Previously in this series: Root and Shaw, Pyschopaths in Love.
Some kind and loving soul has re-edited all six seasons of Sex and the City such that it tells the story of a lesbian sex writer’s search for the perfect woman.
It works, you guys. And say what you will about SATC‘s attendant issues (there were many!), that show was never better than when it was about women connecting to other women. (Remember when Charlotte was best friends with a bunch of “power lesbian” Bette Porter lookalikes? That was my favorite Charlotte of all.)
I feel ungenerous for saying it, because I truly believe that a good actor can convince you of anything, regardless of what you know about their personal life, but it’s impossible for me to watch any of Miranda’s storylines without letting my knowledge of her actress’ current relationship coloring every single one of her scenes. 100% of Miranda’s problems could have been solved by someone shouting “YOU’RE GAY, PROBABLY” at her.
You probably never have this kind of problem, because you’re a very evolved person. And I know that being pushy and wearing a lot of sweatshirts and powersuits and liking your own space and flinching from intimacy with men does not a lesbian make (except when it does). You’re probably a very butch straight woman who transcends all categories and leaves everyone happily dazed in your wake.
But this is the happiest and most comfortable we will see Miranda in six seasons, decked out in protective gear sitting next to an adorable baby butch with great teeth. It’s funny, looking back, to realize that 30 Rock and Sex and the City had an “accidental lesbian date setup” episode early on in both of their first seasons, maybe to preempt any lingering questions about the main character’s sexuality. Because there is this idea, sometimes, that comes up, particular with women, that suggests that maybe if things aren’t working out with men, it’s time they tried being with other women.
And that’s unfair! And a stereotype!
Except for when it isn’t, and it works. Remember when Cynthia Nixon came out?
“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.”
The idea, in general, is more than a little patronizing — like a lesbian is what you get when you take a straight woman who’s been pushed around by men too many times. But there’s something to the idea that a person can wake up one day and see things just 10% differently. It’s the same person, looking at the same things, but with a slight adjustment, and everything is changed. And the degree to which choice and innate desire and personal experience and inner wiring work together in that — I don’t get it, but I’ve had days where I woke up, and I was me, and the world was the same, but everything was different from how it had been the day before.
The friendship Carrie had with Miranda in particular — I’ve had that friendship. Have you had that friendship? You look back a few years later (you may or may not talk anymore), and you can say to yourself, I think I was in love. I was in love with her, and I never let myself know it. She’s beautiful, usually – and, if you go on to date women, not at all like the kind of women you’ll go on to date. Men are crazy about her, and that drives you crazy, and you find something to hate about all her boyfriends, even though you’re the one she comes to with all of her dating problems.
People ask you what’s going on between the two of you, and you truly have no idea, because you’ve become so practiced at lying to yourself that you don’t notice it when you do it. They ask you about how you look at her. I don’t know what you mean, you tell them, and you look at her like this.
Like you’re astonished. And you are, every day. You’re astonished but things are so good that you hold in your breath to keep them from changing. And she tells you about the men she’s with and a sick part of you feels proud that they don’t know she tells you about them. They get to sleep with her, but you get to hear about it, and you feel sorry for them instead of for yourself.
When you fight, it’s tight and painful and you have to close your eyes to say things to her, because you make yourself say things that you know she would never forgive you for. You say her name, and it’s desperate. And you never really talked about it.
It was a show about women who found their soulmates in other women, anyhow.
Tags: femslash fridays, lgbt, sex and the city
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oh my god, mallory. yes.
i love your comedy but i think i love the more serious things even more.
Totally. Or love them equally? Both are just so good.
I can’t even decide! They’re both so goddamn great. This is so goddamn great.
Mallory if you ever look at me that way I will be certain to remind you you’re in love with me.
Also this is the first comment I have ever posted from my SECRET BLOG.
This is just excellent.
I think I was in love. I was in love with her, and I never let myself know it.
Well that’s probably what will be on my tombstone.
Mine as well.
also this show did not know what bisexuality was but that’s okay, baby steps
Like that arc when Samantha actually dates a woman?
lol or when Carrie has a bisexual boyfriend and LOSES HER MIND OVER IT
Ugh, that whole thing was ridiculous. And didn’t it end with Carrie and company concluding that they were just too old for all those sorts of shenanigans?
Like kissing Alanis Morrissette really would be shenanigans. Honestly.
The same thing happened on Ally McBeal one time and I remember being, like, twelve or something, and even then thinking “that’s not it. That is not how this should have ended.” IN RETROSPECT IT IS UNSURPRISING THAT IT MADE AN IMPRESSION.
haha, i feel like the world in general does not know what bisexuality is
Ha, yup. And as an experiencer of it, I often feel confused by it myself!
It took me fifteen years to realize I was in love with one of my roommates freshman year of college. I wanted to be with her all the time; I wouldn’t eat unless she went down to the dining room with me. We slept with the same (worthless) dude, passing him back and forth. I spent a week in her hometown with her over a break, woke up once having climbed half on top of her in my sleep.
And we had one of those breaks where suddenly she didn’t speak to me, and I cried for weeks and moved down the hall, and the next year she delivered a confused apology for shutting me out but we were never really friends again. Except I remember some kissing and groping at a party senior year, and I remember really really wanting to sleep with her but I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know what all of this meant. Because I was very much interested in dudes, and nobody told me bisexuality was a sliding scale. It would’ve been an awful relationship…and yet. And yet!
Except I remember some kissing and groping at a party senior year, and I remember really really wanting to sleep with her but I didn’t know how.
BUT I DIDN’T KNOW HOW. God, this resonates so hard.
Oh god this breaks my heart (probably cuz it hits a little too close to home)
I think I was in love. I was in love with her, and I never let myself know it
Oh boy, that’s awfully close to home.
What a fabulous post, I might be looking at it the way I look at the person I am absolutely 100% not in love with I don’t know what you are talking about.
Mallory, this was so beautiful, and it’s a wonderful (and better) way to look at Sex and the City, and it’s making me think differently about certain friendships I’ve had with women, especially in my youth and young adulthood. Thank you.
it’s impossible for me to watch any of Miranda’s storylines without letting my knowledge of her actress’ current relationship coloring every single one of her scenes. 100% of Miranda’s problems could have been solved by someone shouting “YOU’RE GAY, PROBABLY” at her.
I’ve been re-watching Roseanne lately, and I’m into the seasons where Darlene is saddled with that useless noodle-y art boyfriend, and I feel this exactly. Darlene is clearly gay. Jesus christ.
So true. Also, in high school, people told me all the time that I reminded them of Darlene from Roseanne, and now I’m like, “I was clearly gay. Jesus christ.”
Wow, I was JUST LAST NIGHT trying to get to sleep and somehow my thoughts ran along to Sex in the City, and the main thought was, ‘Why didn’t the just make Miranda a lesbian? That would have mostly solved all her problems.’ Stop reading my mind!
you may or may not talk anymore
I found that sentence to be the most poignant (in a sea of many poignant sentences). There’s a quiet, unsettling sadness to the fact that people that were once the most important in your life are no longer in it.
It’s a little silly, even. I mean, JUST TALK TO HER, right? Say hi. You can say hi. You’ve said hi a thousand times before.
But you can’t. Where she lives now, there’s only silence.
(Ps. I’ve never watched the show so I have no opinion if these ladies were actually slashy, but I’ll take your word for it.)
I’ve totally had that friendship but I was the clueless het woman. And now it all makes sense and just why she hated all my boyfriends so much more than they deserved (though that was admittedly at least a little!)
And then you admit to yourself that you’re in love, and you pretend it’ll be fine because she’s straight and you’re taken and yeah the adage is once someone has romantic feelings the “friendship” is over but that obviously doesn’t apply to you. (Spoiler: it will not be fine, not once in the history of ever.)
Absolute side-note, but 2:30–H. Jon Benjamin???
Also, I’ve never seen a single episode of SATC, and after watching this I can’t imagine how it’s about anything other than lesbian relationships.
Please, never spoil that image of it by watching it.
COSIGNED TO EVERYONE
My friend & i saw Cynthia and her wife at the theatre once (Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days). We didn’t bother her but she knew we saw her and smiled at us and we grinned back like idiots. It was awesome.
Also- just this week I came across a “I’m a Miranda!” button in my desk drawer.
I have not, and never will watch SATC, but…I have had those female friendships. And we both knew it. And we were both bi (in all the times it happened), but we also knew we were also exactly wrong for each other romantically. I’ve had romantic friendships, and sexual non-friends, and every variation under the sun. But yes, those particular friendships were the sharpest/brightest/deepest.
I’ve had a couple of those friendships with bi women too – interesting how that happens.
This was excellent. I really loved this line: “They get to sleep with her, but you get to hear about it, and you feel sorry for them instead of for yourself.” Just crushing, in a way.
Oho I didn’t expect this..to hurt so? This was really, really beautiful.
This video is so great, Mallory’s commentary is so great, but it’s realllllly not helping ease my ongoing “I’m bisexual and in a long-term relationship with a man and can I really give up the opportunity to be with a WOMAN?!?!” agony.
This has been on my mind lately too.
Sometimes I wish I was in a science fiction universe where I could just split myself into two alternate realities so I could live out my future with a man and with a woman. It would make everything so much easier.
Yes, I definitely wonder what life is like for the me in an alternate universe who married a lady instead of a dude.
this website made me change my mind on all of it. Spinsters forever. Y’all come over, we can just watch Netflix and I’ll cook and no funny business until we play spin the bottle.
THERE IN A HEARTBEAT
hi me too!
Okay. This prompted me to post my first comment here, ever. I had that agony too, and I tried to rationalize it away by telling myself things like ‘my yearning to sleep with a woman is just sexual curiousness, our love is more important than that!!!’ Those rationalizations were utter bullshit, of course. It was not about being just bicurious, it was about internalized patriarchy and homophobia making a closeted lesbian downplay her own needs and emotions. Eventually I left my long-term boyfriend and now I’m happy to quote Cynthia: ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’
That’s, of course, my story. Yours is probably different. You may not be a closeted lesbian like I was. I don’t know if you have prior sexual or romantic experiences with women – I didn’t. But if you are in actual AGONY you need to be honest to yourself about your desires. And probably do something about it.
hi, it’s me the original commenter circling back to tell you how much this comment meant to me. i broke up with my boyfriend, came out to my conservative family, and am now in a relationship with a woman. i’m feeling emotional even thinking about how hearing a stranger on the internet tell me what i really needed to hear had such an effect on my life. i just needed to revisit and say thank you for being the voice of reason i needed.
This comment made me feel dizzy and surreal. I’m happy you got back to me and I’m SO HAPPY to hear you are at a better place now. Congratulations on your coming out, you have been very brave!
The world is such a strange place. We probably live on the opposite sides of it and this happened. This is so weird and wonderful. Hugs.
oh god I totally understand that.
But then again, I “wouldn’t know how”.
Same here.
This. This is me. I am pretty sure I’m bisexual, but I’m married to a man, and unless that relationship ends (not going to happen!), I’ll never have that chance to date a pretty lady.
But I can fantasize . . .
Yes, me too. I love him, and we have a great life together, but I will always wonder what life would have been like if I hadn’t met him right after my first two first dates (disastrous) with two different women, if I had kept dating women instead.
OK, now do “thirtysomething.”
You just blew my mind. I’m embarrassed that I never saw that before. Of course Darlene is queer. And how did I not realize that I had a little crush on her? )In my defense, I haven’t re-watched Roseanne in probably decades, but still).
Argh. This was supposed to be in reply to Madge
“I’ve had days where I woke up, and I was me, and the world was the same, but everything was different from how it had been the day before.” ooooof Mallory you consistently awe me with these simple, devastating moments and I love you and fear you in equal measure.
I don’t get it, but I’ve had days where I woke up, and I was me, and the world was the same, but everything was different from how it had been the day before.
Wow. Just wow. There’s so many things this brings up for me – I don’t know where to start.
I’ll start with this – you know, I honestly thought dating women was going to be easier than dating men, until I came out as bi and, um, actually started (attempting) to date women, and hanging out with other queer women and observing their dating dramas. Dating is just hard. Or it was for me. Ugh.
I love that Cynthia Nixon quote about choice. I feel like I’ve made conscious choices about my sexuality. I didn’t chose what happened when puberty hit – I seriously woke up one day in the 7th grade and started staring at the girls’ butts and the boys’ crotches and I had no idea what that was about (hello, hormones!). But I choose to come out as bi in college (after it took me a ridiculously long time to realize that the way I felt about women was not exactly 100% heterosexual).
And, at some point in my early 20s, I consciously choose to focus on dating men – I felt that I had to get over my fear of men, and fear of sex with men, before I could date woman. At the time, I felt like it was wrong to reject men rather than embracing women, and that makes me roll my eyes at my younger self – but I was basically right. I needed to work through my issues with men first before I could have a serious relationship with a woman or a man.
Thanks for making me realize I’ve been in love with my mostly straight best friend of 21 years (I’m 26) for probably, eh, 10 of those years. Non consecutively. When we were in elementary and high school we were inseparable and her Southern Baptist mom would snidely call me her girlfriend behind my back (thanks a lot, Sharon). In college when we went to restaurants, waiters would always bring one check and give it to me and look surprised when we asked to have it split. Did I mention I lean androgynous and she’s femme? Regardless, she’s domestically partnered now, living across the country, and I’ve a long term bf, but I’m quite sure we’ll eventually end up living together as old or middle aged ladies, whoopin’ it up and causin’ all kinds of trouble. I don’t think I could date her, though, because as in love with her as I am, she’s also my sister. But I’m okay with that.
this was supposed to be in reply to Madge
How can you read my mind so perfectly, Mallory? As an aside, I should really publicly thank the Toast for being a big part in me coming out to myself. Huzzah for the 10% shift in perspective that changes everything!
A friend of mine recently got married. The whole weekend was quite fun, but on the way home I had a bizarre emotional break down and not a clue where it was coming from. It wasn’t a wedding itself, or marriage, I don’t know if I want either of those things? The fuck is this coming from?
A few days later I was sifting through all the Facebook photos of the beautiful bride, and remembering her face when her father lifted her veil, how glowy she was as she was whisked across the dance floor by friend after friend….
whelp.
Here’s something I didn’t know about myself!
Oh, lord. I had this friendship too, but she was a lesbian and I didn’t realize I was bi and I had a boyfriend and it all ended very messily, let me tell you.
It never ends tidy, those ones. There’s just no possible way.
Actually Cynthia Nixon came out recently as Bi. She said that she didn’t understand what the word was until someone explained it to her, and then all of a sudden she said, “oh! Well that’s what I am! That’s what I’ve always been, sorry I guess I didn’t mean ‘gay'”. She didn’t say it exactly like that, but that was the general gist of it. Maybe for SOME men and women it’s a “choice” but for most, most likely not.
I remember picking my best friend up at the airport. I saw her walking toward me wearing a red plaid shirt that perfectly highlighted her long honey brown curly hair and she was smiling and my heart skipped a beat.
I’m pretty sure the vast majority of LGBTQ people will read Cynthia Nixon’s quotes and role their eyes. For almost all of them, obviously it’s not a choice, and it’s not something that would ever change. Okay sure possibly for a very small few men and women might choose to have another sexuality and change or whatever, but most people will say that what Nixon really is, is she’s always been bisexual. And come to think of it, I believe that’s what she corrected herself in saying that she truly always was.
Darlene pinged my queerdar right from the start, but I was in my twenties when that show came on.
The person I had huge unknowing childhood crushes on was Kirsty McNichol! The only reason I watched that smarmy show she was in was her.
THIS THREAD.
Mazel tov to both of you.
I didn't roll my eyes, even when she clarified things regarding her bisexuality.
We choose to acknowledge our same sex attraction, we choose to acknowledge it's not just THAT person, we choose to act on it (when we do), we choose to have same sex relationship, we choose to acknowledge that and/or our sexual orientation publicly (if we do).
At every step, we are making choices.
One reason I'm so adamant about this is that I had a fair amount of sex with men when I was younger, because I was horny and clueless about myself. And it was fine. (Just "fine", and nothing in comparison to what I have with women.) In previous eras, I could see myself settling into a default kind of relationship with a bloke, while having wild and inappropriate crushes on my female friends. And maybe I would have been content, and maybe I would have been miserable.
What I'm so grateful for these days is queer visibility and the ability to choose our lives – in the sexuality sense – as we want to live them. There are still plenty of places where that choice is extremely limited.
(I know that "choosing to live your life" is not the same as "choosing your sexuality", per se, but the expression of our sexuality still is a choice we make if we are not 100% Kinsey-6 , and how much we do so applies to all of us.)