The 10 best episodes about sex in Sex And The City
With the HBO Max revival on the way, The A.V. Club looks back at some of the most insightful (and raunchiest) episodes about sex from the original
TV Features Sex and the City
It’s been 23 years since the show premiered, but the discussion around Sex And The City has never really died down—especially as new generations of viewers consume a show that once offered some of the most candid depictions of sex on TV to go with its celebration of female friendships. The pendulum has swung between plaudits and criticism, but even with all the sexually frank series and women-led comedies that have premiered since Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis first strutted around New York City together, there’s still a lot to enjoy about Sex And The City.
SATC’s portrayal of sexual encounters and conundrums, which could often be retrograde, still yielded many memorable moments. With a revival, And Just Like That…, premiering on HBO Max on December 9, the quartet-turned-trio will have a chance to make amends for the past and greater strides. But for our latest Inventory, The A.V. Club revisited the original series and found 10 episodes about sex that still hold up more than 20 years later.
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It is completely baffling to me how this site chose to transition to generic clickbait content a full decade behind the curve.
They were famously bought out by a company that forced them to…
Kind of? G/O Media undeniably sucks. But Kotaku was just as bought out, and they haven’t degenerated to this level of clickbait. I don’t read other G/O Media sites, though, so maybe Kotaku is the exception to the rule. Is The Root posting lists of the top ten Black Iowans of the 19th Century? Is Jezebel ranking the top ten Jezebels? I have no clue. All I can do is compare A/V Club and Kotaku, and it’s clear which one has gone further down the drain.
even though some of it hasn’t dated well, this show made me and my friends a lot more open about sex in conversation in our youth. and a realization that sex can be a lot of different things, good and bad, and we can talk about both. it was a pioneer in that sense.
This slideshow just shows to me how backward SATC was about sex.
I always felt bad for Samantha. She was always treated like a second-class citizen merely because she enjoyed sex and had agency with respect to it. I think any of us who’ve been ‘that friend’ like Samantha in our own groups, even if we were particularly staid compared to Samantha can identify.I felt like this in college with my high school and college buddies. Even though I was deep in the closet; I did have sex with women and had girlfriends. I could say I was adventurous- but it wasn’t like I was a himbo or a lothario banging different every night, week, month or year for that fact. But I was the one I knew who was actually having sex among all my friends. Even the ‘normal’ ones.
I think her and her friends at odds over Samantha’s sexuality was kind of the point though, they often did treat her unfairly because they felt uncomfortable by how open she was about it (and the time the show came out she also made some viewers uncomfortable). Usually the girls learned a lesson in being less judgemental towards Samantha, but I think it was clever to point out how misogyny is a threat even in female friendships.It’s also funny seeing how that misogyny still shapes the perception of the show today, that because they are women who like sex and feminine things, they are somehow shallow characters. In reality they finally laid some groundwork for female characters that were both good and selfish people all at once.
Some things are TMI for some people. That doesn’t mean it’s misogyny. I wouldn’t want to hear about funky tasting spunk from Samantha or Stanford.
But why is it so offensive? It’s not, not really. The misogyny exists in that this kind of talk has existed forever between men, and Samantha or a queer person discussing it is somehow vile. (not saying that this is your perception, but it is a general perception)
Usually, people grow up and don’t want to share or hear that much detail about their friends’ sex lives. I was thoroughly amused by SATC, but, in real life, I don’t want to know that much about what my friends do behind closed doors. That holds for male, female, straight, gay, and everyone in between.
If my husband shared any detail about my bodily fluids with his friends, I would not be pleased. Some things are private. Maybe that wouldn’t matter if you’re a Samantha banging a new guy every week, but not every monogamous partner would appreciate such sharing.
right, but the show is really about that women can take ownership about their sexuality the same way men can, especially with Samantha, and that shouldn’t dictate their goodness or badness. And she can talk all the spunk she wants to an audience that will listen. But yes, setting boundaries with a partner is fair, it’s just not what the show was looking to explore though. And if Samantha had a partner that allowed her to talk freely about her sexual life then she should be able to.
It’s also funny seeing how that misogyny still shapes the perception of the show today, that because they are women who like sex and feminine things, they are somehow shallow characters. In reality they finally laid some groundwork for female characters that were both good and selfish people all at once.The criticism of the show as shallow doesn’t come from the women liking sex and feminine things, it mainly comes from the insane and unrealistic levels of lifestyle porn the show pumped out every week. They had infinite free time and money to go clubbing every night, wear the latest fashions, and spend the remainder of their time brunching and getting spa treatments. Early on, the show kinda brushed those concerns away with the idea that Samantha, in PR, is kinda paid to party, as was Carrie, who was reporting on New York City night life. But as things went on, and the lavishness of everything built on itself with the show’s growing popularity (more products, places and designers wanting to be associated with it), it went from shallow to verging on toxic. They tried a season where Carrie realizes she’s broke and can’t afford her lifestyle, but that wasn’t much fun, so the partying went on, anyway.
let us enjoy the fantasy, their problems were not real world problems! the wardrobe was a huge part of the show and still is iconic today. It still feels obsessively possessive of these female characters. that they don’t dress real enough, that they don’t live real enough, that they don’t spend real enough. And like they are the only culprits in television of this. so yes, I think there is still a certain level of misogyny that exists in peoples view of the show even today. Carrie lived in a brownstone from day 1, she was not living in the same universe as us.
She was in a studio in a brownstone. I’ve had friends in studios or 1-bds in the area she supposedly lived in who paid a little more than they would for the same place in the outerboroughs, but she didn’t really have a Friends-apartment.
I’m all for the fantasy, it’s just that it’s shallow. I enjoyed the series a lot, until it got unbearably repetitive in the later seasons (to the point where I missed most of the last season, where they apparently stop characterizing Amanda as an R-rated Bugs Bunny for a while and treat her like a human being again). I also like the MCU, but if anyone complains to me that it’s shallow, I’d have to admit they might have a point.
And this shows me for posting drunk, I get to write “Amanda” instead of Samantha.
Miranda trying to make partner at a major NYC law firm while still having time for sit-down lunch with someone other than clients, then out for drinks, then having down time with her partners in the evening, was simply ridiculous. The whole point at those places is you absolutely kill yourself for six or seven years in the hope it works out. Then you’re a partner, and you better be earning. No one who skipped out of her job that often would have lasted more than a couple of years.
I was in law school at the time when this was a cultural phenomenon, and it was a rule in my study group that we either had to stop in time for SATC’s first airing, or take a break to watch SATC. My study partners and I loved the show, but there was at least one time when one of them (a woman) got triggered and yelled at the screen “How the fuck is this skinny bitch making her billable hours? All she does is drink, fuck, and brunch!” I blame myself for mixing too strong a Cosmo.
Sometimes you just gotta vent.
I think people have that same reaction any time their own profession is depicted (almost always unrealistically) in entertainment. Jobs are shorthand for the type of person you’re seeing.
Miranda = lawyer, checks outSamantha = PR, checks outCarrie = relationship / sex advice columnist, yepCan’t remember what Charlotte did, which is kind of the point
The episode where Samantha befriends a woman with similar views on sex, only to find there are limits to what she considers acceptable sexual behavior (the friend quite blatantly going down on a guy underneath a restaurant table), was great because it put some boundaries around what could often be too much of a cartoonish “anything goes” persona.
These selections remind me of one of the unrealistic aspects of SATC – the lack of family members. Aside from Charlotte’s brother appearing for one episode and Miranda’s mother dying, the only references to parents or siblings was one reminiscence by Carrie about her father and maybe a passing complaint about someone at one of Charlotte’s weddings.
Charlotte seems like exactly the kind of person who would be running home to visit the family on the regular. Miranda and Carrie seem like they’d complain about a parent calling them too much, but nothing.
I always thought that was weird, too. It was as if they were created, fully formed, as adult New Yorkers and that was it. I kind of get why–as they said New York was like one of the characters, and they wanted it to be, I guess, an immersive experience, but ultimately it was pretty unrealistic.
These selections remind me of one of the unrealistic aspects of SATC – the lack of family members.This is a common problem in most TV/movies. The only familial relationships which exist are those directly important to the show. Many characters have no siblings, parents, cousins, etc unless those people are characters on the show. How often do characters on Law & Order talk about family members? Does Chekov (Star Trek: TOS) have any family? Does Bones? Does Kirk? They literally never come up. If one character needs to find another, they always just go to their home. And if they don’t find him/her at home they never think to check with a sibling or parent. It’s always “Well, there must be something going on.”
Kirk has a brother who gets killed in Season 1. (Hilariously his dead body is played by Shatner in a mustache.) That is the one and only time it’s mentioned in the series or any of the Prime (non-Kelvan) movies. But there’s a deleted scene for the Kelvan movies when we see George.
Sure, but those shows aren’t about Chekov or the cops’ personal lives. The audience can comfortably assume that the family stuff is happening in the places we don’t see. SatC was about the day to day lives of the characters, particularly their romances. In that context, the absence of mention of family (e.g. What does Charlotte’s mother think about her divorce or her conversion to Judaism?) makes no sense.
I live in a city far from where I grew up (where my parents still reside.) Other than one visit from my dad ten years ago, during which he briefly met exactly two of my friends, my family members (parents, siblings, etc.) have never once interacted with any of adults friends, ever, many of whom I’ve known for 15 or twenty years. Heck, even as a topic of conversation, it rarely ever comes up.
My family is a big part of my life, of course, but it’s entirely a separate thing. The amount of time family factors into a group of four adults living in New York (none of whom grew up there, I think) feels totally realistic and unremarkable.
Agreed, I think the minimal references that *are* made are perfectly believable. And as has been said by other defenders of this point, this show is about found family, about these friendships.
I always found it a little weird in the episode where Charlotte marries Trey, that she’s walked down the aisle by a man whose face does not get shown. I remember thinking, “why not just show his face?” I mean one of the things I always thought this show did pretty well was handle the comings and goings of tertiary characters in a way that felt authentic, and so I found it awkward that they deliberately did not show the man’s face. But upon reflection all these years later I think it was the right choice and actually helps support the theory that this show intentionally did not concern itself with family members, because the focus was on the friendships, but of course allowed for acknowledgement that the women did come from other places and families did exist in their offscreen lives.
I think that idea works as a metaphor for the show: the focus is on the friends, not the family. And from a practical, filmmaking standpoint, too. They literally only needed an extra as a body in that scene. Perhaps they didn’t want to be locked into a specific “look” for Charlotte’s dad if they wanted to keep their options open for him appearing later.
Miranda having oodles this time for a social life while making partner (and from what I remember never having a significant work/life conflict) was another bit of background that made the show feel shallow – especially to my friends who were going through the big law grind at the time, and I know at least one who couldn’t stand to keep watching as a result.On a broader scale the writing of pretty much all the men as objectified sex or relationship cardboard cutouts was unrealistic as well, although there’s been an argument that was semi-intentional given it was turning the tables on how women have so often been written for screen. Since it got bad enough so that Greg Behrendt got brought as a consultant in because (as he puts it) producers realized the writing room of ‘7 women and 2 gay guys’ was having some problems, probably closer to the former though.
meh I honestly don’t want to watch Miranda at work(I’m a lawyer, we also have lives as much as some lawyers like to pretend we don’t for clout), the show had a lot of fantastical elements too it, from the wardrobe to the finances, but I think it’s a silly argument people are making that it wasn’t realistic enough. like yes, I know Carrie can’t afford her lifestyle, but who cares?And come on, the argument that the men were objectified is lazy, the problem with objectification of women is that it becomes the only role they are allowed to exist in and their success becomes directly linked to their attractiveness. Sex and the City did not set men back.
And it’s an even sillier argument to argue that one aspect of what made, for instance, Ally McBeal such a must watch among then-20 something women – I take it you were far younger then, which explains a lot, along with being Canadian versus stuck in the hellish NYC/Boston/Chicago/SF 2000+ billable hour grind – was irrelevant. (One of those that I remember objecting is now the head of a worldwide practice at a white shoe firm, incidentally, who I suspect knows a hell of a lot more about that experience than you.) It’s a bizarre and straw man argument to say that you had to watch someone at work to show work/life balance, versus showing a friend who was often exhausted, stressed, and sometimes canceling who wanted to have fun but often couldn’t.But glad you enjoyed the show.
I mean I know Carrie would also be similarly stressed as a writer trying to make deadlines and Samantha should only have existed in an office as such a top dog in PR, but it is a show about fantasies.
Carrie was, it seems until “Carrie Diaries”, abandoned by her father and no mom in the picture. Samantha comes from some less affluent rural or suburban roots (slinging dilly bars at the Dairy Queen), and both seems to have intentionally distanced her background from her present but also being just slightly older may not have living parents plausibly (and she sure as shit wasn’t going to play visiting auntie to siblings). Miranda speaks with some annoyance about her mother and sister (the brother is new in the funeral), and very much seems the “only back home when obligated”. Charlotte not seeing family more is the only one out of character.
Also, the show specifically did not do a lot of “holiday” episodes – Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. As someone who lives in NYC (and has had a fairly epic single 20’s and 30’s), my family is not usually showing up in the same context as my outings with my friends, nor are they brunch conversation regularly. And they are definitely kept far from my sex life. I have literally avoided bringing a date to family gatherings for almost 20 years, even when in a relationship. (It was only awkward the one time the wedding was IN NYC, and the bartender I was sort of seeing kind of figured out from that where we were in terms of commitment … I may also have hooked up with an Australian I met in the downtown bar after the rehearsal dinner.)
Agreed with all this! And on the point of Charlotte, it does seem odd for her character not be close to family, but I feel like this can be plausibly explained by the show having been from Carrie’s perspective – or stories of the week relayed to her specifically by the other characters. So if Charlotte went off to see her family some weekend, I could see that happening and of being of no consequence to Carrie or her weekly sex column. The episode with Charlotte’s brother was a fine way, for me anyway, to show that Charlotte does have family, and perhaps is close with them, but Carrie would only be concerned with them if, for example, one of them is sleeping with Samantha.
I think this is one of the aspects of the show—like a lot of the show’s depictions of sex this article praises as coming from a female viewpoint—that’s shaped by the show being creatively driven by gay men. At the time, a lot of gay people living in New York were estranged from or had strained relationships with their families (or, at least, their families of birth), so from that perspective, the missing relatives make more sense.
I read on the internet that the writers specifically avoided including family members, as the show was supposed to be about the family that they made in New York.
Makes sense. Having others who they could reliably go to with personal issues would definitely have let some of the air out of their relationship.
I really love this show. I got to this series after watching Sex Life which i found from https://www.mycinegist.com/shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings-download-linkThis is really an interesting show to watch.
Someone’s a Charlotte!
People paint Charlotte as a prude but I think that she probabaly had more sex than Carrie during the series run.
“My Morherboard, Myself” is one of the series’ best. “Are We Sluts?” should have made the list
Are you going to do a followup about episodes about the City? It gets equal billing in the title!
It does actually have clear character arcs in the show.
I rewatched this recently, the first time since it aired when i was 14yrs.s1-s3, are great fun, they are the Darren Star years, then Micheal Patrick King took over in s4. S1-S3 is when it was a under-the-radar gem to pop culture phenomenon, but then i watched season 4 episode 10, “Belles of the Balls”, and the whole episode felt like a parody of an sex and the city episode. Charlotte suddenly acts out of character and quits her job, gets hysterical and claims she will cure AIDs. it was so shit and pulled me out of the viewing experience and made me stop rewatching.3 seasons is good enough for any tv show i think, except the wire, lol.I did love the storyline of Carrie cheating on Aiden, felt real and messy. I liked the fallout and stuff like Big leaving the answer machine message.Also, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s one-scene cameo is one of the best one-scene cameos ever.
Michael Patrick King never met a piece of media he couldn’t ruin.
the exception being THE COMEBACK, though. one of the best comedies ever, though i assume it’s Lisa Kudrow that brings out the best in him.
Sarah Jessica ParkerSo, she’s a dog?!? I mean, fuck, she’s a woof.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Danette. Especially having played the part of Wesley (of Wesley and Leslie) York 😉 One would think that a) it being one of the most popular episodes and b) my sister getting married twice would’ve triggered at least another appearance of her big brother, Wes, yes? However, it’s nice to know I was the only sibling ever to be introduced on the show.
I haven’t seen too many episodes of Sex and the City, but the ones that I have seen just gave me yet another reason not to be sorry that I don’t live in New York City – I’d much rather live in a city in which the women are willing to take their underwear off before having sex.