Sex in the City

¶ … Construction of Modern Hetero, Homo, and Bisexual Identity in "Sex in the City"

Are the ladies of "Sex in the City" heterosexual women or homosexual men? Although the answer may seem obvious, the rampant sexual play and obsessive quality regarding sexual performance on the part of the women, their love of shopping and definition of themselves through conspicuous consumerism, and the overall aesthetic of the show's sense of sexual and pop cultural 'camp' might suggest that Charlotte, Carrie, Samantha, and Miranda are in fact drag queens rather than actual Manhattan, urban, female apartment dwellers. At one point, in an episode entitled, "Boy Girl, Boy Girl," Charlotte is photographed in drag as a man. In another episode Charlotte attempts to enter the lesbian art mafia. Breathless about her new found discovery of her latent, non-heterosexual drives and the ability to be around intelligent women unconcerned with male, she is brutally informed, in far more blunt and anatomical terms than one would like to quote in this paper, that if she does not consume a particular part of the female anatomy, she remains ostracized from homosexual identity.

In other words, semiotic discussions about homosexuality have their place, but ultimately sexuality is a physical act. Thus, even in episodes where the group that is the apparent focus of the show who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, other, or transgender, these groups serve as mirrors to show off the more conventional heterosexual norms depicted by the four main female protagonists. It is not surprising that Charlotte, more often than anyone else is used as this temp-late or relief of heterosexuality, not simply because it is more humorous to see her in such discomforting situations, but also because the viewer is assured of her conventional searching for a socially stable heterosexual relationship as her ultimate destiny.

Heterosexual females in a metropolitan setting are always the focus of the show, even when others seem to be the focus.

Even episodes, such as the episode where Alanis Moressette dispensed a kiss upon Carrie Bradshaw's lips suggested that although bisexuality may exist, and sexual fluidity may be a constant possibility for some "Hot Child [ren] in the City," is certainly not for everyone. In other words, the series allows for the existence of alternative versions of sexuality, but remains true to the idea that sexuality and sexual longings are part of an individual's inexorable emotional and physical personality, rather than something that could be tried on like so many outfits -- or shoes.

Samantha was the most sexually experimental of all the women of "Sex in the City," attempting the longest same-sex relationship of all of them, with a female artist named Maria, in "What's Sex Got to do with it?" Yet even Samantha's most passionate engagements came with men, rather than with a females, and more often than not her constructed identity was stressed more than the other women on the show. For instance, when her public relations firm 'covered' a thirteen-year-old socialite's Bat Mitzvah, in the "Hot Child" episode, in an uncharacteristic moment of childhood flashbacks, Samantha admitted that as a child she was working in a Dairy Creme, and was poor rather than wealthy. She admits that heterosexual persona is constructed, with big talk, big action, high heels, and rather than something she was born to.

The enacted nature of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexual fluidity, and one's gender may be admittedly a construction in modern America, according to the show. The radical suggestion of the show, however, is not that the women of the show are homosexual men, but that heterosexual women can engage in equally fluid and commercialized constructions of identity as the Fab Five on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." On the show, the accoutrements of beauty displayed span from the cheap and trashy clothes of the 'trannis' that keep Samantha awake at night in the meatpacking district apartment she lives in, in the episode "Cock-a-doodle-do," to Carrie, the "old woman who will live in her shoes" because of her Manolo Blank and Jimmy Choo fixation. Although there are supposedly no commercials on HBO, "Sex in the City" has provided one of the most alluring forums for a variety of luxury goods, from Carrie's famous shoes, to the Tasti-d-Lite consumed by the women on the streets of New York. Even the restaurant Carrie was 'stood up in' by her friends did a brisker business after airing upon the show.

But the enacted nature of female sexual 'performance' on "Sex in the City," although often coded as homosexual in previous media displays, do not make these women any less heterosexual in their journey, only allow female sexuality to be further coded in consumerist products. Rather, the enacted nature of female heterosexuality only makes the protagonists more uniquely American. She show suggests that through what one wears, where one lives, and how one defines and creates one's self through commerce, sexual and otherwise, can create the self anew.