What Sex and The City Did & Didn't Teach Me About Love - Part 1: Looking for Matrimony in the Bedsheets
I have been in bed sick for the past 2 days, and with yet another lonely Valentine's Day just around the corner, I figured I'd give in to temptation and finally start watching Sex and The City. I know it's a show full of bullshit depictions of New York, love, and womanhood, but even the fictional glamor of this show can't ignore the very real frustrations of dating in a big city as a young professional.
For the sake of positive manifestations though, I'll mention that I am at the happier part of the show; Carrie and Mr. Big are still broken up but she's finding herself and having mostly positive experiences with other men (which in the end is preparing her for a happy marriage with Big, so.. good stuff still?) - but Miranda and Charlotte are learning more about themselves and breaking down barriers while also respecting their boundaries now that they're in healthier relationships.
And the inspiration for this post - my roommate's boyfriend is secretly plotting their engagement!
For the past few months, he has been acting hella odd; I was worried maybe he was cheating on her, but it didn't add up to the clues or his character as a person at all - it's what we all are taught to erratically fear and assume whenever something seems different from a partner, even if all the signs suggest the polar opposite of that.
Honestly, I'm so glad I'm binging the show now as a 23-year-old with adult friends in healthy relationships and missed it when I was 15 and all my high school friends held that and What to Expect When You're Expecting as the gospel for what to expect in adult womanhood. Because, like I said, though there are some realistic depictions in the show, most of it is over-dramatized and/or over-glamorized - and there's a lot that this show gets completely wrong about real love, sex, and relationships.
For instance; not every woman has to get heartbroken, betrayed, or objectified over and over again before meeting the right match and settling down. In the show, all 4 main characters go through more than 10 guys each season in the first half of the series - which is totally fine and dandy if that's a lifestyle of your choosing and not a self-destructing habit made out of desperation. Unfortunately, I think the show perpetuates a narrative that says casual/non-committal sex occurs among women because they are desperate to find matrimony in the bedsheets rather than because women enjoy sexual liberation.
Charlotte is almost made fun of for her strict rules about sex and intimacy, and always focuses on the future of marriage whenever considering a relationship with a guy. Miranda has a pessimistic attitude about love and relationships for the majority of the series but is then delightfully surprised as she begins to unpack her anxieties about love and regains control of her life through therapy and self-realization.
Compared to my real-life friends who are in healthy committed relationships/marriages, Carrie Bradshaw and her friends got most of it very wrong; most of my friends in happy relationships did not date/have sex with a dozen men; actually, most of my friends are marrying their first serious love - some of which have been together since high school.
The truth is we as women (and/or non-binary feminine people, I'm still learning how to write more inclusively) should not be desperate for a loving long-term relationship! It should be ok to have consensual sex and not want or expect anything else from it. And it should be ok to keep boundaries that cock-block casual sex - and to communicate those boundaries to potential partners.
Overall, I guess my roommate's upcoming proposal and binging the first 3 seasons of Sex and The City got me to realize that when it comes to love and happy relationships, there's no one-size-fits-all expectation - as long as y'all respect each other and love each other truthfully, I think you're doing it right.