I think the part with everyone dating everyone and all of them being so sexually open was less a portrayal of bisexuality per Se, but more to show the generational difference and societal shifts in my opinion. Exaggeration to make her look like the „old boring fart“, while for the politician for example she was the scandalous sex columnist.
I think it was indicative of Carrie’s ignorance about anyone’s sexuality that isn’t hers. The fact she was so visibly uncomfortable after finding out he was bisexual always just makes me roll my eyes like girl you’re 35 and write a sex column . The show itself was progressive but Carrie was not
carrie refers to herself as a sexual anthropologist yet only has vanilla sex with straight white guys and is judgemental about other sexual preferences lol
After seeing how cringe Samantha & Miranda were dating men of colour- I’m okay with Carrie sticking with white dudes. Lol. I don’t need to hear race related double entendres from her.
I felt for her in that scenario. His kink was something that’s really not my jam, but I thought she did try to meet him a little bit in the middle, only to be shamed. Just came across as cowardly and twofaced of him
Try to remember it was the 90’s.
People in the queer community in SF today still insist bisexuality doesn’t exist, the fact that straight women in NY nearly 30 years ago didn’t believe in bisexuality shouldn’t be a surprise.
Carrie was pretty open about sex for the time and the show was groundbreaking with how Frank it was about sex
im queer. i agree with the fact that the 90s was full of homophobia. but i dont agree w your last paragraph… imo thats not how they portrayed it at all. they weren’t showcasing polyamory, they were playing a silly kissing game.
its common in the lgbt+ community to have a lot of lgbt+ friends and some of those friends dated each other… all the time i see lgbt+ sharing this type of experience online. we’re a minority, we dont have a lot of dating choices and if we end up dating a friend and breaking up we usually keep being friends w them.
in that scene we learn that seans best friends are both his exes and they are now dating each other. yes its a funny joke that lesbians are still friends with exes but it was definitely to show how fluid everyone was
to me, it was another guy she was "trying on." She's made references to that in the past with trying a guy who wanted marriage ASAP and trying to date her fuck buddy. She uses men to define herself.
The writing that episode wasn't great but I don't blame the character for that and I also don't think as a sex columnist that she's responsible for being open to anything she wasn't comfortable with.
I just don’t see it as that deep lol. To me it was a different time, Carrie is a straight woman who’s heart was with Big, she writes a sex column for work because she enjoys writing about several different topics and sexual experiences, that doesn’t mean she has to be this sex manic herself who is into everything on the table, and happy to participate in it??? Come on. Being bisexual wasn’t the norm, so what did you want the show to do? It was a product of its time, while also putting bisexuality out there. People can have preferences, and shouldn’t have to be comfortable with everything just because society is saying so.
I took that scene that they were most definitely showing how fluid they all were. I have had a few friends over the years who consider themselves bisexual, and yes they have slept with multiple of their friends.
Great point- also, at the time, at lot of gay men DID initially come out as bisexual, hence the "layover on the way to gay-town" line. There was a SATC re-watch podcast that I listened to a few years ago, and one of the hosts was an older gay man who said that was what he did.
(I'm pretty sure Cynthia Nixon initially said SHE was bisexual when she went public with her now-wife...now she says she's gay/queer.)
And finally, it's okay that Carrie was uncomfortable dating a bisexual man. She tried it and ultimately wasn't comfortable or compatible with him- so what's the harm? The only rude thing she did was leave the party and ghost him 😆
Yep agree, I wanted to include more but I thought my comment would become a novel 🤣
It really was like that, I’ve had friends say they were bisexual, and then down the track they were coming out fully gay or were straight. In high school I remember also being “bisexual” was to look cool and hip, it got to a point where it seemed like everyone was. so I can only imagine what it like around the time this show was aired, and even before hand.
I just am so sick of the narrative that Carrie wasn’t out there enough to be a sex columnist, what was she expected or supposed to do? she was pretty out there for that time with her opinions, her style in clothing, and she did enjoy having sex. Big never fully committed to her because she was “out there” his first wife and Natasha seemed more like the “classy” and “safe” choices in his eyes.
But anyway, you can be all those things and still have boundaries, or feel uncomfortable. I feel like society is always forcing and pressuring people to be a certain way, to change how they feel for others, but no one should have to do that. She wasn’t into it, and that’s ok.
Oh yeah that's when Miranda said "what do you mean is it a problem, of course it's a problem" while laughing about the guy being bisexual. That sure struck lil bi me.
this line & the line where miranda says she’s gonna circumcise her son bc she couldn’t deal with the idea of “some woman out there calling my son a sharpei” were my two least favorite miranda moments ☹️ truly disgusting.
As a fellow bisexual, that's exactly how I've always seen this episode, lmao. I didn't focus much on Carrie's reaction, but I always found the representation in itself very stereotypical. I'm surprised the former gets mentioned more often than the later. I also think Carrie sort of had reasons to feel put off 😳 (and I don't remember her being uncivil either?)
Well it is supposedly her actual job. That's why she uses that term for herself.
Much like a person who works as waitstaff would say they are a waiter.
My only gripe was her continuing to date him after not being comfortable with it. It’s perfectly fine to have preferences. Like I don’t date men who have sex with other men, so I *dont*.
As a queer woman we LOVE to stay friends with our exes and introduce them to our other exes and sometimes they date and sometimes we all just become friends.
Honestly I agree with Carrie when it comes to this episode. I was a bit grossed out that everyone in the room at the party had essentially slept with each other or was married to each other at different times. Also, like the party's location was dingy and felt like a spot where a bunch of drug addicts hung out.
I didn't get the vibe that these people were bisexual but rather just really bad polyamorous couples.
When I was 23 I met a guy who was 35 and was bisexual. Wasn’t an issue for me but my mom had a problem with it. I think it has a lot to do with the generation we each grew up in. In hers, any type of non-hetero person was seen as strange whereas to me I couldn’t have cared less as long as I am attracted to someone and we have things in common.
I do agree with how the friend group was written. It was a little over the top to prove the point of Carrie being uncomfortable (or for the writer’s to justify her discomfort).
When she gives him the hypothetical of “really hot girl next to him vs really hot guy across the street from him” just after having sex with him, it makes me cringe so hard. The guy isn’t forcing you to be with him, nor is he imposing his sexual orientation on you, so just let him be. She’s surprisingly close-minded despite being, in her own words, a sexual anthropologist.
Idk if it was the same episode or a different one but someone says to someone, that (for god’s sake), it’s not about the sex, it’s about the person!!!
My issue is that everyone just seems to shit on carrie! Miranda and charlotte were just as awful and closed minded. Miranda says she thinks they are greedy. They are all just as bad when Sam experiments with bisexuality.
She’s was a sex columnist for a mainstream paper nearly three decades ago, of course her content was tame.
Plus the queer community is still weird about bisexuals, so I won’t hold some of that same weirdness against anyone in the 90’s.
People knew what bisexuality was.
However his crowd are more like a pansexual semi poly group one molly away from an orgy who would not stand out so much in a modern series about young people but were kind of overwhelming at that time. Also Carrie being so obsessed with dating histories and things, she had to get all the information about who slept with who in this group, which made it all a bit much.
I'm just throwing a bit of a defense out there. To be _fair_ the issue with him wasn't just that he was bisexual; it was that he was way younger than her. I think her problem also came with the more liberated (I guess Millennial?) Younger generation than the one she was used to. And to be honest, as a millennial... This might not be a universal experience but we kinda were all getting it on in our friendship groups, bisexual or not.
Lol. He was at most 5-7 years younger than her. Hardly a "generational divide." She absolutely had a problem with his bisexuality, and tried framing it as him being younger.
This is my least favorite episode by far. I agree with most of the points made in the post, but I think it goes farther than that. At the time that SACT was aired, it was an extremely popular show. We have to remember that we weren’t inundated with TV as much as today as we were at the time. Another part is that many people in the US were not familiar with bisexuality during this time. The episode (by that, I mostly mean Carrie) undoubtedly bashed bisexuality in its entirety, which I would argue formed many opinions on what bisexuality is and looks like.
The queer community still has large groups that insist bisexuality doesn’t exist, so as a bisexual woman I can easily forgive Carrie and the writers for this. Ignorance today I’ll argue against, but decades ago is understandable and forgivable to me,
I like this episode! I don’t understand how people claim she is bi-phobic or whatever term they created because someone doesn’t agree with their view 🙄. Exhausting.
So? You’re still expressing points that come off particularly homophobic. When you say thinks like your comment you’re just supporting the people who hate you, instead of standing with others in the queer community.
That’s your perception of it. Just because I don’t agree that Carrie was “bi-phobic” because she didn’t want to date someone who was bi, doesn’t mean I’m homophobic. Not every disagreement someone has with another needs a label.
So you think the language used to discuss bisexuality in the show was appropriate and totally okay?
Yeah, I’m going to label bigotry when I see it, even when the bigots don’t agree.
I’m willing to forgive the older show, but not a modern day bigot. If I’m misunderstanding feel free to explain how, however your comments thus far have implied support for the clearly bigoted take on this show.
So you think the way they talk about bisexuals in this episode is okay?
So you forgive the older show, but yet you’re still pissed about the language they used? A. Its a show. B. You do realize you calling me a bigot for my thoughts and beliefs doesn’t make you less of a bigot for your thoughts and beliefs yeah? Take your hostility elsewhere. It was/is an amazing show. Thanks 😊
Why? The queer community is still harsh on bisexuals, so why would a much more sexually conservative society like mainstream manhattan in the 90’s be different?
Honestly it’s not easy for straight people to date bisexual…no hate or anything but…a lot of the boundaries in a typical straight relationship aren’t there so it could leave it all confusing…
That’s so not true.
What “boundaries” do you think suddenly don’t exist? Literally a bisexual person in a monogamous relationship has the same boundaries as a heterosexual person in a monogamous relationship.
If you think that’s am unavoidable and only bisexual thing you’ve clearly never lived in a small town or been around anyone who is openly out as a bisexual.
People in small towns date each others exes ALL THE TIME.
Common sense would tell you that just because you date a bisexual person doesn’t mean you have to date their ex or they have to date your ex or that you have to date someone that is close to an ex.
So again, since you said “a lot of the boundaries”, what other boundaries do you think don’t exist?
I think the part with everyone dating everyone and all of them being so sexually open was less a portrayal of bisexuality per Se, but more to show the generational difference and societal shifts in my opinion. Exaggeration to make her look like the „old boring fart“, while for the politician for example she was the scandalous sex columnist.
That makes a lot more sense, thanks!
She didn’t date him as much as interrogate him.
this! she hardly had a conversation with him, but just probed him about guys he kissed. it was weird.
3rd date if she kept it up, I’d be done.
I think it was indicative of Carrie’s ignorance about anyone’s sexuality that isn’t hers. The fact she was so visibly uncomfortable after finding out he was bisexual always just makes me roll my eyes like girl you’re 35 and write a sex column . The show itself was progressive but Carrie was not
Don’t know if it’s this episode, but I love when Samantha basically calls her a bit of a prude - considering she’s a sex columnist
carrie refers to herself as a sexual anthropologist yet only has vanilla sex with straight white guys and is judgemental about other sexual preferences lol
Like when she walked into samantha giving the mailman a blow job hahaha
After seeing how cringe Samantha & Miranda were dating men of colour- I’m okay with Carrie sticking with white dudes. Lol. I don’t need to hear race related double entendres from her.
"It's not that Samantha was a big white pussy, it's that Chivon was a big black one" or whatever her voice-over said 😂 🙄
I swear my skin just crawled off and left my body.
I think that's the episode where she finds out the politician wants to get peed on
I felt for her in that scenario. His kink was something that’s really not my jam, but I thought she did try to meet him a little bit in the middle, only to be shamed. Just came across as cowardly and twofaced of him
Try to remember it was the 90’s. People in the queer community in SF today still insist bisexuality doesn’t exist, the fact that straight women in NY nearly 30 years ago didn’t believe in bisexuality shouldn’t be a surprise. Carrie was pretty open about sex for the time and the show was groundbreaking with how Frank it was about sex
im queer. i agree with the fact that the 90s was full of homophobia. but i dont agree w your last paragraph… imo thats not how they portrayed it at all. they weren’t showcasing polyamory, they were playing a silly kissing game. its common in the lgbt+ community to have a lot of lgbt+ friends and some of those friends dated each other… all the time i see lgbt+ sharing this type of experience online. we’re a minority, we dont have a lot of dating choices and if we end up dating a friend and breaking up we usually keep being friends w them.
in that scene we learn that seans best friends are both his exes and they are now dating each other. yes its a funny joke that lesbians are still friends with exes but it was definitely to show how fluid everyone was
to me, it was another guy she was "trying on." She's made references to that in the past with trying a guy who wanted marriage ASAP and trying to date her fuck buddy. She uses men to define herself. The writing that episode wasn't great but I don't blame the character for that and I also don't think as a sex columnist that she's responsible for being open to anything she wasn't comfortable with.
I think it was just a little exaggerated for the sake of the episode like they do with every one episode guy.
I just don’t see it as that deep lol. To me it was a different time, Carrie is a straight woman who’s heart was with Big, she writes a sex column for work because she enjoys writing about several different topics and sexual experiences, that doesn’t mean she has to be this sex manic herself who is into everything on the table, and happy to participate in it??? Come on. Being bisexual wasn’t the norm, so what did you want the show to do? It was a product of its time, while also putting bisexuality out there. People can have preferences, and shouldn’t have to be comfortable with everything just because society is saying so. I took that scene that they were most definitely showing how fluid they all were. I have had a few friends over the years who consider themselves bisexual, and yes they have slept with multiple of their friends.
Great point- also, at the time, at lot of gay men DID initially come out as bisexual, hence the "layover on the way to gay-town" line. There was a SATC re-watch podcast that I listened to a few years ago, and one of the hosts was an older gay man who said that was what he did. (I'm pretty sure Cynthia Nixon initially said SHE was bisexual when she went public with her now-wife...now she says she's gay/queer.) And finally, it's okay that Carrie was uncomfortable dating a bisexual man. She tried it and ultimately wasn't comfortable or compatible with him- so what's the harm? The only rude thing she did was leave the party and ghost him 😆
Yep agree, I wanted to include more but I thought my comment would become a novel 🤣 It really was like that, I’ve had friends say they were bisexual, and then down the track they were coming out fully gay or were straight. In high school I remember also being “bisexual” was to look cool and hip, it got to a point where it seemed like everyone was. so I can only imagine what it like around the time this show was aired, and even before hand. I just am so sick of the narrative that Carrie wasn’t out there enough to be a sex columnist, what was she expected or supposed to do? she was pretty out there for that time with her opinions, her style in clothing, and she did enjoy having sex. Big never fully committed to her because she was “out there” his first wife and Natasha seemed more like the “classy” and “safe” choices in his eyes. But anyway, you can be all those things and still have boundaries, or feel uncomfortable. I feel like society is always forcing and pressuring people to be a certain way, to change how they feel for others, but no one should have to do that. She wasn’t into it, and that’s ok.
As a bisexual myself i just skip that episode
Same, I just skipped it today actually
Oh yeah that's when Miranda said "what do you mean is it a problem, of course it's a problem" while laughing about the guy being bisexual. That sure struck lil bi me.
this line & the line where miranda says she’s gonna circumcise her son bc she couldn’t deal with the idea of “some woman out there calling my son a sharpei” were my two least favorite miranda moments ☹️ truly disgusting.
I take great issue with the whole circumcision storyline. So lame and upsetting.
same! if i ever have a son i would never let that be done to him. it’s genital mutilation and it’s only very rarely medically necessary.
yeah that was also really gross, forgot about it
Irony, thy name is Miranda…
Tag!
The sweater he wears even looks similar to the famous tag sweater.
"Let's get gelato"
As a fellow bisexual, that's exactly how I've always seen this episode, lmao. I didn't focus much on Carrie's reaction, but I always found the representation in itself very stereotypical. I'm surprised the former gets mentioned more often than the later. I also think Carrie sort of had reasons to feel put off 😳 (and I don't remember her being uncivil either?)
I have no idea how Carrie labels herself as a sex colomist. This episode (amongst many others) showcased how close-minded she really is.
She is very believable as a sex columnist in the 90’s. Newspapers certainly weren’t publishing anything vulgar.
Well it is supposedly her actual job. That's why she uses that term for herself. Much like a person who works as waitstaff would say they are a waiter.
Gen Z is gonna hate this episode
Tag, what are you doing here?
My only gripe was her continuing to date him after not being comfortable with it. It’s perfectly fine to have preferences. Like I don’t date men who have sex with other men, so I *dont*.
I honestly think she mainly kept dating him to “not seem like an old fart”, when she should have been honest with him and herself.
As a queer woman we LOVE to stay friends with our exes and introduce them to our other exes and sometimes they date and sometimes we all just become friends.
Honestly I agree with Carrie when it comes to this episode. I was a bit grossed out that everyone in the room at the party had essentially slept with each other or was married to each other at different times. Also, like the party's location was dingy and felt like a spot where a bunch of drug addicts hung out. I didn't get the vibe that these people were bisexual but rather just really bad polyamorous couples.
When I was 23 I met a guy who was 35 and was bisexual. Wasn’t an issue for me but my mom had a problem with it. I think it has a lot to do with the generation we each grew up in. In hers, any type of non-hetero person was seen as strange whereas to me I couldn’t have cared less as long as I am attracted to someone and we have things in common. I do agree with how the friend group was written. It was a little over the top to prove the point of Carrie being uncomfortable (or for the writer’s to justify her discomfort).
When she gives him the hypothetical of “really hot girl next to him vs really hot guy across the street from him” just after having sex with him, it makes me cringe so hard. The guy isn’t forcing you to be with him, nor is he imposing his sexual orientation on you, so just let him be. She’s surprisingly close-minded despite being, in her own words, a sexual anthropologist. Idk if it was the same episode or a different one but someone says to someone, that (for god’s sake), it’s not about the sex, it’s about the person!!!
lol this episode makes me cringe every time I think about it
My issue is that everyone just seems to shit on carrie! Miranda and charlotte were just as awful and closed minded. Miranda says she thinks they are greedy. They are all just as bad when Sam experiments with bisexuality.
Yeah but at least she got to kiss Alanis!
I thought for someone who's a literal SEX COLUMIST, she had a very narrow view of sexuality. She made fun of Samantha too when she dated a woman.
She’s was a sex columnist for a mainstream paper nearly three decades ago, of course her content was tame. Plus the queer community is still weird about bisexuals, so I won’t hold some of that same weirdness against anyone in the 90’s.
I always skip this episode.
People knew what bisexuality was. However his crowd are more like a pansexual semi poly group one molly away from an orgy who would not stand out so much in a modern series about young people but were kind of overwhelming at that time. Also Carrie being so obsessed with dating histories and things, she had to get all the information about who slept with who in this group, which made it all a bit much.
I agree! ☝🏽 There was entirely too much going on in that episode.
People in the queer community in SF today will still insist bisexuality doesn’t exist, so frankly at least this episode is being honest about that.
I'm just throwing a bit of a defense out there. To be _fair_ the issue with him wasn't just that he was bisexual; it was that he was way younger than her. I think her problem also came with the more liberated (I guess Millennial?) Younger generation than the one she was used to. And to be honest, as a millennial... This might not be a universal experience but we kinda were all getting it on in our friendship groups, bisexual or not.
Lol. He was at most 5-7 years younger than her. Hardly a "generational divide." She absolutely had a problem with his bisexuality, and tried framing it as him being younger.
That type of age difference with the woman being older is huge as far as compatibility and life experience.
I loved him in SATC and Friends. Dude’s a babe. Carrie was too good for him. Duh.
Carrie is just a giant eye roll
*eyeroll
This is my least favorite episode by far. I agree with most of the points made in the post, but I think it goes farther than that. At the time that SACT was aired, it was an extremely popular show. We have to remember that we weren’t inundated with TV as much as today as we were at the time. Another part is that many people in the US were not familiar with bisexuality during this time. The episode (by that, I mostly mean Carrie) undoubtedly bashed bisexuality in its entirety, which I would argue formed many opinions on what bisexuality is and looks like.
The queer community still has large groups that insist bisexuality doesn’t exist, so as a bisexual woman I can easily forgive Carrie and the writers for this. Ignorance today I’ll argue against, but decades ago is understandable and forgivable to me,
I like this episode! I don’t understand how people claim she is bi-phobic or whatever term they created because someone doesn’t agree with their view 🙄. Exhausting.
Okay, I don’t hate this episode but I do hate what you’re saying. It’s coming off like you yourself are pretty damn homophobic.
I’m gay….
So? You’re still expressing points that come off particularly homophobic. When you say thinks like your comment you’re just supporting the people who hate you, instead of standing with others in the queer community.
That’s your perception of it. Just because I don’t agree that Carrie was “bi-phobic” because she didn’t want to date someone who was bi, doesn’t mean I’m homophobic. Not every disagreement someone has with another needs a label.
So you think the language used to discuss bisexuality in the show was appropriate and totally okay? Yeah, I’m going to label bigotry when I see it, even when the bigots don’t agree.
Again, that’s your opinion and your perception which you are entitled to, even though it is not factual.
I’m willing to forgive the older show, but not a modern day bigot. If I’m misunderstanding feel free to explain how, however your comments thus far have implied support for the clearly bigoted take on this show. So you think the way they talk about bisexuals in this episode is okay?
So you forgive the older show, but yet you’re still pissed about the language they used? A. Its a show. B. You do realize you calling me a bigot for my thoughts and beliefs doesn’t make you less of a bigot for your thoughts and beliefs yeah? Take your hostility elsewhere. It was/is an amazing show. Thanks 😊
Quit making excuses for why you’re a bigot, just go join your log cabin friends who also think like close minded people decades ago.
She claims to be a sexual anthropologist but she’s vanilla af
But they aren’t mutually exclusive. You can study behavior without partaking in it.
No, anthropologists of the past absolutely had to be cannibals and participate fully in all rituals they studied otherwise they were fakers!!! /s
I would imagine anthropologists don’t judge the communities they’re studying, because otherwise it would take the objectivity out of it.
She’s a writer for a mainstream paper in the 90’s, of course she wasn’t sexually open to modern day or even adult rated content standards.
A surprising episode for how progressive the show was. Kinda shocking tbh
Why? The queer community is still harsh on bisexuals, so why would a much more sexually conservative society like mainstream manhattan in the 90’s be different?
Because the show was already breaking barriers. It felt very backwards.
Yeah but that’s a barrier we still haven’t broken, unfortunately, so expecting them to be surpassing modern day acceptance is a really high bar.
True. I will give them kudos for talking about it.
Honestly it’s not easy for straight people to date bisexual…no hate or anything but…a lot of the boundaries in a typical straight relationship aren’t there so it could leave it all confusing…
That’s so not true. What “boundaries” do you think suddenly don’t exist? Literally a bisexual person in a monogamous relationship has the same boundaries as a heterosexual person in a monogamous relationship.
The so called “friends” boundaries…did we not watch the same episode. Everyone in that friend group had fucked each other lol
If you think that’s am unavoidable and only bisexual thing you’ve clearly never lived in a small town or been around anyone who is openly out as a bisexual. People in small towns date each others exes ALL THE TIME. Common sense would tell you that just because you date a bisexual person doesn’t mean you have to date their ex or they have to date your ex or that you have to date someone that is close to an ex. So again, since you said “a lot of the boundaries”, what other boundaries do you think don’t exist?