Season Three, Episode Ten: All or Nothing

Hello, dear friends! How I have missed you! (Whether or not you have missed me is another question, and one which I will not embarrass you by asking you to answer.) It is truly wretched and unacceptable for me to have been radio silent all last week--how dare I? Alas, I have come to the point in the semester where I feel as though I am drowning in a veritable sea of grading and academic labors--my youngsters have book reviews due, paper proposals due... it does not end.

But--let us put Grading Madness to the side for the moment, and turn to Adulterous Madness, instead. For though Carrie, unlike me, is free from the grading which now haunts all of my waking hours, at least I, unlike Carrie, am free from adulterous enmeshment with a married cad. I'll take piles of papers over emotional self-destruction any day! And so... let us proceed!

The Summary:

All right, so, delaying the pain no longer--let's talk Carrie and Big--The Affair.

So, as you may recall from 2007, or whenever it was that I last posted (it feels a veritable AGE), in our last episode, Carrie caused me to develop an ulcer by sleeping with Big. Big, who is, of course, married to another (one) and a world-class blighter of Carrie's life (two). [Head makes violent contact with desk.] Carrie cannot stop thinking about said Big-Sleeping-With, both in an appalled "Mercy, what have I done?" sort of way, and in a shamefacedly delighted "Mercy, but I did enjoy what I did" sort of way. I don't know about you, but I scent danger in the air...

Carrie confides in Sam about her illicit luvvvvv (assuming, quite wisely, I think, that the Big-Detesting Miranda and the About-To-Be-Wed Charlotte might not react to news of her Big-Flavored Assignation positively), asking Sam what's wrong with her, how could she have done such a dreadful thing, etc. Carrie is clearly looking for someone to give her a good slap upside the head (ooooh, pick me, pick me!), and firmly point out to her the profound unwiseness of taking a stroll down Affair Boulevard with Big. Alas, sadly for her (and for us) Sam is not the right person for this particular job (Carrie: "Don't you want to judge me, just a little?" Sam: "Not my style.") Now, I am usually a big fan of the non-judgmental-ness, but for Pete's sake, Sam, now would be a nice time to judge/to take Carrie by the shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattle.

Left to her own devices, Carrie does all in her power to forget about the Big-Sleeping-With--files her articles, defrosts her fridge, organizes her shoes... but to no avail. She still has Big on the brain. [Blogger's note: With all due respect to freelance writers, whom I know in real life are overworked and underpaid, I cannot help but think that this is where not having the seemingly endless leisure time which our fictional free-lancer appears to have might have been useful. I suspect that most of us would have to actually schedule time to obsess about our pending slide into adultery, rather than try to distract ourselves from it by idly moving our shoes from one part of our closets to another.]

ANYWAY. Carrie calls Big. [Hand smartly slaps forehead.] She insists that they need to rationally discuss what happened between them... which quickly translates into "sleep together again." [Forehead connects painfully with wall.] As Carrie embarks on The Affair Proper, Aidan declares his love for her. (Not while she's actually in flagrante with Big, obviously, that would be... awkward.) Of course he does. Carrie responds to this declaration with a corresponding assertion of affection--less, it seems, because she genuinely does love him, and more because she feels guilllllty about the fact that she is two-timing him with her morally-questionable ex.

Things quickly start to go pear-shaped in Affair Land (are we shocked?), with Big calling Carrie while Aidan is at her apartment, acting jealous, threatening to leave his wife, and causing Carrie to lose Aidan's dog. (Only temporarily, happily, the pooch makes his way home safe and sound, in the end--fear not, animal lovers!) Carrie ends the episode tearfully vowing to herself that she will end the affair pronto, because she finally seems to be aware that conducting said affair seems likely to end in heartbreak and disaster, not only for herself and Big, but also for innocent parties Aidan and Natasha. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

And what of the other ladies, you inquire? Well, Charlotte is throwing herself head first into Bride and Wedding Madness--some parts of which she loves (i.e., getting to pick out ludricrously expensive wedding china at Bergdorf's), some of which.... not so much (i.e., having to negotiate the terms of her pre-nup with Trey's mother.) Because, it turns out, 1) Trey won't marry her without a pre-nup, and 2) Trey's mother Bunny is the one who sets the terms of said pre-nup, with Trey washing his hands of it entirely. (Once again, from the peanut gallery, I note.. the whole "my mother pretty much runs my life, and I quite like it that way" thing... red flag, Ms. York!)

Charlotte wisely has the lawyerly Miranda review said pre-nup, and learns from her that she'll "only" get $500,000 after a few years of marriage (HA), and will get a set sum of money for every son that she bears... but no money whatsoever for any daughters. Charming! Charlotte is most troubled, not by this whole-sale devaluing of female children, but rather by the fact that she is "only" worth $500,000. (Again I say--HA.) She is terrified to negotiate with Bunny about these financial terms (Charlotte: "Negotiate??? I can't even buy stuff on sale!"), but swallows hard and does so anyway--threatening Bunny that she'll back out of the marriage unless the pre-nup bumps her net worth up to a cool million. (How... romantic?) Bunny backs down, the pre-nup is signed, and Charlotte is once again restored to perfect happiness. [Blogger mutters bitterly under breath, to self: "Glad that this whole mess of a story line made someone happy, anyway, 'cuz it sure as sugar wasn't me."]

All right, so--onto Miranda. Miranda's plot line bores me almost to the point of tears, but does not, at least, make me want to smash things, as Carrie's and Charlotte's do, so... progress! Miranda meets George, who works at her law firm's Chicago branch, while he's in New York on business. They hit it off. After George returns to Chicago, they start having phone sex. Which goes swimmingly, until Miranda discovers that she is one of George's many phone sex partners. And so, she breaks off contact with his multi-phone-sex-partner-having self. [Blogger struggles to keep eyes open and remain upright, so uninterested is she.]

Sam, meanwhile, has the flu. As in, a really bad flu. During the course of said really bad flu, she tries to get one of her gentlemen conquests to come and help her out with some manly household tasks which have arisen during her illness (i.e., her curtain rod has come unsprung. And her female friends couldn't help her with this because...?) Finding that none of the men she's recently slept with is at all interested in helping her through her illness, a teary Sam laments to Carrie that being a single woman sucks, that a lady's life is meaningless unless she has a man who loves her, and that she is all aloooone. (Carrie: "We are not alone, we have each other." Thank you, Queen Adultery, nice to see you're still doing some good around here.) Happily, once Sam recovers, she puts all of her "as a single woman, my life is a bleak pit of bleakness, because only a man's love could give meaning to my life!" talk behind her, and blames her expression of said sentiments on the severity of her illness, and her heavy-duty medication. All right, then!

The Analysis:

Piece of Trivia Which I Feel Compelled to Shove Down Your Throat Against Your Will Watch: So, when Big shows up on Carrie's block and starts a huge fight about the future of their affair, said huge fight scene was shot on a street in the Village where one of my very dear friends actually lives. Neat, huh? I mean, not to you, why should you care, but I was all "I have so been on that street. I so recognize those awnings" when I saw it. It made me feel PDS (Pretty Darned Special), I can tell you.

So It Appears We Are Actually Taking Adultery Seriously for Once, Thank Goodness For That, Watch: So I have ranted on this blog before about how darned much the show's often cavalier attitude towards cheating has irked me. Non-monogamy and open relationships or marriages? Mazel tov, enjoy yourselves, consenting adults, who candidly make respectful decisions about their emotional, romantic, and sexual lives. My blessings upon you.

But sneaking-behind-people's-backs cheating? Quite different, and quite distasteful. I like it not. And it's kind of nice to see the show taking the very real human costs of such behavior seriously, for once, rather than writing another "my, what an amusing lark adultery is, tee hee!" type story. The writers make it clear from the very beginning that by cheating on the sweet Aidan (and being complicit in Big's cheating on the harmless Natasha), Carrie is wading into very dark and deep waters, indeed, and that her cheating is doomed to wound and damage, not only herself, but all parties involved, however innocent they might be.

And while of course I would prefer not to see Pain and Doom descending on all of these peeps' heads (okay... except for Big, I'm totally cool with that--heap on those coals, writers/gods of vengeance!) I'm glad to see the writers taking this whole mess seriously. Give yourself an appropriate number of cookies, writers!

Ah, Let Us Once Again Conflate Massive Economic Privilege with Female Self-Assertion and Empowerment Watch: So, as you may have already gathered, I find the Charlotte plot line here totally irritating. Now, I am aware that this here show of ours focuses on characters who are rich--or who are, at the very least, far more economically privileged than the majority of the American public/than we humble plebs in the audience. And watching these ladies' relentless conspicuous consumption and careless erasure of their class privilege (i.e., Carrie is forever lamenting how "poor" she is, all the while living in a nice apartment in a great neighborhood in one of the most expensive bloody cities in the world, and buying designer clothes and shoes--she cries poor when she, say, can't afford a fabulous dress--boo frickin' hoo, Marie Antoinette, my heart bleeds for you) is certainly irritating in and of itself.

But when it comes to matters of the pocket book, I am most troubled by the writers' (not uncommon) conflation of "female independence and self-assertion" with "buckets and buckets of shining cash." Because the writers clearly intend Charlotte's "I am demanding a million dollars in my pre-nup" plot to be a triumphant narrative,which is all about Charlotte learning to be brave, and stand up for herself. Now, I am all for being brave and standing up for yourself, but forgive me for being troubled by the fact that all of Charlotte's discussions of "what she's worth" here boil down to how much she is worth... financially. According to terms determined by her husband-to-be's family, and contingent on her making a success of wifehood (again, on their terms), no less. Yeouch.

If Charlotte was making a bid for a raise or pay equity at work, then I could buy this "more money equals more female empowerment" notion. But Lily Ledbetter Ms. York is not, and I find it hard to celebrate her "victory" of getting more cash out of her future mother-in-law, while not in any way challenging the fundamental assumptions behind this rather nasty pre-nup. (Which of course includes the idea that sons and heirs are worthy of cash, but daughters and non-heirs are not, for the love of Pete, people. Is this seventeenth-century France??? Because if so, I would at least like a fabulous wig to compensate for the whole-sale devaluation of girl children here.)

"The Choices Are Endless": Ah, How Nice to Know that Women Are Totally Emancipated! Woooo! Watch: So Carrie makes a little speech in this episode which I find deeply annoying in large part, I suspect, because similar sentiments are expressed with alarming frequency by my students who (charming people though they are) seem firmly convinced that we live in an age of total gender parity, and that the ladies of today have noooo barriers whatsoever standing between them and full and equal participation in all parts of American society/the world in general. How nice for we womenfolk! Oh, wait, I forgot... that is actually total balderdash. Sexism lives, mes amies, as your intelligent selves are all too painfully aware.

Carrie, by contrast, intelligent woman though she is... does not seem so aware of this fact. Here's her leetle post-feminist speech, for your amusement/bemusement: "Since birth, modern women have been told that we can do and be anything we want--be an astronaut, the head of an Internet company, a stay-at-home mom... there aren't any rules anymore, and the choices are endless.... But is it possible we've become so spoiled by choices we've become unable to make one?"

All right, so, let Cranky Feminist have at this sucker. Cranky Feminist sayz:

1) First--CF sourly points to the class privilege implicit in these statements about "modern women." Do all girls and women have access to the kind of education and training which would make becoming, say, an astronaut possible? CF says--no! That's kinda contingent on having the economic wherewithal to go to college, grad school, and so on, and so forth. (Let alone have the fundamental encouragement to excel in math and the sciences...)

Do all women have the option to become stay-at-home moms and full-time homemakers, outside of the paid workforce, if they wish to do so? CF says... no! That, too, is contingent on having the economic resources to survive as a family on one income... and that is also assuming that all mothers have partners who can prove said income in the first place, which... is not so much the case!

So far: Carrie's-Delusional-Assertions-About-the-Limitlessness-of-Women's Choices-in-Modern Society: 0. Cranky Feminist: 2. [CF smiles like the proverbial cat-who-has-found-the cream, and cracks her knuckles--she is just getting started.]

2) Next up: Cranky Feminist vs. Carrie's-Declaration-That-The-Ladies-Have-Endless-Choices-And-Live-In-A-World-Without-Gendered-Restrictions-Or-Rules. [CF can barely speak, because she is doubled over in half-hysterical laughter at this one, with tears (partly from the laughter, but mainly from the pain) streaming down her face.]

So... do we, in fact, live in a world in which women have nothing but choices, choices, choices, and there aren't any rules about proper gender roles and behavior anymore? CF... thinks that this one is so patently ridiculous that it almost isn't worth refuting, but nonetheless states the obvious and says... no! Let's see. Do women have full, equal access to any profession they choose? Nope. Do women still face gender-specific discrimination and harrassment in the workplace in particular, and in the public sphere in general? Yup. Are women who have male partners, and who have children, still expected to accept primary responsibility for domestic labor and child care in their homes and families? You bet your sweet bippy. [CF thinks that she could go on in this vein forever, but settles for the new score--Carrie's-Delusions-About-Post-Feminism: o; CF: 3, and moves on.]

3) And finally... have all of the choices which all women now (ostensibly) have universal and complete access to made them flighty, indecisive, and unable to settle on anything, or commit to anyone? (Which seems to me/Cranky Feminist to sail perilously close to the "Sigh, life was soooo much better before feminism made women's lives so complicated" argument. Yeah, take me back to the good old pre-feminist days--how much I would have enjoyed having to marry in order to secure my economic survival, and having little to no ability to determine my own reproductive future. Those were the days!)

CF says... no! The only thing that Carrie is right about here is that women in the early 21st century do, indeed, have waaaaay more choices about their lives and how they want to lead them than their mothers or grandmothers did. But having more rights, opportunities, and choices--does not, CF/I would contend, turn women into indecisive flibbertigibbets, but rather gives them more scope to build independent lives for themselves, of their own choosing. And I/Cranky Feminist... am hard-pressed to see the downside there.

And so... our final score: Carrie's-Post-Feminist-Loopiness: 0. Cranky Feminist: 4. Woooooo! U.S.A! U.S.A.! [Ignores reader grumbling that the contest hardly seems fair, when the judge of the contest is also a participant in it. Heck, the process may have been corrupt, but the conclusions... they are still sound.]

Maybe Singlehood Is Not A Horror and A Curse, After All, Watch: In the Samantha plot line, I think that the writers do rather a nice job of digging themselves a rather unpleasant anti-singlehood trench, but then nimbly hopping out of it, back onto solid, pro-singlehood ground. [Blogger wonders to self if trench metaphor works, or if it is too reminiscent of trench warfare. Shrugs, makes a note to re-read All Quiet on the Western Front again soon, and moves on.] Because of course, when ill, Sam spouts every anti-singlehood cliche in the book: all single women are tragically alone in life! All single women's lives are devoid of meaning, because they lack a man's love! (Because of course... all single women are straight. Good to know!)

Happily, Carrie (although acting totally insane in this episode otherwise, please make it stop), is the Voice of Reason here, noting that Sam will never be alone, because she has the love and support of her friends. Awwwww. And once no longer on heavy-duty meds, Sam too recants her "marriage is the only route to happiness for the ladies, why is my life such a hollow lie???" malarkey. Excellent. Nicely done, writers, maintaining your "sure, loving and being loved by a good man is swell, but it is just possible for the heterosexual ladies to also have swell lives even sans said good man" stance here. I tip my hat to you.

Next Up...?: "Running with Scissors," in which the ladies engage in various kinds of profoundly unsound and unwise behavior--I know, like we haven't seen enough of that lately. For the love of Pete, people, do I have to send you reminder cards reading "Please refrain from marrying strangers who are controlled by their domineering mothers" and "Please do cease and desist engaging in any and all adultery which might be filling your days at the moment" or what???

Season Three, Episode Nine: Easy Come, Easy Go

The Summary:

Hello, my friends. I hope that you have some strong meds on stand-by, as this episode... seems positively designed to cause headaches. I know that you are brave and valiant individuals, however--and so, into the breach let us march!

So Carrie is pretty darned happy with Aidan. He is a delightful bloke, treats her with respect and consideration, makes her laugh, all that good stuff. Carrie, happy with a nice man? Surely, this cannot last. And indeed, it does not. As we know from our last episode, Big is once again prowling on the periphery of Carrie's life, making ambiguous noises about his Marital Discontent. Except in this episode, these noises get much less ambiguous, in that--1) a drunken Big tells Carrie that his marriage is a failure, and that he's consequently planning on leaving his wife of seven months (Big to Carrie: "If you know anyone who's interested..."), and 2) a hungover Big calls Carrie the day after this drunken assertion to say that he would leave his wife, but that getting divorced would be way too expensive for him (classy as ever, sir!)

Carrie is furious, disgusted, and quite convinced that this most recent example of despicable behavior on Big's part has finally gotten him out of her system, once and for all. But... of course, it hasn't. Having rented a hotel room to write in while Aidan is stripping the floors in her apartment (more proof of 1) Aidan's niceness, and 2) the writers' cracked-out delusions of what freelance writers can afford to do and not do--go to a coffee shop to write, woman, it's a little cheaper than renting a bloody hotel room), Carrie is followed to said hotel by Big. They have a rather heated discussion in which Big proclaims that he doesn't really know what he wants or what he's doing, but that he misses Carrie, knows his marriage was a mistake... ahhhh, and that he loves Carrie, as well. I see.

Carrie is furious, disgusted... yet quite thunderstruck by Big dropping The L Word. While her brain and her common sense inform her that this is just another chapter in the never-ending "Big=Bad News/Destroyer of Home, Hearth, and Happiness" saga, her heart and her flesh... are rather more susceptible. And so... she sleeps with him. (If you had just gone to Starbucks like I told you to, none of this would have happened, missy! Unless coffee shops in New York are waaaay more permissive than the ones in Pennsylvania...?)

JEEPERS. Okay, so, what else is going on this episode? Sam's plot line provides the most vivid contrast, so let's start there. Sam is dating Adam, a gent who has, she declares to the ladies, "the funkiest tasting spunk." (Apparently, it is a mix between rotten asparagus and Clorox. Delightful.) Never one to accept defeat, Sam tries to tackle the problem by getting Adam to eat a healthier diet, in the hopes that this will resolve the Asparagus-and-Clorox-Issue. Turns out, it doesn't. When she addresses the Taste Issue with Adam directly, he refuses to believe that anything which he himself has created could be so revolting. So Sam makes a deal with him (I cannot believe that I am about to type this, but I must)--sample your own essences, and tell me what you think of their delicate flavor, or say buh-bye to oral sex forever. And so... sample his essences he does. Appreciating the game spirit which this gesture reveals, Sam nonetheless eventually concludes that she cannot be with an Asparagus-and-Clorox-Tasting-Gent long-term. And so... buh-bye, Adam! Buh-bye, plot line which, although rather icky to recap for y'all, at least made me forget about the Carrie-Big Mess for a minute!

Miranda and Steve, meanwhile, are in the final throes of their break-up. He's still sleeping on her couch, as he can't find anywhere else to live. Miranda, in the spirit of "just because we're no longer together doesn't mean that I don't want you to be happy and thrive elsewhere, and also, I really do want you off my couch" helps him to look for a new apartment. He finds one--but not before he has started seeing other ladies, whose voicemails start popping up on Miranda's home phone. (Oh, the days before widespread cell phone use, how cruel they could be!) Delightful.

They finally part ways quite cordially, with some tears, well wishes, and promises to keep in touch. A grown-up break-up, well done, y'all. (Though, Steve, giving your new ladies Miranda's home phone number, seriously? Did you hit your head and become Big for a second? Because that is some high-grade thoughtlessness there!) Buh-bye, Steve! For the moment, anyway...

Charlotte, meanwhile, is still dating Trey, and is quite firmly convinced that he is about to propose to her. Even though... they barely know each other. (Miranda: "You've just met, I've had pairs of pantyhose longer.") She meets his mother, the hair-bow-wearing, chain-smoking, old-money-possessing Bunny (I hope that's a nickname, but one never knows...), and sees that Bunny pretty much has Trey under her thumb--she gently makes a suggestion, Trey instantly acquiesces to said suggestion, whatever it may be. Some women might find this "my mother can quite effortlessly control me" thing unsettling, but Charlotte is delighted, for it shows that Trey is amenable to feminine influence. Ummmm, goody?

One night at dinner, Charlotte (in approved Bunny style) gently suggests to Trey that they get married. Trey (in patented Trey fashion) instantly acquiesces to said suggestion, saying "All right-y." The tradition-loving Charlotte is, of course, not delighted to be engaged, but rather appalled by how said engagement happened. Trey wasn't the proposer, he was the propose-ee! He wasn't the asker, he was the ask-ee! (Carrie: "Who cares about those stupid rules?" Charlotte: "I do!") Brooding over this for awhile, Charlotte decides that she will just invent a new and improved engagement story, in which Trey proposes to her in front of Tiffany's. Ummm... all right-y!

The Analysis:

Watching Carrie Get Sucked Back Into the Toxic Whirlpool of Big Madness YET AGAIN Watch: Ah, so here we are again, watching Carrie do something quite self-destructive, by re-entangling herself with a quite reliably destructive gent (and cheating on her quite reliably charming boyfriend in the process, of course--thus placing a rancid cherry on top of this already unpleasant-tasting sundae.) It seems to me that we have before us a classic Wuthering Heights type situation--in Gent A, we have a man who is kindly, thoughtful, considerate--an altogether lovely and delightful individual. In Gent B, by contrast, we have a sulky sociopath, who likes to string up dogs in his spare time. Which of these gents ought our heroine to be devoted to, and compelled by? I suspect most of us would go with Gent A, appreciating his kindliness, and lack of tendency to hang small animals from trees. However, which of these gents is our heroine devoted to, and compelled by? Alas, it does seem to be Gent B, who although emphatically mad, bad, and dangerous to know, possesses a capacity to strike to the core of our heroine's heart in a way which Gent A does not. Heathcliff may be a thoroughly nasty piece of goods (it still baffles me that he is held up as a romantic hero in the popular imagination--he's a rapist who kills small animals, people), and Big an immature, commitment-phobic twerp... but our heroines love them. Oh, hearts. Why must you lead us in such unsettling and unwise directions?

"I Can't Do That, That's Gay": Ah, Panic About Being Tainted By Gayness, How Pervasive Thou Art: So when Sam makes her "drink of the poisoned well from which I have been made to drink, or else" offer to Adam, he protests that he can't possibly sample his own gentlemanly essences, because to do so would be "gay." Ah, watching a straight man panic about his heterosexuality being in any way questioned or challenged! What a pleasure it always is! Since this anxiety is presented as quite ludicrous by the writers, I think this moment is less troubling than it is yet more sorry proof of the rather pervasive "for me to be seen as gay would clearly be the worst thing ever" attitude on the part of some straight gents. I can think of lots of reasons to not want to sample one's own bodily fluids, but fear of being perceived gay for doing so... not one of them!

"There Was No Ring, No Kneeling, No Nothing": Depressingly Unromantic Wedding Proposals Watch: I will agree with Charlotte here that her engagement story is a wildly unromantic and depressing one, but less for the reasons which she herself outlines (that everything is out of whack because she should have been the one to be asked, not the one to do the asking--oh, the gender disorder!) and more because she barely knows the man whom she is proposing to, and because he seems to accept her proposal with the same casual, unemotional calm which most of us would reserve for assenting to take a stick of gum. Trouble. Ahead. There. My. Friends.

On the plus side, I think the episode does happily side with Carrie, with her whole "who cares who proposes to who, as long as all parties concerned actually want to marry each other" attitude. And also on the plus side, I think that the episode does throw up lots of red flags when it comes to the Charlotte-Trey engagement--the writers are clearly sympathetic to Charlotte's desire to find the right man, fall in love, and get hitched, but they also represent her "I need to get engaged now, because I have an age-appropriate, in-many-ways-suitable man in my line of sight, and I must be in love, because he's... you know... nice... from what I've been able to gather so far..." attitude as a definite problem. Good writers. Give yourself a firm pat on the back.

Wait, We Are Actually Questioning Gender Essentialism Here, Seriously? Is It My Birthday Or What??? Watch: I cannot believe that I am about to type these happy words, but this episode actually takes a trite, cliched, oversimplified idea about gender difference and questions it. [Raises fist in a gesture indicative of victory.] Carrie begins the episode by thinking about how our society accepts the truism that men think logically and women emotionally, musing that maybe it's not "that cut and dried." Halle-bloody-lu-jah, in the therapy business, I do believe that they call that a break-through. A stereotype about gender difference actually buries the complex truths about how all of us, regardless of our gender, think, feel, and react to people, situations, and the world--and Carrie has just acknowledged this. YES. SUCCESS. [To self, ominously, under breath... for now, anyway.]

Notable Quotables: Miranda, on the different ways in which she and Steve are perceived in the wake of their break-up: "A thirty-four-year-old guy with no money and no place to live, because he's single, he's a catch. But a thirty-four-year-old woman with a job and a great home, because she's single, is considered tragic."

Samantha, cutting through Miranda's "I really do want the best for Steve, even though he is dating other women while still sleeping on my couch" protests: "Oh, please, there's always a contest with an ex, it's called 'Who'll Die Miserable.' "

Next Up...?: "All Or Nothing," in which the Carrie-Big affair continues, as does my desire to step on a rusty nail, get tetanus, and end my pain, once and for all. And we also have some very festive discussions to unpack, about how modern women have unlimited choice and opportunities in their lives, and how there are no more barriers to female independence, success, or self-determination anymore. How nice to know! I'm glad to hear that my sense that our culture is still very much a sexist and hierarchical is totally off-base! Hooray!

Season Three, Episode Eight: The Big Time

[Blogger's note: Just so you know, I haven't been dilly-dallying over writing this blog post because it heavily features Big (oh, Big, my bete noire, the perpetual headache hovering around my poor, besieged, um, head), but rather because I have been spending more time than anyone ought to of late in Grading Hell. Oh, Grading Hell. Why did Dante never write of your terrors?

ANYWAY. Just wanted to clear that up/whine about grading. And so--onwards!]

The Summary: Oh, times which are big, let us contemplate them!

Okay, so, it seems like everywhere Carrie goes these days, she runs into Big. A Big who is darkly, ambiguously flirtatious, and makes vague, portentous statements about the potential unsoundness of his marriage. A Big who is clearly and visibly displeased to hear that Carrie is dating a man whom she finds, in her words, "perfect." A Big who (in an act of un-Big-like directness) leaves her a voicemail, telling her that he can't stop thinking about her. [Slumps forward over keyboard, afraid to go on.]

And what is Carrie's reaction to all of this Big Activity, you ask? An uncomfortable (for her, and also for we humble viewers--perhaps especially for we humble viewers) mishmash of feelings. She clearly wishes both to do the obviously sensible thing (tell his potentially adulterous self where he, and all of his dark flirtation, can go), and to do the patently unsensible thing (and hear his potentially adulterous, darkly flirtatious self out.) Her feelings, they are complex. My feelings, they are less so. ("Dear Big: Go boil your head. Best regards, Holly.")

So when we leave Carrie at the end of the episode, we leave her rather in peril--wishing to be uncomplicatedly happy with the charming (and totally single/available) Aidan, but with a complicated undertow of feeling pulling her back towards the rather less charming (and not at all single) Big. Alcohol--she may need some. Alcohol--I shall definitely need some.

And what of the other ladies, whose heartstrings are mercifully not intertwined with those of would-be adulterous cads? Let us see. Charlotte has officially begun dating Trey, her knight-in-shining armor from our last episode. Trey is all of the things which Charlotte has ever hoped for in a swain--namely, is handsome, blue-blooded, well-mannered, and rich. [Blogger thinks to self that self cannot stand to give yet another lecture to Ms. York about the raging shallowness of her current "Things I Am Looking For In A Fella" List, and so does not bother.]

Charlotte is quite convinced that Trey is The One. Charlotte is quite convinced that she is In Love. Her friends... are rather less convinced, on both fronts. [Carrie: "You've known him for two weeks. You can know his e-mail address, you cannot know he is The One."]

Quite certain, despite her friends' skepticism, that this is in fact Some Day, and that her Prince has officially come, Charlotte is taking a good solid page out of The Rules playbook, and is steadfastly refusing to sleep with Trey. This has nothing to do with an Aidan-esque, "I would like to know you better ere becoming your lov-ah" attitude, or with a genuine desire on Charlotte's part to not sleep with Trey just yet, but rather because, you see, you cannot sleep with a gent too quickly, lest he cease to respect you/come to think of you as too slutttty to one day be his blushing, white-veil-draped bride. Good to know! Moving on!

Let us venture towards The Land of Miranda next. I wish that it were a happier land, for all our sakes, but I fear that it is not. For it transpires that Miranda and Steve are having Major Problems. (But... Miranda was so darned happy doing his laundry but one short episode ago!) Steve wants them to have a baby. As in... now. Since they've only been living together for two months, and Miranda is up for partner at her firm at this precise moment in time, she feels that this is a bad idea. She conveys this to Steve. Steve... is sulky.

Said sulkiness leads Miranda to feel like she already has a baby in her house--and not the cute kind whom you can buy cupcake-shaped hats for, either, but rather the less cute "I am thirty-four years old, but am still going to sulk and give you the silent treatment, rather than rationally talk to you about what's bothering me" kind. Soooo, to recap: Steve is not happy, because Miranda turned him down re: the immediate baby-making. Miranda is not happy, because of Steve's immature behavior, not only re: the immediate baby-making, but also re: life in general. (Miranda to Steve: "I cannot be in charge all the time--we're supposed to be equals, partners!")

They have a huuuuge fight, which culminates in Miranda breaking up with him. Sadness. Not that I enjoyed watching Miranda going into raptures about how amazing it was to wash Steve's undergarments (what pleasure in life could be deeper or richer, after all?), but those crazy kids genuinely seemed happy together. Bummer! Additionally, Steve is actually nice, and goodness knows, nice men are in short supply in this here series. Ah well. Buh-bye, Steve! Or should I say... au revoir?

Samantha is also having rather a rough time of it, it transpires. (What an episode of Doom and Gloom this is turning out to be!) So Sam's period is late, and she is worried that her last period was, well, her last period--as in, on this earth, and that she has officially entered menopause. She... is not so pleased by this development. (Sam: "I'm day-old bread, my time is up!")

Sunk in despair about her alleged day-old-bread-ness, Samantha accepts a date with Len, a creepy guy in her building whom she had always rejected before, not because he is creepy, but because she considered him too over-the-hill for her. (Even though... they are clearly not that far apart in age?) Continuing her dark slide into the Slough of Despond, Sam ends up sleeping with Len--at which point, lo and behold, her period returns!... all over Len's quite sickeningly expensive sheets. Sam is delighted! Len is disgusted! (So am I--not about the menstrual blood, that, I'm familiar with--but with how much Len spent on his sheets. Such a ludicrous outlay of capital for mere bedding? Now that is icky.)

The fact that she is still a menstruating lady, rather than a menopausal one, means that All Is Right With The Universe, according to Sam. Suddenly, she feels herself restored to youth! Vitality! A lack of need to despairingly sleep with creeps she does not actually like! And so--buh-bye, Slough of Despond! Buh-bye, Len! Buh-bye, Len's ridiculously overpriced bedclothes! Hello, LunaPads/Diva Cup/Menstrual Product of Your Choice! (Too many exclamation points there, but I cannot help it!)

The Analysis:

Please Take Note: All Women Want Is Love, All Men Want Is Sex Watch: So this episode made me think of nothing so much as that god-awful poster for that god-awful movie The Ugly Truth, which features stick figures of a man and a woman, with a cartoon of a heart drawn on the woman, you know, where all of our hearts, regardless of our gender, actually are, and the same heart cartoon drawn on the man, smack-dab in the middle of his gentlemanly area. Ah, suggesting that men think and feel with their penises! What a refreshing, charming, and original notion it is! Except, wait, nope, sorry, it's not actually any of those things, now, is it?

I am put in mind of this distasteful idea here because of the way that the Charlotte-Trey plot line wraps up in this episode. Trey (after TWO WEEKS, mind you) declares his love for Charlotte--to which declaration, Charlotte, of course, eagerly responds with a corresponding assertion of her love for him. (Two. Weeks. Here. People.) After this mutual declaration of affection, Carrie informs us, "That night, Charlotte got everything she wanted. Trey got a hand job." Delightful.

Please pull out your omnipresent notepads and scribble down the following: "Women are only interested in romantic love. Men are primarily interested in sexual gratification." Because, of course, throughout the episode, Trey has been angling for greater physical intimacies, and Charlotte, for greater emotional intimacies. Because that doesn't in any way play into any lazy stereotypes which I can think of, about women's and men's priorities in life! Blurrrrg.

"Men Are Like Cabs": Yet Another Heapin' Helpin' of Gender Essentialism Watch: So if the whole "women: seek love, men: seek sex" thing didn't annoy you enough, with its charmless oversimplifications of women's and men's desires and aspirations, you will be pleased to know that there is yet more annoying gender essentialism on hand in this episode, in the form of a conversation which the ladies have about how men are like cabs. (Yes, really.)

So, Miranda asserts that men are like cabs in that they "turn their light on" when they're ready to settle down and have a family. (Before that, they just drive around picking up women, without truly being available. Get it? Picking up? Available?? Cab metaphors???) Once their "commitment light" is on, however, they pick up the first appealing lady whom they see to be their passenger/wife/mother of their children. Sounds... romantic!

Miranda affirms that while it takes a long time for men to "light up" with the, um, cab flame of domesticity, most women have been lit with it "pretty much since birth." Please take up your notebook and pen yet again, writing the following words down, to be memorialized for the ages: "Men... delay making a commitment to a woman/family life/domesticity as long as possible. Interested in settling down into domestic life only after any and all possible wild oats have been sown. Women... eager to make a commitment to a man/family life/domesticity as soon as possible. In fact, wish to do same from the time they are wee tots." [Blogger places fingers to temples, in the vain hopes of massaging the pain away.]

Gentlemen, How They Despise Ladies Who Are Too "Fast" Watch: There are times, when I am watching SATC, when I feel as though I have fallen through the looking glass, and am immersed, not in a TV show from the 2000s, but a very confusing and contradictory guide to sex and dating from the 1920s. "Be sexy all the time! Lure your man in with your wily feminine wiles! Slap on that red lipstick, raise those hemlines to the roof! You exude sex. Heck, you are sex. But while you're busy doing that, please also keep in mind that if you let your fella take "excessive liberties" with you (this being the 1920s, we can't spell out exactly what that means, but use your imaginations), he will think you are a dirty, dirty tramp who deserves neither his love nor his respect--and he will be quite right to do so.") Ah, mental whiplash and headache-making mixed messages, we meet again. How are you, old friends?

I find such guidebooks distasteful (if also super fun to read--so much festive flapper slang!), much as I find Charlotte's "I want Trey to respect and value me as a person, therefore I need to curtail physical intimacies with him, regardless of my own desires in the matter" attitude distasteful. And to think, we were doing such good work with the slut-shaming but a few short episodes ago! Oh, back-sliding. How frequently we seem to engage in it.

"I'm a Little Older Than You": The Horrors of Female Aging--OH, THE HORRORS--Watch: In addition to some irritating slut-shaming and some charmless gender essentialism, this episode is also worth noting, I feel, for its "nothing on God's green earth could be worse than being a woman and going through menopause, spare me the bleak horror of it all" discourse.

Samantha clearly feels that her sexual desirability, and indeed, the survival of her very sexuality itself, is contingent on her not getting older/entering menopause. Do menopausal and post-menopausal women experience physical changes which impact and in some cases fundamentally change their sex lives? Sure. Are older women relentlessly defined in our culture as less desirable than younger women? Absolutely. But does this mean that once a lady ceases getting visits from The Menses Fairy that she actually is "day-old bread," who has nothing left to look forward to on the romance-and-sex front than dull encounters with creepy blokes like Len? I'm going to go with... no, no, it doesn't.

I think that this episode rather loses its balance on the tightrope here, in its discussion about female aging. I don't think that there's anything wrong with showing that Sam is anxious about becoming older, and has been impacted by the relentless negative representations of older women as hopelessly unattractive and distinctly un-sexy which she's been subjected to, living in this wacky sexist and ageist culture of ours. We are all of us human, and living in a culture which calls women "cougars" for dating men five years their junior, but doesn't blink an eye at men dating lasses twenty years their junior--which starts pushing hair dye onto the ladies after their first gray hair, but calls men who have gray hair "distinguished," and so forth and so on, into infinity, surely does leave some scars.

It's buying into the distinctly unpleasant system which gives us those very scars which I find troubling. Sam's response here is not so much "so, the world thinks that I am undesirable since I've passed the age of 40/will soon stop menstruating/have refused to remain perpetually 22, now, does it? Well, then, bugger the world," as it is "ahhhh, the world is right, the world is right! Without my youth, I am nothing! Please come back, period, I'll buy you, um, whatever it is that periods like, if you do! Pretty please, with sugar on top???"

I realize that it is not easy for any of us to single-handedly take on a media and a culture which constantly tell us that we can't possibly be desirable or valuable or likable if we're not [fill in the blank: young, thin, white, able-bodied, "pretty," and so on, and so forth, into infinity.] But I'd have liked to have seen a little more push-back against the whole "for women, aging=unending nightmare of unwantedness and undesirability" attitude here, and a little less "phew, Sam got her period back, so therefore she can still legitimately be seen as sexy, and have a satisfying sex life" malarkey. Happily, the show actually gets better with age, when it comes to reflecting on women and aging. Coincidence??? I think not.

Next Up...?: Return to me anon, and we shall discuss our next episode, "Easy Come, Easy Go." Since said episode features a drunken Big, and lengthy discussions on Sam's part about the undesirable taste of her latest gentleman's gentlemanly essences, I, for one, doubt there will be anything "easy" about it...

Season Three, Episode Seven: Drama Queens

The Summary:

DRAMA! Things which are dramatic! Exclamation points to underline the DRAMA of even mentioning the dramatic!

So, Carrie is dating Aidan, and is very happy with him. Can we be happy for her, in said happiness? Oh, my dear readers. Of course we can't. Because Carrie's untroubled happiness in being with Aidan is actually freaking her out--she's used to being in relationships which are plagued by (all together now) DRAMA. Aidan is not dramatic. He says what he thinks. He shows up when he says he'll show up. He does what he says he'll do. He candidly tells Carrie how much he likes her, and how happy he is with her. Carrie... can't handle it. When Aidan invites her to meet his parents, she has a mini-meltdown, and gives him a long speech about how she can't, and about how "maybe we should see each other less, so we can miss each other more." [Lies down to take a nap.]

Carrie is shocked out of these neuroses by the end of the episode, happily. (Thank you, Divine Powers of the Universe.) She sees Big and Natasha at the opera, catches Big's eye, and has a major meltdown. She runs out of the aforementioned opera, rather than have to deal with being in his and his youthful spouse's vicinity. Big rushes after her, but she does not see him, and consequently manages to escape from the opera Big-less. DRAMA. (On the episode's part.) RELIEF. (On your humble blogger's part. Oh, and since I've already interjected myself here, may I further note that it would take a whole heck of a lot more than sitting across from my distasteful ex and his new lady to get me to leave a fancy-pants opera? Have you seen the kinds of costumes on display at those suckers??? Golly.)

Being reminded of Big and his commitment-phobic, game-playing wretchedness, Carrie realizes that she actually "wants to be with a guy who wants to be with me." YES. PROGRESS. So she decides to enjoy, rather than fret about, the fact that Aidan is uncomplicatedly interested in being part of her life, and decides to go and meet Aidan's parents, after all. Excellent.

And what of the other ladies? Sam's plot line is rather numbing in its dullness. Sam is dating a doctor. He takes Viagra recreationally. (Now that sounds safe.) She asks him if she can pop a few pills, herself. Being the ethical gent that he is, he says yes. She rapidly becomes addicted to the stuff, and rather than deal with her blue-pill-addicted self, the doc dumps her. Buh-bye, Ethically-Challenged Medical Professional!

Charlotte, meanwhile, like Carrie, is enmeshed in some (largely self-generated) DRAMA herself. As part of her quest to find herself a hubby, she is reading a book (Marriage, Inc.: How to Apply Successful Business Strategies to Finding a Husband), which recommends eschewing your single lady friends, and buddying up to your married friends' spouses, in the hopes of meeting their charming, single, gentleman friends. [Pauses.] Now, I can't see that "get close to your married friends' husbands thing" going wrong in any way, now, can you, gentle reader?

Ah, but of course it does. Rather than set Charlotte up with a single friend of his, Husband-Of-Her-Friend-Amy Dennis himself declares his love for Charlotte. Crud. Fleeing from this declaration of adulterous affection, Charlotte is nearly run over by a cab--the passenger of which, one Dr. Trey McDougal by name, is smitten with Charlotte at first sight. Ah, the meet-cute. In other romantic comedies: a sign of pending everlasting love. In SATC: a sign of pending inevitable disaster. Buh-bye, Dennis! Hello, Trey! And--Trouble!

And what is Miranda up to, you ask? Nothing with too much DRAMA about it, I'm afraid. Miranda veers back and forth between loving that her relationship with Steve feels so "comfortable" and "safe," and fretting that the very comfort and safety of said relationship means that all romance and excitement in the relationship is long-since dead--departed--fled. In the end, Steve makes a romantic/unexpected gesture, which restores her faith that comfort/security and the unexpected/romantic can, indeed, happily co-exist. (I am using "romantic/unexpected" here to mean that Steve decides to mix up their sexual routine by initiating an Intimate Moment in the banal space of her laundry room... which might be stretching the "romantic" thing a bit... but was at least quite unexpected!)

The Analysis:

"It's My New Full Time Job": How to Get Thyself Hitched Self-Help Books Watch: I actually had to look up the book which Charlotte is reading in this episode, Marriage, Inc., just to double-check that it wasn't real. Turns out, it's not--but that's not to say that books like it (and much, much worse) don't exist out there in that free marketplace of ours for the female reading public, because, surely, they do.

In this episode, as in the whole "Charlottte Seeks Marriage" story arc this season, the writers have a rather fine line to walk--between respecting Charlotte's genuine desire to be married and have a family, while simultaneously questioning some of the, well, questionable methods which she employs in the service of that goal. I think they do quite a decent job of it in this episode, actually (yay, I have something nice to say, for once!)--mocking, not Charlotte's hopes, but rather the quite unpleasant advice which her ostensibly helpful book is giving her--i.e., ditch your single friends, and cultivate your married friends purely because they have spouses whom you can use as a resource for seeking your Prince Charming.

Considering that this is a series which will later spawn a relationship self-help book which also has some quite unpleasant advice for the ladies, the writers actually do a nice job here of skewering relationship advice books which offer (loopy at best, and destructive at worst) advice to women navigating the Tricky Waters of Love and the Heart. Give yourself a gold star, writers. (Or... maybe a silver one. I am still ticked about the whole bisexuality mess which you dumped in our laps a few episodes ago.)

"I Want My Pills, Dammit!": Ladies and Magic Pills Watch: So in the Samantha plot line, the writers make it clear that taking Viagra makes the (already quite sexually, shall we say, aware) Sam that much more--indeed, even rather quite loopily--sexually desirous and responsive. A few things about that whole schmegegge:

1) That's rubbish. From what my lazy Internet search/dim cultural memory tells me, researchers are very far from being in agreement about what Viagra does or does not do for the womenfolk, with a goodly number of them concluding that it doesn't actually do that much--and that there isn't a "magic bullet" pill which has this kind of miraculous effect on the ladies.

2) Also--a little troubling here, perhaps, that the sexual eagerness which these Happy Pills unleash in Samantha is regarded with such alarm and consternation by her doctor friend? He seems positively terrified by the intensity which the pills inspire in her, and said terror is part of what inspires him to dump her. Remind me again why a woman intensely, eagerly pursuing her own sexual pleasure is such a scary thing? Ohhhh, riiiiight.

3) And finally--I feel like there's something to be said here about the whole "medicalization of female desire" thing, and how creepy it is. Huh. But what is there to say, exactly, I ask myself? Ummmm... that it is creepy to me that any time that we talk about women and Magical Sexual Pills, we start to talk about female sexual "dysfunction" in ways which pathologize women whose sexual responses are not "normal" (whatever "normal" means to us here)? Yes. Indeed. That is creepy. Not sure that it is directly related to Sam's popping of Viagra here, but if I can't go off on random tangents on my very own blog, then, I ask you, where can I?

"My Favorite Thing to Do on a Saturday Night is Steve's Laundry, and I've Never Been Happier": The Ladies, Oh How They Do Love Domestic Labor! Watch: Perhaps it is because I myself find doing laundry so totally annoying (my lovely domicile has many charms, but a washer and dryer on premises is not among them--curses!) that I also find part of the Miranda-Steve plot line here so annoying. So Miranda tells her friends, as you see from the quote above, that she just loves doing Steve's laundry every Saturday night. It makes her so darned happy. PLEASE.

Even after she stops adoring doing his laundry (for scatological reasons which, since they have nothing to do with feminist analysis, I have excused myself from discussing--they are icky, that is all you need to know), she... still does it. Remind me why, again? Ohhhh, riiiight. Disappointing to have this lazy, "of course, ladies do distasteful domestic work for their menfolk which their menfolk are in no way expected to reciprocate, this is only natural" moment introduced into what is usually a pretty egalitarian presentation of Miranda and Steve's domestic life. I mean, for the love of Pete, Steve's version of giving Miranda "a hand with the wash" is initiating intimacies in the laundry room. This in no ways helps clothing get either clean or dry, sir.

Next Up...?: "The Big Time." Any guesses what that sucker is about? Big Ben, you inquire hopefully? Big Bird, you ask wistfully? Bob's Big Boy, you query optimistically? I am afraid that it is none of these things, mes amies--the Big of the title is, in fact, the Chris Noth-y Big whom you are thinking that it is. Le sigh. There is no escape for us, my fellow travelers. NONE. Back to Big Land, it is, then! See you there next week! Bring booze! (Trust me... you're going to need it.)

Season Three, Episode Six: Are We Sluts?

The Summary:

All right, let's delve into the Magical World of Slut-Shaming, shall we?

So, Carrie has been dating Aidan for a whole week and a half. I am pleased, because Aidan is actually a very nice man. (For once in our lives, Carrie with a very nice man. Thank you, Universe! Though goodness knows, you owed us this, after all that you have put us/Carrie through, so far--and will put us through, in future...) Carrie, on the other hand... is not so pleased, however, because while she keeps extending the invitation, Aidan has of yet declined to sleep with her. When she asks him about said refusals, he says that he wants to avoid making the mistake of sleeping with ladies too quickly (as he had done in the past), instead saving sex for someone special.

Carrie is rather appalled that this line of reasoning (emotional investment and sex going hand in hand) had not even occurred to her as a possibility, and that she herself had expected to sleep with Aidan pretty much right out of the gate, purely by default. Said appallment (appall-hood? appallification?) leads to her to muse about whether modern ladies have dangerously lost touch with all sense of/value for romance, and become "sluts." Well, let us see, shall we?

In terms of her own self (and Aidan's own self), she continues to fret that the fact that he wants to wait to have sex with her means that he wants to be "just friends." (These anxieties not being eased by Samantha, who tells Carrie that she needs to sleep with Aidan ASAP, since a woman and a man only have a short window of time to get on the Romantic Relationship Track, before getting derailed onto the Purely Platonic Friendship Track. I'd like to see the research on that one. Oh, right, I forgot, there isn't any, because... that's rubbish!) She obsesses over whether or not she and Aidan are doomed to end up as just friends, even though Aidan consistently, openly declares that this is not what he wants from their relationship. Oh, Carrie. Will your neuroses never end?

By the end of the episode, time has passed, and Aidan and Carrie have, indeed, slept together (Carrie: "Aidan and I were going to sleep together, and it was going to mean something. I was no virgin, but this was definitely virgin territory.") Soooo... Aidan gets to stick around for a little longer. Goody. Men who are nice!

And what of the other ladies and their grapplings with Slut-Hood, you ask? Samantha, for one, is getting slut-shamed by all of her neighbors, for having an "excessive" amount of gentlemen callers. Although Sam is usually the first to fiercely defend her sexual choices, this relentless derision and nastiness gets to her... and she decides to move to a different building, to escape their heckling (slut-heckling?) All right, then!

Miranda, meanwhile, has learned that she has chlamydia, which means that she has to contact all of the gents whom she has slept with, to tell them to get tested to see if they, too, have this charmless disease. Having to make a list of "All of the Gentlemen I Have Slept With," and subsequently contacting all of the gentlemen on said list, proves to be a rather dispiriting process, and induces some pretty severe self-slut-shaming on La Hobbes' part. Happily, Steve pulls her out of this (Miranda: "I'm a big, dirty, diseased whore." Steve: "Hey, that's my girlfriend you're talking about.") He could care less about Miranda's sexual past, and keeps telling her to stop beating herself up for having a list which is "too long." Goody. Men who are nice, and who refuse to hop on the Slut-Shaming Express!

If only Charlotte was having such luck with the gentlemen--but alas, she is not. She is dating Alexander, who seems to be a very nice man (we know that can't last, don't we, gentle readers?) Transpires that he has the rather unpleasant habit of calling Charlotte "you fucking bitch, you fucking whore" during their Intimate Moments. Ah. Of course he does. When Charlotte informs him of this practice (of which he had previously been unaware), he is horrified (one), decides that he needs to go to therapy to deal with the issues underlying such declarations (two), and dumps Charlotte (three.) The "Let Us Watch Charlotte Suffer" plotlines continue apace, I see!

The Analysis:

People of Color Watch: Marginal in the extreme. The doctor who tests Steve for chlamydia is Asian-American. A nurse, and the doorman in Sam's building, are African-American (and have no lines), and the elevator operator in Sam's building is Hispanic. (He has about two lines, though he does also roll his eyes and look disapproving at Sam's slutttttiness.)

"Okay, That's What I Wanted, Bye": Being Flabbergasted That A Gent Might Actually Want to Wait to Have Sex with a Lady Watch: When it comes to Aidan's "I've decided I only want to sleep with women whom I have gotten to truly know and care about" affirmation--and how that affirmation gets handled--in this episode:

1) Yay. I like Aidan. He is such a nice gent (as opposed to a Nice Guy, notably)--he tells Carrie what he's thinking and what he wants, and cares and asks about what she's thinking, and what she wants. Give yourself a gold star, Mr. Shaw.

2) I also like the fact that he himself mocks the whole "a man won't buy the cow if he can get the milk for free, wait, are we seriously likening women to cows here???" idea, that men are always and only out for sex, and yet do not respect the ladies who are "too easy" when it comes to sexual matters. "Okay, that's what I wanted, bye" is what he says to Carrie after they've slept together--and HE IS KIDDING. A man to break our abstinence-only, "men will only respect women who are stainlessly 'pure' and virginal" friends' hearts, this one.

3) The thing that bothers me about this plotline (and you knew there would be something...) is that Carrie does not believe that Aidan is romantically interested in her (even though he keeps telling her that he is, geez) until they sleep together. Her friends do not help to diffuse these anxieties, assuming that Aidan's refusal to sleep with her right away must mean that he is gay, has "mother issues," or is afflicted with some kind of physical deformity. Because it is inconceivable that he could actually mean what he says, and that he wants to wait to sleep with Carrie until they know each other better...? I suppose that it must be, silly me!

Slut-Shaming, Does This Episode Feed or Diffuse It?: A Debate

Feeds It: Oh, please, like this even needs to be a debate.

Diffuses It: I agree, this episode is MINE. It's not even a contest. It's like being Muhammed Ali, and being asked to box a kitten. Pathetic.

Feeds: Ummm, are you high on crack? I believe this one is MINE, kimosabe. Do you not recall the scene where Sam says to Charlotte (who is obsessing about the fact that Alexander has called her a whore dans la sack), "If you're a whore, what does that make me?", and Carrie and Miranda quickly avert their eyes and look embarrassed, because clearly... that's what Sam is, and said moment is played for laughs? Ha ha, Sam is slutty, and said sluttiness is ripe for mockery! [Prepares brow to accept the laurels of victory.]

Diffuses: Okay, sure, I'll grant that that is an unpleasant moment. But I think that it's an isolated, unpleasant moment in an episode which is otherwise quite a thoughtful, nuanced examination of our slut-shame-y culture.

Feeds: [bored, dismissive, examining its cuticles]: Oh, really?

Diffuses: [stung]: Yes, really! Let us not forget that the whole Miranda-Steve plotline is all about how unnecessarily hurtful Miranda's self-slut-shaming is. And about how Steve, with his "Your sexual past isn't the measure of who you are as a person, I don't care who you were with in the past, you're with me now, and I love you, no matter what, stop being mean to yourself" attitude, is presented as the voice of reason here. [Prepares to snatch the laurels of victory for itself.]

Feeds: [less bored now, actually starting to feel a little afraid]: Well... maybe.

Diffuses: Oh, and I'm not done, sparky. As we have already discussed, Aidan, too, explicitly rejects slut-shaming, "women's value to men is purely sexual, yet women deserve to be shamed for being sexual" ideas, as well. And since Aidan and Steve are two of the most sympathetic male characters in the whole darned series, having them mock slut-shaming and try to keep their ladies from engaging in it... pretty nice.

Feeds: [galvanized into life by unease about losing its grip on the victory laurels]: Not so fast, my overly optimistic friend. What about Sam leaving her apartment building because her neighbors' judgment about her sexual decisions makes her feel so terrible about herself?

Diffuses [defensively, and with more than a little false bravado]: Heck, that was a victory for Sam! She leaves because she wants to live in a place free from sexual judgment--she refuses to change her behavior just to appease her neighbors, so she goes to live somewhere else, where she can be herself without shame or judgment!

Feeds: [skeptically]: Ummmm-hmmmm. And it's not like the episode doesn't play Sam's sluttiness for laughs, through its endless montage of the gents she has slept with over the years, for example, and suggest that her neighbors are onto something, when they suggest her sexual behavior is inappropriate and excessive?

Diffuses: [Mumbles something inaudible.]

Feeds: [with artificial sweetness]: I'm sorry, what was that?

Diffuses: All right, I think that we can call the Sam plotline a draw, Slut-Shaming Wise.

Feeds: Fair enough.

Diffuses: But when it comes to the rest of the episode... point to me, I think. I wear high heels, you wear sneakers, I'm cheer captain and you're on the bleachers, and so on and so forth.

Feeds: [Murmurs something inaudible, and likely obscene.]

Diffuses: [Adjusts laurels on its brow, beyond caring about any discontented, obscene murmuring which may be happening in its vicinity.]

"No One Wants to Marry a Whore": Dismissing A Lady's Dislike of Being Called a Whore as Foolish Prissiness Watch: Although I do think that, on the whole, the episode does do a good job of dealing with the whole "our society has some truly bizarre, contradictory, and unpleasant ideas about female sexuality" thing, there is a moment in the "Charlotte tells the ladies that her gent is calling her a whore" discussion which I quite dislike: when Charlotte expresses horror that Alexander has called her a fucking bitch and a fucking whore during sex, her friends quite literally laugh said horror off, regarding Charlotte's objections as rather silly and prissy. (Charlotte: "Why would he say that?" Sam: "Maybe because... you were fucking him?" Carrie: "That's true, sweetie, he didn't say it to you at the dry cleaners, he said it when he was in you.")

Ahhhh, that's right, I had forgotten the "gents have the right to use derogatory terms used to disparage women to ladies during sex, even if said ladies find those terms offensive" rule. Foolish of me! Charlotte clearly finds said terminology, not a naughty turn-on, but rather offensive, off-putting, and hurtful... and surely, she has the right to feel this way, without being mocked? It seems not! My mistake!

Next Up...?: Return to me anon, and we shall reflect on "Drama Queens," a episode which is full of, well, drama. (Though sadly, not quite so full of queens. Come on, SATC writers, time-traveling episode, you so could have made it happen! Charlotte exchanging tales of romantic woe with Guinevere! Sam exchanging jokes with Anne Boleyn! Miranda sharing some Quality Redhead Time with Elizabeth! Carrie going shoe-shopping with Marie Antoinette! Amazing.)

The actual episode we shall be discussing, sadly, features none of these things, but rather the return of Big. [Curls up in the fetal position, craving a safety and security not available in this cold, cruel world.]

Back on Carrie's Stoop Gets Slackerfied

My apologies for not posting properly today, dear friends--I hope, at least, that I have a suitably festive excuse for my slackerhood--I was at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's rally in D.C. this weekend, which was simply lovely--the sight of Jon Stewart in a snazzy blazer, Stephen Colbert in a cape, and lots and lots of nice, smart, funny people carrying madly witty signs (my personal favorites including a giant sign reading "Kitten!", with a picture of a cute kitten on it--now THERE'S a political statement I can get behind!)=happiness. Also nice to see the good people of Planned Parenthood and NARAL out in force (I'm guessing they were there for the Restoring Sanity part, and not so much the Fear Keeping Alive part?)

I am coming down from my Cloud of Rally Happiness as I type, however, so we shall be back to our regularly scheduled programming/ranting very soon, I promise. In the meantime, why not enjoy these images of J. Stew and S. Colb in matching American flag sweaters? God bless America, indeed.