Sex in the City Term Paper

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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.

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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….....

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