Sex and the City and what it teaches us
By Sara Twogood, MD
When Sex and The City debuted in 1998 it was a power house – a series too risqué for the regular cable crowd. It made a subscription to HBO so desirable.
For the millennials and Gen Z (and eventually the Gen Alphas out there) – I don’t know how to describe what this series truly meant at the time. The fashion, the friendships, the sex. All of it. The icing on the cake? The content is real. This comes from a good friend of mine who has sat in writers’ rooms: every idea brought to the room had to be based on a real-life situation. It had to involve the writer personally or a personal contact. Nothing was made up. As we go through these episodes to dissect and discuss the sex related content in each one, remember this! We will see the depth and breadth of the sociology and physicality of sex and sexual-related content that Sex and the City addressed over time.
But remember, this was the 90s and early aughts and not all of it has aged well.
Some parts are still charming – the taxis, no ubers; no cell phones, no texts, no social media; cordless phones and running to answer the call, not knowing who is on the other end; skin tone shiny lip stick; Mr. Big’s “abso-fucking-lutely”. I mean, who could not pick up a show when the pilot ends like that?
Some parts are not so charming anymore - the manipulation and game playing and this toxic behavior coated as empowerment; the smoking cigarettes in restaurants, bars, and everywhere else. And the: “that man (Mr. Big), he’s the next Donald Trump. Except he’s younger and much better looking.” Meant as a compliment!
Regardless, it’s a treasure trove of sexual wellness topics and we are diving in!
Season 1; Episode 1: Sex and the City
Core topic: women having sex like men
How it’s demonstrated: Carrie, our sexual anthropologist, investigates what it feels like to “have sex like a man”. She has sex with an acquaintance, is the only one to orgasm, then leaves the encounter without having feelings of attachment. She sums it up with: “I realized I had done it – I had just had sex like a man.”
Let’s talk about two key sexual health topics in this episode:
Does having sex like a man mean a one-sided orgasm?
Do men feel different from women after sex?
1. Does having sex like a man mean a one-sided orgasm?
Stereotypical sex, at least as portrayed in TV and movies, was (and still usually is) about heterosexual penetrative sex, also called penile vaginal intercourse. If this is the kind of sex being talked about then yes, it’s centered around male orgasm. Almost 100% of males can orgasm from penile-vaginal sex. But only 30% of females can. The vast majority of female orgasms happen with clitoral stimulation, and penetrative sex does not do a great job of stimulating the clitoris. Remember, the penis and the clitoris are analogous organs – they come from the same early embryologic origins and then differentiate into either the penis or the clitoris once biological sex is established. From a crude anatomic perspective: stimulation of penis = stimulation of clitoris = easiest path to orgasm.
In this episode, when Carrie has sex “like a man” she received oral sex as a means to get her orgasm. Kudos for this portrayal - oral sex is a great way to focus on clitoral stimulation if the partner knows what we’re preaching.
2. Do men feel different from women after sex?
This is where the messaging gets complicated. Males and females can (obviously) both have sex purely for physical pleasure and nothing more. Sex in and of itself does not mean an automatic connection or endearment for either partner.
However, there are gender differences when it comes to sex. To pretend like there isn’t under the guise of feminism does everyone a disservice – the thinking defaults to the male perspective only and we miss the opportunity to highlight how to optimize sexual and sexual wellness for females.
If you don’t believe me, do a quick bias check: Close your eyes and picture 2 people having sex. What do you see?
My mind reflexively sees a male and female having penetrative sex. That’s my bias; I’m aware of it. It’s a huge motivator for me to do this work. But think about this for a moment – I’m a female physician who has spent more than half my life becoming an expert on female reproductive health. And I still have this bias. I know many others share it – I’d venture to say most of society shares it. We need to acknowledge our biases to be able correct them.
And that means acknowledging the gender difference in sex. We have an entire lesson dedicated to gender differences in our Sexual Wellness Workshop but here are 2 examples (from sexual health research):
Males tend to have more sensitive sexual accelerators and females tend to have more sensitive brakes.
Males tend to have more spontaneous desire and female tend to have more responsive desire.
Not familiar with these terms? That’s ok. The take home point is there are difference!. Stick with us and you’ll keep learning. Here are 2 resources to learn more now: here (our favorite sex wellness book so far) and here (our sexual wellness workshops, again, because it is really great)