Sex and the (Stupid) Single Woman

Toby Young in his Daily Telegraph blog today has an excellent post on Sex and the City entitled "Sex and the City is about as 'feminist' as a copy of Playboy."

I’m greatly looking forward to the release of Sex and the City 2 next week. I’ve always been a huge admirer of the franchise, but not for the reasons you’d think. I’m a fan because I think it empowers single men, not single women. The message is: “No need to worry about falling in love, ladies. Having sex with a bloke you’ve just met in a bar is perfectly okay.”

I remember going to the launch party for the television series in New York in the mid-90s and sitting in the audience, drinking in the behaviour of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends. As a single man, I thought all my Christmases had come at once. It was as if a group of frat boys had got together and said, “Hey guys, wouldn’t it be funny if we made a TV show that persuades attractive women in their 20s and 30s that it’s fashionable to have sex with men like us without demanding any sort of emotional commitment in return? Not only that, but we’ll do our best to convince them that they actually have to go out of their way to induce us to have this no-strings attached sex by spending several hours a day on incredibly painful personal grooming procedures and then squeezing themselves into these fantastically uncomfortable shoes. The beauty part is we’ll persuade them that doing all this stuff for our benefit – spending their lives beautifying themselves and then submitting to our every sexual demand without asking for anything in return – is a ‘post-feminist’ choice.”

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I was expecting at least some women to see through this. Not all single girls in their 20s and 30s could be so stupid as to think that giving it away for nothing is actually a form of post-feminist empowerment, could they? But no. An entire generation of women fell for it hook, line and sinker.

. . . snip . . .

This last point is the killer. The truly incredible thing about Carrie and her chums is that they don’t make the connection between their promiscuity and their inability to find husbands. Duh! Since time immemorial, the way women have enticed men to make a commitment to them is by refusing to put out until the man gets down on one knee. But if you’re willing to trade access to your body for a Cosmopolitan and a copy of Vogue, why would a man bother to spend $10,000 on a diamond ring? The Sex and the City women are never going to ensnare the Masters of the Universe they fantasize about marrying because Alpha males can have sex with them whenever they want and then discard them like used towels.

So here’s to Carrie Bradshaw, the best female role model to come along in a generation – from a single man’s point of view. Keep on giving it up, baby, and every time you let one of us have our wicked way with you tell yourself you’re making a ‘post-feminist’ choice. Meanwhile, if you’ve got a spare $50,000 I have a bridge you might be interested in …

I don't have much to add to that except to note that the demographic most highly in favor of abortion on demand is single, sexually-active males. I don't suppose the pollsters thought to ask "Whose demand?"

Which reminds me of a story in today's National Post that reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper won't vote for, but actually will encourage his members to vote against, a private members bill making it a crime to coerce a woman into an abortion. Talk about a bad decision. He will get no credit for that from the liberals, socialists and feminists and only disgust from social conservatives like me. I wonder if he watches Sex and the City? (A low blow, true, but what can he expect when he does something that stupid? Way to fire up the old base there . . . not).