Here’s the thing, the women all treat their men horribly. They’re incurably neurotic and hopelessly fucked up. I spent most of my time yelling at them to get over themselves.

But they’re a glimpse into what the rest of our society is … or at least wants to be.

I find the show valuable because it gives me topics to discuss and a vehicle to introduce these topics to mainstream America. It’s a tool to illustrate the fucked-up-edness of our society.

The characters are all archetypal characters. Everyone can relate to one or more of them, whether we share their attitudes about sex or not. Especially if anyone has ever done research on MBTI or other personality studies. So I can use the characters to make a point to someone in a manner they can relate to.

The show does bring up “cutting edge” topics, even if its conclusions are that these “cutting edge topics” should be avoided. But I can use the show to discuss them and still come to my own conclusions.

For example, Samantha’s situation in the movie is PERFECT for bringing up the subject of non-monogamy in a discussion. Miranda’s situation is PERFECT for the point you made above about withholding sex and expecting equal celibacy being problematic. I was also pissed at Carrie for not hiring the guy in the heels, and that’s PERFECT for exploring stereotypes and discrimination in our society and our workplace.

So, yes, all of the characters are contemptible and the movie was even less “cutting edge” than the show (I always wished for a supporting or minor-but-recurring poly character who actually had *healthy*, functional, long-term relationships among her various “friends” that ended up as subjects for her articles). But the show and the movie is such a wonderful tool for introducing topics into discussion and debate with mainstream people. And I find it extremely valuable for that. I have some articles about individual episodes in my livejournal under the tag “Media Reflections”.

~Joreth
http://www.theinnbetween.net
http://joreth.livejournal.com

I saw a couple of episodes of the show a few years ago, and I couldn’t stomach it. The thing that stood out for me was the commercialism. When I hear about the show now, mostly I hear about how it introduced many American women to the Rabbit vibrator. I first saw the Rabbit in the movie “Better Than Chocolate”, which in my view was a much better introduction.

The other thing that bothered me was that these were financially comfortable women in good careers, yet all they did was shop and moan about men. There’s nothing sexually progressive about that at all.

I liked the book better than the TV show. The book at least had bite.

A novel I would read! :-)

I saw a few episodes of the TV show, several years ago now, when a couple friends of mine had become addicted to it. (For the record, he was one of the most thoroughly heterosexual men I have ever met, and she was his gorgeous girlfriend.) Part of the fun was giving it the Mystery Science Theater treatment, or just complaining to each other about the crass ineptitude of the whole shebang. “Oh, I love how so-and-so has this big problem in this episode which he never exhibits before or after!” Still, after two or three episodes, even the MST-ing wasn’t enough for me, and I stopped caring.

In the end, I suppose, if it’s not a cartoon I’m not going to watch.