Sex And The City S1 E3-7: A Retro SSL Review
My new little segment is back for a another round. It's a modified, lazy version of an SSL Review. It's just me transcribing my notes, page by page, on all of the Sex and the City episodes. I watched them all - not necessarily in order - during 2007 and 2008, and I took notes on the depiction/discussion of female orgasm and female masturbation. It was my early attempt at this type of lady-gasm review stuff. Anyway, I never actually created reviews from these notes, but since they exist, I'd like to get them out there on the interwebs before they get burned in a house fire or something...thus this series.
Anyway, the fun of this will be that I will transcribe these as word for word as I can while still trying to make it be a sensible read. I'll post a pick of the notes for your reference. I'll do one or more episodes at a time - from the beginning of the notebook to the end. I may add notes for clarification or add my SSL-Review-style comments.
Hopefully the notes I took privately 10 years ago won't make me look like a dumb asshole. I will add them in the TV SSL Review Master List (of course you are also welcome to check out the Movie SSL Review Master List as well). Here we go.
Sex and the City Season 1 Episodes 3 - 7
Season 1 Ep 3
Season 1 Ep 4
-Sam talking about all the positions - she got fucked in - they were obviously totally orgasmic for her.
-Sam tells Charlotte back door with the right guy and right lubricant is wonderful
-Carrie gets off top of him and says it was great then V.O. says "then when I thought it couldn't get any better, he spooned me." {in the margin next to this I wrote: intercourse was good but cuddling is better}
Season 1 Ep 5
- Woman tells Carrie her man has tiny penis but knows just how to use it
-Sam says: money is power, sex is power - just an exchange of power
- Miranda says, 'don't listen to the dime store Camille Paglia'
-sex for money - Carrie said would bring down her morals
Season 1 Ep 6
Season 1 Ep 7
-Charlotte doesn't like to give head
-oral sex - Miranda said oral sex is god's gift to women - but then Sam said cock-sucking is power --- so confused 2 types of oral sex
-Then Miranda and Sam both said they only give oral sex to get it.
My Thoughts
I must have been tired or bored when I was watching these because they are even less clear about what was happening in the episodes than normal. Also, though, there wasn't really anything in these episodes that I consider SSL Reviewable these days. There was technically no discussion or depiction of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. It's more just female sexuality related comments that are not eligible for review that I wrote down.
At the time I was taking notes for these, though, I was still writing the movie and I wasn't quite as focused in my point of view as I am now. Plus, I was just writing down things that were kinda interesting to me - like Miranda calling Samantha a dime store Camille Paglia. I kinda liked that because I had recently learned about and read some Camille Paglia and her sort of patriarchy infused brand of feminism.
I thought it a good burn by Miranda. I thought, and still do, that the archetype that the Samantha character inhabits of an uber sexual woman, but specifically ubersexual in the way that is incredibly pleasing and deeply in line with male orgasm, desire, and fantasy is, well, not that progressive, and also straight up fraudulent in its depiction of what actually is physically orgasmic to women. I mean, how many times in this show does Samantha get her brains fucked out (i.e. getting her vaginal canal stimulated by a ramming penis) and orgasms without ever even having anything close to stimulation on her clitoral glans area? A lot -that's how many, and it's BS. That's simply not a sensible or realistic way to depict women coming.
Even though it is depicted like that all the time, it's still BS, and Samantha is, as Miranda insinuated, a sort of hallow, patriarchy infused, brand of sexual feminism. Her character is aligned less to actual reality of the female body/sexuality/orgasm, and more to pretending that sexiness and the acts of exuberantly engaging in penis-focused sex cause orgasm in females. This archetype that Samantha inhabits is no a progressive, sexually liberated woman. That idea of her is largely false, and the uber sexual Samantha archetype, that talks above about how great and presumably orgasmic all the different intercourse positions she's done are, is just a trick that we ladies are always falling for.
I do, however, like Miranda talking about how lovely oral sex is. I mean, that's a mouth on the clit, and that actually could be(and often is, amiright?) orgasmic for a women, and I'll also give Samantha some props for enjoying it enough to admit she only gives in order to get that sweet, sweet, oral. Samantha get's it right sometimes.