| Did "Sex and the City" ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 1:54:19 PM | A buddy of mine believes that the show "Sex and the City" offered women some pretty unrealistic ideas about dating and men in general. With the movie on the way, it has raised some anxiety among my compadres. (You laugh but I am not kidding!)
So did "Sex and the City" create a fantasy that no man can ever offer a woman unless he is uber rich AND hella handsome? | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 1:59:28 PM | I've never watched the show..... but I do believe that there are quite a few men that are concerned about this. I only say this because of the amount of posts throughout these forums where some men will state that women only go for guys that are rich and good looking.
Personally, I think that is a very untrue statement. Sure, there are women that are materialistic like that, just as there are men that are similar. I don't believe the majority of people are like that though.
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 2:06:09 PM | I think S&tC has caused a different brand of problem... that being, that it pretty much paints every man as being damaged goods.
I had the misfortune of catching random episodes when my ex used to watch it. Apart from the hilarity of her expanding her vocabulary via American television (she was a Chinese national) with such words as "necrophilia", I did notice that every single man that was on the show was screwed up in one way or another; whether they had weird fetishes, mommy issues, or were just plain jackassish. The only decent guy was Aidan, and Carrie treated him like garbage.
It is ironic, though, that as the whole point of the show was to point and laugh about how "hard" dating is for the modern woman, and about how hard it is to find a good man, but when one of them actually does find this Holy Grail, she poops in it - and all the female viewers are like, "oh, that's soooo true!".
Makes ya wonder. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 2:08:42 PM | I agree with laughinglibra. I personally used to watch all the seasons of the show, it was THE best! I really miss it.
I think it enlightened women to alot of the junk we have to go through in the dating world. I think some men were fans of it also. Some men should watch it, they will see how we think and also how they can drive us batty when to comes to the common dating genre.
It was brilliantly written not just about sex all of the time, but about relationships, friendships, thoughts, feelings, etc. It always made me laugh.
Alot of the writing was based on dates that employees of the man who wrote the scripts had gone on. Things they had actually experienced in the dating world.
I'm glad I did get to see the show. I'll wait for the DVD to come out when the movie comes out.
It didn't ruin dating, just opened our eyes up to the "real" world in making us know that these things not only happen in "fantasy life", but in real life. Especially if you've experienced heartbreak and also falling in love. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 2:13:57 PM | Alot of the men that they went out with were players, jerks, dysfunctional in one way or another. Not all of them. I think the point they were making in the show, bottom line is that you have to sort through alot of wrong ones to find the right one.
Aidan, ugh, he was so not for Carrie, and definitely not Jack Burger! He broke up with her on a post-it note! What a complete coward and a$$. Ranks right up there with breaking it off with someone on a text or email or saying nothing at all. Lack of character! | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 3:31:52 PM | | If any woman were to say to me that she was a big fan of that obnoxious program, it would be an immediate deal breaker. Fortunately I know several women who found it as dehumanizing, selfish, and shallow as I did. Portraying women as smarta$$ed controllers in the sexual wars is hardly a triumph of feminist equality. In any revolution the challenge is to not become simply another version of the thing you overthrew. This show depicts women as being WORSE than pre-feminist men in the callousness of their behavior. Establishing as a truism that women are constantly trolling the world of men to demand better and better sex from better and better looking men, and then adding to that their totally unrealistic pursuit of hyper-materialism, limitless wealth, and super status is an affront to real men and real women. From the number of fans of the show I would HOPE that many of them see it as mindless entertainment that is so over the top that they laught AT these four vapid and pathetic predators. Any woman who cheers them on, emulates then, and admires them are going to be relationship troublemakers. I'm not worried about them because they are going to have to wait as long to find a good and loving real man as they are to fill their closets with shoes by Jimmy Choo. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:06:47 PM | | in a word"yes".That show and btw ty Lord it is no more,looked to me to be about some women wanting to be men but still use their vaginas for gratification purposes or to rub the man raw,so to speak.I do believe that it was an abused womans dream show as it showed a woman striking a blow,at his penis of course,to belittle him down to dirt.I got that from the commercials which of course showed how sexually liberated they were or some might say sexually frustrated. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:11:28 PM | Can't say I caught an entire episode of the show...but from what I saw it was funny... 4 women with different takes and different outlooks on being single.. dating and even marriage.
Seems that a telly show somehow ruining a man's chances of dating is silly and is really messed up thinking.
The Jackie Gleason show was sexist and Ralph was always threatening to punch Alice out... Tooooooo the Moooooon!!... did it turn women off from getting married to bus drivers and garbage collectors?... did it make women go Lezbanese?
well perhaps the OP and his mates should be dating women who don't have cable......not tainted by the hell bent man-hater characters on the telly. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:13:43 PM | LOL...NO...Sex & The City did not ruin dating, any more than Still Standing or Roaseanne "ruined" family values!
A...it's TELEVISION, people! B...it's only a few (writers) perspectives! C...Did I mention it's only television?! LOL
We are actually making the premiere of the movie (YEAH!) an event...going all out with our faux Manolo Blahnik shoes, dressing to the nines, having some post movie Cosmopolitans, and of course...gabbing with the girls, after...over some sugary snack! LOL
And NO...Carrie should NOT have stuck with Aidan...although he was a great character! LOL | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:18:45 PM | OP, I'm thinking if your buddies are worried about this movie coming out impacting the woman they meet, then they are meeting the wrong women. Don't you get that the characters were caricatures? It was a TV show for frak's sake. I used to watch the show, often found it funny and clever, but never took it seriously or thought there were a multitude of women out there like that. Some yes, but not lots. Most of the time on the show the women were trying to date, and not doing it too successfully, just like lots of men. But hey, it did seem to give rise to the whole "cougar" phenomenon.  | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:24:27 PM | | It's a show written by two men that has lead many women to immitate the main characters, women who feel that they don't need a man in their life and are successful, wealthy, indepedent etc. However, it has also made sleeping around appear the norm. So, I think in that way it benefits men - women who sleep about aren't so much considered whores. Although, those same women have a lot less interest in dating or relationships now. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:24:46 PM | What about the same show taking place in Bum F!!!k Saskatchewan You really have to look at the demographics..I loved the show. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:31:26 PM | | NJ, "Sex and the City" didn't ruin dating any more than "Friends" did in turn for those people who choose to believe that all they see and learn from television is how the world should look and operate. If a woman cares to measure her own life by such 'standards', any man is better off moving along to another woman who might watch television, but does so skeptically ...even for Patrick on "Sponge Bob". He might epitomize what too many women feel for the men they meet. He's pink and friendly, but is so out of touch w/ reality. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:42:24 PM | i think TV in general has ruined everything -not just one unrealistic show about four ambivalent ostensible b!tches...
of course if marge and homer can stay together for 19 seasons -anything is possoble | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:56:01 PM | I've never watched one single episode of that show. Nor would I be interested in anyone who gets their world views based on a Hollywood production.
Am I to believe that the authors of one of the most violent, blood filled, sex depraved book of all time were influenced
by TV too?
That's funny but I could have sworn there was no TV some 5000 thousand years ago.
But then again, what do I know...I don't watch TV. 
JMHO | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 4:58:26 PM | I was a fan for a brief time; maybe a season or 3, and really admired and enjoyed Carrie for the columns she wrote because she was brutally honest...that was pretty much the selling point for me. She relayed all the questioning and angst involved in modern dating in a way that made me feel somewhat normal, even though they glamourized the heck out of it. Shoot, I dig anyone that questions things, and she did her fair share of that. I didn't always agree with her conclusions, but I could understand how she arrived at them.
Aside from that, they depicted 4 very different womens views and experiences in a way that was pretty easy to relate to. I found bits and pieces of myself in each of them. I'm never gonna understand the extremes, but I could relate to each of them, all the same. And I really had to admire that they did everything the could to find "Mr. Right"...they each put themselves out there and took chances. Even Samantha, the glorified, self proclaimed and depicted " I don't need a man, I can make it own my own" fell in love BIG TIME, despite all her protestations to the contrary.
The show was over the top in a lot of ways, but it managed to hit on many issues that are real. Did it define modern day women? I dunno...I don't think women can ever be defined; we're wild as the wind.
For the most part, it was a TV show that gave me laughs, made me think, shocked me, inspired my sense of decor and gave me immense pleasure...when "Mr. Big" was featured. Wowzer wee---he could've been dirt poor and without clever and witty lines...he just had it. Period. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 5:44:44 PM | For those of you who 'didn't watch the show' and then went on to whine about it...
Duh.
I saw it as 4 independent women looking for love, and of course since it was A TV SHOW...it's not going to be based utterly on reality. Calm down, it'll be ok.
It's also worth pointing out that when the series ended,:
Charlotte had figured out that happiness didn't necessarily come in a perfect pristine package, as her relationship with her good-looking rich doctor husband fell apart and she coverted to Judaism to marry a short, pudgy bald guy with back hair (who was 'the most exciting sex she'd ever had') and adopted a Chinese baby.
Miranda (the lawyer) married her down to earth bartender boyfriend, had a baby and moved to Brooklyn, and took care of his ill mother.
Samantha finally managed to open up to a relationship with a guy who actually cared about her.
So what's the big problem? | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 5:52:00 PM | | How could it ruin dating? It is a friggin tv show....But, can't wait for the movie to see if Carrie really did get her happily ever after! | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 6:03:10 PM | I was a fan of the show, I watched it. I thought it was funny, nothing more.
The only way it could possibly ruin dating is if you date the type of women who take TV shows like this waaaaayy too seriously and think they can model their life after it.
I don't believe smart, independent, cool women (and many of them are fans of Sex and the City) that can distinguish reality from fantasy would be affected. | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 6:21:28 PM | Gentleman you need to relax, the only thing Sex and the City did was open the door for women to accept and explore their sexuality the way men have been doing for years! I loved that show and it never disillusioned me into seeking rich or incredibly handsome men. Most women my age were brought up by mothers who taught us that sex was for the husband and we were obligated to perform but not really enjoy. Samantha blew the lid off that!  Not only did that show reveal that sex is fun, but we found out that you don't have to be married to the man! When the movie comes out.........send your lady out for the evening with a girlfriend for dinner and the show on you, then wait for her to come home! Trust me she will be in the mood for some fun sex! | |
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| Did Sex and the City ruin dating?
Posted: 5/23/2008 6:47:21 PM | If anything, I would blame online dating sites for the demise of traditional dating/courting.
The TV is drama... fake people, fake situations that get an audience because of its chuckle factor.
Kind of like here, I guess. | |
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