This Is What It's Like To Watch "Sex And The City" For The First Time

They weren't lying when they said it was about sex.

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Jasmin: I missed the entire cultural moment around SATC. Which is fair enough because I was a toddler when it debuted, but even when I was in my teens I felt squeamish about watching it because it had the word SEX in the title. I embarrassingly assumed the show was wall-to-wall graphic sex scenes (yes, I took the name very literally!) and managed to avoid it for several years. Only when I got older did I realise it’s less soft porn and more a rumination on relationships. I didn’t have many expectations before the first episode – whether it’s a comedy, a drama, something in between or neither. It’ll also be interesting to see if the stuff is still relevant to now, and how much it will pain me to see someone living a luxurious lifestyle funded by one column a week!

Cassie: For years I thought the show was called Sex IN The City so clearly I was never a huge fan or had paid that much attention to it. But, as Jasmin says, it’s a cultural phenomenon that was kind of hard to miss, especially because it had a naughty word like S-E-X in the title. I was aware of certain things about it, like the name Mr Big rings a bell and I know that I should either be a Samantha, Miranda, Carrie or Charlotte but I have never actually invested enough interest to sit down and work out which one I am. I have however watched the recent prequel to the show The Carrie Diaries which is a brilliant teen-y rom-com that lead me to believe that Carrie worked in fashion.

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C: No offence but the banker is punching above his weight.

C: Two weeks is a bit soon to be moving into together!!

J: The silhouette sex is so so cringe, I’m sorry. Also, things are moving a bit fast aren't they? Is it too good to be true?

J: Oh, I was right it was too good to be true.

C: Does she think buying a house in America doesn’t mean anything? The cultural differences between America and England aren’t that big.

J: That whole initial relationship segment went on for way too long, I assumed it was the story of how her parents met but it’s not? Although knowing about your parent’s sex lives would be a little weird so maybe it’s for the best.

J: Also, Carrie’s fourth-wall breaks are making me uncomfortable and I don’t know why it just doesn’t feel right.

J: All the toxic bachelor stuff she’s saying still feels very relevant, ugh.

J: And being thirtysomething and unmarried sounds so unusual in the show, it’s completely normal now!

C: Why do they correlate Samantha’s job with sleeping with men in their twenties? The job description for her job must be odd.

C: Why do they pretend that only women in New York are affected by these issues? As if women in Chicago or Japan don’t date.

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J: The guy she fancies exhaling cigarettes from a nose is also very cringe. J: These men are not appealing!

C: So much fourth wall breaking. I love it.

C: I really like Carrie she’s feistier than I expected her to be.

C: Seeing them smoke indoors really dates the show.

C: I like how sex positive this is, so far.

J: I like that they show her ~receiving~. They hardly show this on TV even now.

But considering this is a HBO show I’m surprised they still do the bed sheets covering boobs thing. And also people collapsing onto the bed. Did the tropes originate here or is this just a longstanding tradition?

J: Now we’re getting introduced properly to her friend Skipper. He feels like the “nice guy” who would get annoyed if women rejected him but maybe I’m being overly judgemental.

C: How does she know miranda is free? She’s not even checked!

C: Love a screenwipe!

J: Carrie’s life seems the dream, lots of parties and very little work. Her job sounds very vague and seems to involve doing a lot of stuff “for research.” I wonder if I can use this excuse next time I just want a day to watch Netflix shows for twelve hours.

J: Miranda really doesn’t take any shit on her date, I’m into it!

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*We look at each other when they make a reference to Donald Trump.*

J: “The next Donald Trump” hasn't aged super well.

C: Charlotte's first date seems INCREDIBLY fancy, who wears a floor length gown on a first date?

J: Charlotte's date is just deplorable! So brazen!

C: Its hard to believe anyone would ever say that they’re going to go out and find sex straight after a date in real life. They would just lie and say they need to go into town to meet a friend.

C: Miranda and Skipper are so obviously fake kissing! Wow they’re not even trying to pretend their lips are touching.

J: It’s like they’re two birds pecking at each other.

J: Why do people in this show have these apartments with many large windows but not bother to draw the curtains before having sex? And how is everyone so coquettish and flirty?

C: You're not a sexual anthropologist Carrie, you write a column.

J: The next time someone asks my job I’m going to say an anthropologist too, just because.

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J: Honestly, the dialogue is so wild and if I was having a drunken car chat with someone at the break of dawn I would be shouting incoherently.

C: If they’re drunk after a night out then why aren’t they trying to simultaneously vom and eat a kebab?

C: No one is asking deep questions about love at this time of night. Ballsy move from Carrie.

J: I feel like if some random asked me that I would just be like “what the hell does that have to do with anything?” but he had a better comeback so good for him I guess

C: The fade to black was very classy.

J: The first episode is kind of underwhelming? Its surprising that it went on to become such a thing because based on that its not really doing it much justice!

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Cassie: I was really pleasantly surprised at how sex positive this was (so far), I mean for all I know the rest of the series is but I enjoyed the whole narrative of women going for what they want in bed and actually orgasming! It’s also worth pointing out that this is set in New York city, as it mentions frequently, and yet it only featured white people. The episode was kind of meh and it’s lost on me as to why this was such a huge success, I’m tempted to watch another episode just to find out.

Jasmin: It felt like a waste to have the first part of the episode about some random woman! I think it was good at defining the stereotypes the characters have that even I know about, despite not having watched it before; Samantha being the flirty one, Charlotte being the “innocent” one and Miranda being the no-nonsense one. I don’t know if I would ever bother with the whole series based on that first episode but I’d give a few more a watch! I like that it’s (maybe unsurprisingly) very sex positive; there’s no slut-shaming, and Carrie isn’t super embarrassed when her condoms fall out of her bag, but putting that aside it wasn’t especially entertaining so my overall verdict is:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯.