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Sex and the City and Lesbian Visibility (page 2)
by Dolores Bernal, February 2004

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All total, eight episodes out of Sex and the City's total ninety-five showed female homoerotic behavior, and only one of these led to any solid same-sex relationships for the main characters: a three-episode relationship between Samantha (Kim Cattrall) and a Brazilian female painter named Maria (Sonia Braga) during the 4th Season.

Samantha's relationship with Maria is portrayed differently from Samantha's usual (heterosexual) flings--both because it is a relationship with a woman, and because it is a relationship, period. Charlotte, Miranda, and Carrie are shocked when Samantha first breaks the news of her new relationship with Maria, and at first don't really take it seriously. When Samantha calls Carrie on it later, Carrie apologies and says they “were caught off guard with the lesbian thing,” to which Samantha replies that it's just a label, “like Gucci or Versace.”

Interestingly, most of the depictions of Samantha's sexual dalliances with men over the years show scenes in which Samantha is the recipient of their sexual attention, while the sex scenes between Samantha and Maria almost exclusive show Samantha working on Maria--usually with some degree of confusion and distaste, which invites the viewer to share in the "foreignness" of Samantha's experiences.

Shortly after Samantha and Maria become involved, Samantha begins to complain that there is too much talking and not enough sex in their relationship; it is ultimately Samantha's inability to sustain a relationship--with anyone--that is offered as the reason for the demise of her relationship with Maria, not the fact that the relationship is with a woman.

Ultimately, Sex and the City both reinforces and challenges stereotypes about lesbianism. Although there are the occasional lesbian jokes, they are mostly good-natured, and the women generally exhibit a non-judgmental attitude towards lesbian sexuality. Through the characters' various explorations of same-sex attraction, the show destigmatizes lesbian sexuality and reassures straight viewers that there is nothing to fear from a little experimentation.

But experimentation is all it ever is. The repeated and almost casual way in which lesbian relationships are discarded in favor of heterosexual ones reinforces the marginalization of lesbian sexuality, and the fact that the concept of bisexuality is never even introduced (even when Samantha gets involved with Maria, she announces she is "now a lesbian") reiforces the continued invisibility of bisexual women on television.

Despite the mixed representation of lesbianism, however, in the end Sex and the City contributed greatly to lesbian visibility simply by elevating and redefining women's sexuality in general. By portraying four women in control of their own sexuality, unafraid and unapologetic (except Charlotte, occasionally), Sex and the City challenged the notion that women can't enjoy and value sex just as much as men. Although at times the show reinforced stereotypes of heterosexual women, as well, it nonetheless presented a weekly image of women as sexual beings, and sexual in a diversity of ways.

The fact that the show drew millions of viewers every Sunday proved it was an image Americans were hungry for, and created a new model for success on television: just do it, and say it, no apologies.

When Sex and the City debuted a year after Ellen DeGeneres' famous coming-out episode, there were still few representations of lesbians or lesbian sexuality on television; since then, there has been steady improvement in lesbian visibility on TV.

This is due to several factors, of course, but it is undeniable that Sex and the City's willingness to boldly tackle previously taboo subjects around women's sexuality (including the occasional lesbian relationship) contributed to this and paved the way for envelope-pushing shows like Queer as Folk, and for ground-breaking characters on network TV, like Willow on Buffy, and Jessie on Once and Again.

Although the slogan "Same Sex. Different City" for the new Showtime drama The L Word may have been intended primarily as a marketing ploy to capture some of Sex and the City's viewers, the series about lesbians in L.A. owes more to four straight women in Manhattan than many people probably realize.

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