What Would Have Carrie Bradshaw Thought of Swinging?

It’s been a busy season lately; my weekends are filled with kids moving in and out of the house in preparation for the new school year. Two kids are off to college; one is going to New York for a semester to participate in a “study abroad” program, without actually studying abroad. And the best part is, not only do I get to enjoy having one less kid in my house again, but I get to go to NYC to help her get settled in. This will be my fifth trip to NYC, and, although it’s just for two and a half days, it’s going to be fun.

I went through my travel file today, pulling out all sorts of dog-eared, torn and yellowed pieces of paper with names and addresses of a few shops, museums, restaurants and other places in the Big Apple that I want to go. I pulled out a familiar, pink program with the words “Sex and the City Hotspots” tour. I smiled as I went through the booklet and traveled down memory lane.

Photo Credit: Hot Blonde

A few years ago, during a trip to NYC with my mom and daughter, I heard or read about this tour bus that would take riders to different places that were featured in the series. I couldn’t wait. Like most women in the 90s and early 2000s, I was a huge fan of SATC. I didn’t have HBO during the actual run of the series, but I rented the DVDs afterward, back in the days when you had to wait until the series ended for the season. Now of course I own the entire series on DVD and seldom watch them.

So I checked with the tour operator, who said it would be okay for my teenage child to ride the bus with us, but she couldn’t go into the sex toy shop nor into any bars. I said that would be fine; my mom would be happy to stay on the bus with her. (I’m sure that when she hung up the phone with me, she probably thought ‘what the hell kind of mom is this woman???’)

Samantha, having her first orgasm post-chemo with her boyfriend Smith.

Riding the Sex on City bus with my mom and underage daughter was one of the funniest things I’d ever done. On the bus tour, we hit some of the iconic places from the show; the Magnolia Bakery, where the SATC girls bought cupcakes, the Pleasure Chest, where Miranda bought her infamous “rabbit”, and Fogo de Chow. The tour guides were actresses and stand-up comediennes, who told sex jokes left and right. My daughter promptly stuck her iPod earbuds in her ears to tune out the drone of the jokes; at that time she had no idea what they were talking about. (I’m sure that if she heard the same jokes today, she would not only know what they were talking about, but would roll her eyes because now those same jokes would be considered lame.)

As I was going down memory lane, it struck me that, as forward-thinking as the SATC characters were considered back in the day, looking at them now in 2013, Miranda, Carrie and Charlotte’s views on sex seem downright conservative and almost antiquated. I don’t think the show ever addressed swinging at all. But I still think the writing on the show was nothing short of brilliant. Just check out some of the terms they used.

Codependent Coming: When a woman fakes an orgasm because he’s a nice guy.

Deja-fuck: When you are having sex with someone and you realized you’ve slept with them before. (Which is not usually a problem in the swing lifestyle.)

Gherkin: A small penis.

Low-hangers: Balls that hang so low they get in the way.

Trysexual: Someone who will try anything once.

I wonder what Carrie Bradshaw would have thought of swinging? She never seemed all that willing to share Big, although I think she enjoyed the period when she had two men – Aiden and Big. Would they have done an MMF? Somehow, I doubt it. I think Samantha came the closest to a group sex situation when she did an MMF with the two gay guys. (Who ultimately decided, after all three were in bed, that they couldn’t go through with it after all. Then suggested they all go out for gelato or frozen yogurt or something.)

God, that was a funny show. So controversial for it’s time. Now it just seems kinda tame. You know, for all of Carrie Bradshaw’s progressive thinking, Sarah Jessica Parker never appeared nude in the show considered a milestone in celebration of women’s sexuality.