On Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw makes her living doling out advice about sex and dating. Carrie's creative muses are her best pals Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha. Carrie also relies on her personal experiences for material. Carrie's column may get down and dirty, but, for someone who is supposed to be a sexpert, Carrie can be a bit vanilla.
These ladies dish about everything from bad kissers to funky spunk to "tookus lingus," and, while not all of the women are equally comfortable and forthright when it comes to matters of the "sexual parts," Carrie can be surprisingly conservative. Here are 10 times Carrie was a total prude.
Miranda Breast Feeding
When Carrie drops in on new mom Miranda on season 5's "Anchors Away," she gets an eyeful when Miranda begins to breastfeed Brady. There's nothing sexual about the act, and as a woman, Carrie shouldn't be phased by the sight of her friend's boobs being used as nature intended. Part of her reaction is shock; Carrie has trouble processing Miranda's ampler top half. But Carrie is uncomfortable, and she makes a hasty escape. What makes Carrie's reaction more off-putting is the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant during shooting.
Modeling In Panties
Carrie gets a chance to model in a charity fashion show on season 4's "The Real Me," and she spends the entire episode trying to overcome insecurities about her looks. The lure of couture wins out but at the last minute, the designer wants Carrie to walk the runway in jeweled panties, and she nearly has a nervous breakdown.
This is a woman who makes fearless fashion choices daily. Suddenly, this size two worries walking a runway in the equivalent of bathing suit bottoms will compromise her integrity as a writer... of a weekly sex column. The whole thing is for charity, she looks fantastic and her sudden modesty feels false.
Playing Spin The Bottle
On season 3's "Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl ... " Carrie has a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that the younger guy, Sean, she's seeing also dates men. Today, some of Carrie's comments about bisexuality would be frowned upon such as her observation that it's just "a layover on the way to gaytown." Blame it on a generation gap, but a sex columnist shouldn't be so baffled or hung up on the fluidity of sexual orientation.
While attending a party thrown by Sean's friends, Carrie is completely preoccupied with who is sleeping with who. Carrie is particularly thrown off when a game of spin the bottle results in her kissing another woman. As far as smooches go, this one is G-rated, but Carrie is so shaken that she ditches the party and Sean.
Sex Toy Launch Party
When Carrie heads to Los Angeles for a meeting with studio executives, she's exposed to sex in a different city, and she's not a fan. When she attends the launch celebrating a new sex toy along with Miranda and Samantha on season 3's "Escape from New York," Carrie develops a holier than thou attitude regarding the proper time and place for porn.
As a sex columnist, this type of event is her bread and butter (in another episode she remarks her column is beside an ad for penile implants). What's disheartening is how Carrie slut-shames another woman who is dressed provocatively by calling her a "hooker." This is pretty hypocritical coming from a woman who occasionally dons hot pants and heels.
A Party At The Playboy Mansion
Parties at the Playboy Mansion are a thing of the past, but there was a time when celebs flocked to Hugh Hefner's compound for some debauchery. It's understandable why Samantha is starstruck when meeting the man who made nudie magazines acceptable reading material. What's not understandable is why Carrie isn't.
Ambivalent at best about attending a BBQ at the famed party house, Carrie is uptight despite her shimmery, sheer caftan. When she and Miranda find themselves in the infamous grotto, Carrie looks as if a dog ate her favorite pair of overpriced shoes. She behaves like a child at a birthday party whose sugar high has crashed and now she needs a nap. Why does someone who writes about sex have such a problem with people reveling in it?
Lingerie Shopping With Charlotte
Carrie Bradshaw is a woman who sits in a steam room naked with her besties. She's a woman who allows Samantha to help her remove her diaphragm when it gets stuck. She's a woman who watches her neighbors have sex. But Carrie has a problem when it comes to helping a gal pal in the throes of a sexual crisis.
Charlotte decides to ditch the pearls in favor of some very un-Charlotte like lingerie on season 3's ''Frenemies." Any good gal pal would gladly go along on this field trip to offer opinions and , but Carrie isn't keen on this type of personal styling unless it's very high-end and upscale. If a girl can't pick out crotchless panties with her bestie who writes about sex for a living, who should she turn to?
Posing For Her Book Cover
After a publishing company decides to release a book featuring Carrie's columns, Carrie enlists PR maven Samantha to help her find the perfect look for the cover on season 5's "Cover Girl." Since the word "sex" is part of the title, it's confusing why Carrie is so uptight about showing too much "'cause it's time for ladies my age to cover it up." Forget slut-shaming, this is outfit shaming.
Carrie goes through a bit of an identity crisis during season 5. She tells her editors she writes about relationships, but her column isn't called "Relationships and the City." Sure, the search for love is at the core of the series, but there's also a whole lot of nudity. There's an episode when Carrie says, "I write about sex, not love." So, this sudden puritanical Carrie doesn't line up with the one from the previous four seasons.
A Politician Who Likes To Pee
During season 3, Carrie briefly dates a handsome political candidate, Bill Kelley. He's no JFK Jr., and Kelley's only running to be a lowly city comptroller, but Carrie sees potential. Bill reveals he has a sexual itch he'd like for Carrie to scratch: he's a fan of golden showers. Carrie handles the revelation surprisingly well at the time, but dating a urolagniac throws Carrie for a loop. Granted, this type of predilection isn't everyone's cup of tea, but a sex columnist should be familiar with a pretty run-of-the-mill fetish (as fetishes go). FYI, Carrie doesn't even like to pee with the door open.
2. A Tantric Workshop
Sex and the City opens the minds and beds of viewers. Sometimes, the series focuses on what constitutes bad sex instead of the good stuff. After a man falls asleep while making love to Charlotte, she decides to sign up for a tantric sex workshop and drags her friends along on season 2's "Was It Good for You?"
Granted, watching an elderly woman massage her spouse until he climaxes has the potential to be an awkward situation, but Carrie behaves very badly, giggling like a silly school girl. She proves over and over she's got a lot to learn when it comes to sex. For purely professional reasons, this demonstration is a gold mine; a spiritual approach to sex and not a Tijuana donkey show.
Farting In Bed
Carrie is mortified when she es gas in front of Mr. Big. It is a less than ideal situation, but Carrie becomes annoyingly obsessed by the normal bodily function. What kind of sex expert blames farting for a lull in intercourse? Of course, the issue isn't the fart. This uptight, overly-stressed, irrational Carrie doesn't feel like someone who achieves a certain amount of notoriety for being chill enough to open up her sex life to a large part of Manhattan. Sometimes a fart is just a fart.