Response Post 2.21

Douglas’ chapter “Sex ‘R’ Us” was interesting to me because I am a huge fan of Sex and the City. I enjoyed reading what Douglas had to say about the show, because I remembered the specific episodes that she referenced. I began watching the show after it finished it’s run on primetime because my parents said it was “inappropriate” and didn’t want me to watch it (understandably so…). I watched it mostly towards the end of high school and I’ll watch it whenever reruns are on television now. I never thought much of the show. I live right outside Manhattan, so I know that the show paints a way-too-pretty picture of life in the big city. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha are an extremely tiny minority of the female Manhattan population.

The part of Douglas’ chapter that really struck me came towards the end. She writes: “if sex and the city has been such a phenomenon, why is there, on my campus and many others, the “walk to shame” that only applies to girls walking back to their dorm rooms or apartments in the early mornings after spending the night with a guy” (182). I think this idea is especially applicable to Colgate’s campus. I cannot count the number of times that I’ve been involved in conversations about the “walk of shame” when a friend returns home in the morning. However, whenever a boy leaves my building, he never gets taunted with walk-of-shame remarks. Furthermore, I am willing to bet a lot of money that when that boy gets back to his room, his friends are congratulating him instead of teasing him about his morning stroll back home. I am guilty of participating in this discourse surrounding the walk of shame…but what can we do to stop it?

Although Sex and the City paints a very nice picture of “sex positive” women, I think that real women have a lot of trouble adopting the attitudes of women in the show. As a woman in today’s society, it believe that it is nearly impossible to embrace our sexuality without being called a “slut”. On Sex and the City, the women flaunt their sexuality and have no problem discussing the many men that they sleep with. However, if women at Colgate do this, they quickly gain the reputation of “slut”, “skank” or some other equally demeaning term. I would argue that most women here at Colgate are classy and middle-upper class, similar to the women on Sex and the City. So...how do we get women here to adopt the attitudes of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, without having to deal with the consequence of gaining a bad rep?