Life, Art, and Sex

Life has a sneaky way of imitating art.

Well, maybe not art, but pop culture. I've been hunkered down for the past week or two in a DVD binge. A bit embarrassing to own up to, but true nonetheless. It's my last couple weeks of freedom before school sinks its claws into me, and that means trying to finally see every episode of Sex and the City. I love the show, but never got around to watching it all. There's that, and then there's the stigma.

Honestly, I don't like spreading this information around. I'm not a ditz and I'm not a slut, and everyone who hasn't seen the show assumes one or both. The other stigma comes from the people who have seen it-many somehow feel that watching it gives them a kind of sisterhood they never had, and lets them have free reign with stories they might not have otherwise shared.

Yet, as hilarious as it is, Sex and the City might be pretty spot on. A girl I know was a bit proud when a football player who she'd slept with years ago ended up helping the Steelers nab a Super Bowl win. A friend of hers had been with an Illini football player, although she told me the girl had only had sex twice so she couldn't report as to whether it was good. I may have been sheltered, but the more I've heard, the more I've realized that it isn't just the fellas that talk about this.

The other part that comes with this is the never-asked-for analysis of the speaker and their friends. The girl talking always says she is Carrie Bradshaw. This annoys me. I want to say, "Yes, we all are, because Carrie is the Everywoman! She's supposed to be easily identified with because she's the central character and we are supposed to like her!" That always sounds too stuffy to say out loud, so I think it smugly and nod my head to their comparisons.

This bugs me only until they start talking about their Mr. Big, their Aidan, or their Jack Berger. I am finding out that the whole show, the entire premise, is strangely built on real life. This becomes excessively clear when boys text at 2am, when girls blog about the latest disappointment, when the single lady at work sighs about life and goes home to her cat-life is sometimes just this complicated or this simple. The boys don't understand we're just not that into them, the girls write amazing lines like, "He doesn't deserve for me to be interested", and the single lady flirts her life away.

But enough about this. I have episodes to fit in before the library emails me. And for the record, Big's a good guy, but Carrie should have been with Aidan. I'm very passionate about this and refuse to budge an inch. So while I'll listen with utmost interest to every detail of everyone else's love lives, I will completely ignore Ms. Bradshaw when she says she loves Mr. Big. After all, I'm just like her (insert winky face for irony).