For the 20th anniversary of Sex and the City—which premiered on HBO on June 6, 1998 and went on to become iconic prestige television—Jezebel is doing a week of posts dedicated to our favorite band of sexual women friends.
The first word in Sex and the City’s title is “sex,” but in retrospect most of that sex on the show is pretty vanilla. It’s possible that Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte normalized a lot of sex activity that wasn’t openly talked about in the ’90s, or that these band of friends made certain types of sex so mainstream that it got worked into people’s everyday sex vocabulary. But these days, there’s something sweetly innocent about how the women of SATC giggle about asshole licking over brunch.
Upon deeper reflection, I realized I’ve done basically everything on the show and most of it was not nearly as wild as promised. If SATC had a hand in making me more sexually free, well, thank you for corrupting my youthful mind. The student is now the master.
Here are my personal ratings of the types of sex on SATC, on a scale from 1 to 10—with 1 being as forgettable as Skipper, and 10 being it’s not TV, it’s HBO. *
Having Sex “Like Men” (Without Emotional Attachment)
This is sort of the opening premise of the show—women are free to fuck as much as they want now, but the series goes back and forth about how possible it is to do that without falling in love. Even Samantha, an inspirational sex pirate, catches feelings a few times. This is true to life—we all fall in love when we’re not expecting it. But SATC, much like society in general, often told women they must inevitably feel deeply, and consequently be hurt, after casual sex. I disagree! You CAN have sex “like men,” or like a human: just for the fun of it.My Personal Rating: 10/10
Sex on Camera
Never my face, lord no. Mostly because I don’t want to know what my face looks like during sex. Who needs to be self-conscious about their weird orgasm eye-twitch? Being recorded in an intimate moment is fun, but then there are pics/videotapes, whatever, of your bod out there for someone to enjoy and review, even if they should no longer get to. That’s a lot. I would say, not worth doing unless it’s really your kink. Or if you were doing it before the internet really caught on, like Samantha, who demanded to be videotaped after finding out one of her conquests was taping women in secret. Um, actually, call the police, Sam!
My Personal Rating: 3/10
A Way Too Big Penis
Like Samantha, this is also how I made my first man friend. Just kidding, I’m not friends with men. On the show, the only way Samantha wouldn’t have sex with someone is if they literally couldn’t fit inside her, and I think she would approve this rating.-
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