Single in The City #meghanMJLieb

http://www.buzzfeed.com/fayebrown93/21-times-sex-and-the-city-made-us-feel-better-abou-g36p#.pd0mG1DMb


    Sex and the City was a monumental TV show that gave women new ways of looking at relationships and how they could view them, act in them, and in fact how they don’t need relationships at all. One Buzzfeed article called “21 Times ‘Sex and The City’ Made Us Feel Better About Being Single” addressed the different lessons Sex and The City preached the new ways that women can approach love, relationships, and sex. In Gail Markle’s article, “Can Women Have Sex Like a Man: Sexual Scripts in Sex and The City” she discusses how the show “challenged commonly held cultural beliefs about what constitutes appropriate sexual desires and behaviors for women.” Some of the ideas it challenged are discussed in the Buzzfeed article.
    The first example in the Buzzfeed article is that Sex in The City teaches you “it is important to be experimental before settling down.” Markle draws on this idea that the show has the main characters engaging in casual sex like a man , meaning having sex without being in love or in a relationship. Markle defines this as recreational sex, meaning that the partners were not in love. The results of her studies showed that the characters were more likely to engage in recreational sex. Since the main characters on the show were more likely to engage in recreational sex, viewers were more likely to find these actions acceptable and thus engage in it themselves. Also, the show premiered during the mid-nineties in a time where women were becoming more sexually liberated, and the popularity of this show further exemplified these actions. This idea related back to the Buzzfeed articles reason number three, “a casual fling was a fun alternative to a serious relationship.”  Meaning that it is okay to to have fun and that while women are expected to only have sex in committed relationships, Sex and The City shows that women can have sex more liberally.
    Another example the article gives is “have fun being single as long as you want,” which is important because often times there is a stigma that women should be in a relationship in order to be happy or feel adequate; however, sex and the city shows these four women frolicking though New York City and not being defined by their relationships. It is also important that Sex and The City shows examples of toxic relationships and how the characters deal with them. This idea is another example in the article, “not to settle for less than you deserve.” This idea that women are worthy of being happy, whether single or in a relationship, is shown through many different relationships in the show. The main characters have many different types of relationships and the differences between them open up the audiences’ eyes to the many different relationship types. For example, one episode Samantha starts dating a women, and while she loves her girlfriend, it becomes a relationship that is more work than actual happiness. While Samantha loved her girlfriend, she in fact “loves her (me) more.” Meaning that Samantha knows what is in her best interest and she feels as though she deserves the best and knows that she is not willing to settle in a relationship.
    I feel as though number 14, “relationships don’t define you” is one of the most important examples on the list. Sometimes people feel as though they become who defined by their relationship, but the show combats that persona, not only by showing examples of relationships, but showing how each of the friends look out for each other through relationships, dating, break ups, and single life. I think the main idea is that the only relationships that should in anyway define you are your friendships, and that women should not feel lessened or better than anyone else when they are or aren’t in a relationship.

    Gail Markle. “Can Women Have Sex Like a Man?: Sexual Scripts in Sex and The City” Punlished online: 16 January 2007. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008.
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