunk,” Ms. Lin explained one day through an interpreter. Most of the poems, she said, were about drunkenness, though at least one of them was not. She read a few lines: “In the morning I go to the restaurant to work. I come back to my bed in the evening. My sweet dream has come true: I have turned into a ghost.”

Yeah, that guy doesn't mess with Cosmos.

Chinese Views Of 'Sex & The City' [WSJ]
Dreams And Desperation On Forsyth Street [NYT]

According to Kristin Davis, the director's instructions were to "think that's so sexy."

And I said, "No, listen, man, I've been playing Charlotte for awhile, and she would not think that's sexy. You have to trust me."

Oh good grief. Anyway, that's about all I gleaned from this story, except that the liquefy filter hasn't gone out of style and yes I'm talking to whoever touched up Miranda:

Here's the whole spread:

Also, Marie Claire shot four separate covers for this issue: bet you can't guess which one I found at my local newsstand! But as a consolation prize for those who can't be bothered to collect them all they give you four cover-like pages anyway, which brings me to:

I'm sorry, what the fuck does that even mean? Oh, whatever.

And...yeah I'm sorta over it.

Without giving away too much regarding the story, one theme explores the boundaries of forgiveness — a touch ironic for a romantic comedy that commits the near-irredeemable sin of stretching to nearly 2 ½ hours....Those arcs, however, ultimately prove less satisfying than the simplest scenes, such as the four getting loopy on champagne together.

Sex & The City Review [Variety]
How I See Carrie [EW]
Related: Because No Man Should Feel The Agony Of This Film [Chicago Tribune]

Earlier: Toby Young: Sex And The City Depicts An Essentially Pre-Feminist Society

The one thing I do fault her for is the creation of SJP the brand. New York's Nussbaum touches on the issue of Parker-the-brand with her subject — Parker says she was reluctant to do commercials because she found it, in her favored parlance, vulgar, but eventually did it because someone whom she respected told her it was okay. I mean, she probably did it because Garnier offered her some astronomical sum for one day of work and that shit is impossible to turn down — even for someone who purports to not care about money. If Parker really didn't care about money, she wouldn't do those ads. As executive producer of Sex and the City, there's no way she didn't make tens of millions of dollars. Maybe she did those ads, and her Bitten line for Steve and Barry's, so she'd stay in the public consciousness once Sex and the City was over. And that's a fine reason! But her whole "I'm really above this vulgar advertising" schtick is so tiring. She even calls her choices "unconsciously conscious." She even claims that Carrie never cared about Big's money!!!! I mean, come on. Mr. Big's alpha-male, captain of industry thing was a huge part of Carrie's attraction to him.

Nussbaum writes that "Parker's solution is to be almost religiously involved in product development, creating her own perfumes and insisting on a democratic ethic for her clothing line, which runs up to size 22, 'so I don't feel it's vulgar. So I don't feel it's just arbitrary or mercenary.'" But ultimately it is mercenary. If only she would own up to it.

Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words With Carrie Bradshaw [New York]

Earlier: Sarah Jessica Parker Not Afraid To Equate Celebrity Endorsement Deals With Rocket Science

Related: 'Sex And The City: The Movie' Proves That A Great Reunion Is Possible [NYDN]