And just like that - females squeamish at male public masturbation

[MuchasSmoochas]

Has anyone watched the new Sex and the City show yet? I got really annoyed and switched off. Carrie is on a podcast, lots of chat about cis het. Whatevs.

But what really made me furious was when the male podcast guest said he couldn’t think of anywhere where he hadn’t masturbated in public. And Carrie said she hadn’t and they laughed at her like she was such a prude. I suppose it was trying to show how behind the times she is. I suppose she didn’t want to “kink shame” .

When did it become ok for men to masturbate in public?

Yes I know it’s a shit show BTW.

My god I have so many thoughts about this show. I was 15 when the show started and I grew up watching it. It was really ahead of its time and for my generation and older, it has real meaning I think. Maybe less so for those who didn’t grow up in that early/mid 2000s era but for me it has a lot of nostalgic meaning.

I absolutely hated AJLT. So much wrong. The public wanking stuff definitely. Sorry, what’s even funny about joking about wanking in public? It’s a sexual offence to do so. We don’t do jokes about other sex crimes do we? And the ‘cishet vanilla’ shit was so stupid. I’d say it’s a darn sight sadder to be in your mid 40s, thinking you’re special because you have tramlines in your hair/refer to yourself using the plural and smoking pot with a 17 year old child you just met at a funeral (ie Che’s character).

The teenage son stuff was gross. It’s fucking vile to leave used condoms on your floor for your mum to step on and it’s not ‘sex-shaming’ for her to point out that you’re out of order. As for having super loud sex that can be heard in your parents’ room, that’s grim and if I were Miranda, I’d tell the pair of them to get lost and stop being so fucking disrespectful.

The law Prof stuff was ridiculous. Miranda is a corporate attorney with 30 years experience. She’s lived in NY most of her life. It’s not the first time she’s seen a black person. No way would she say that shit about the braids. She comes across as a weird creepy stalker as well towards the Prof whereas I doubt someone of her standing would be intimidated in the slightest by a legal academic in their 30s. She’s basically a Karen.

Miranda is also portrayed as being a drunk and no doubt that will be part of the next storylines. Again, fitting with the disdain these people clearly have for middle aged women.

The pronouns thing in class was dumb and even more so because the person who told Miranda not to sit in the seat was female, not male (evident from voice and appearance) yet Miranda (despite being a massive Karen says ‘he’, what, because the person has short hair?).

I will continue to hate-watch but it’s such an eye opener of how much older women are hated and ridiculed (unless they call themselves they/them and get an undercut, in which case they are still young and hip).

Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) is mega woke and I’m sure she was A-OK with this storyline. She has a daughter who identifies as a man who she calls her ‘son’. Kristin Davies has she/her pronouns on her social media and I’m sure SJP is on the woo woo train too. So it surprises me not one jot that they were on board with all this.

My one comfort is my strong belief that Samantha would have been a TERF 😆

I was pretty young when I watched and haven’t seen that many episode and all I can remember is fashion, shoes, hair and sex. So very shallow show what I remember.

I was very young when it started (10) and I remember sneakily watching episodes at sleepovers as a young teen. I have seen the whole thing a million times as an adult, though.

It deals with so, so much more than fashion, shoes, hair and sex (not that there’s anything wrong with these things).

Throughout its run it deals with STDs, divorce, infertility, unexpected pregnancy, abortion, adoption, women having extra marital affairs, the impact of husbands cheating, financial troubles, discrimination against women in the workplace, the stigmatisation of women who don’t want to marry and/or have children, the indecision when women are undecided but time is working against them, the pain of wanting to meet a man and get married and it not happening, caring responsibilities for elderly relatives, sacrifices for children, and, most notably, the series made it crystal clear that women can, and do, enjoy sex.

Yes, the characters wore nice clothes whilst these subjects were tackled, but shallow the show was not.

I really really don't think it's a good idea to assume that because a charachter on a tv show says something we are supposed to agree that it's either true or good. Or that if someone is depicted as being behind the times, we're supposed to agree that's a bad thing.

And in comedy, if those scenarios are depicted as funny, it still doesn't mean we are supposed to agree with it.

I was laughing my ass off a few days ago about an man on a comedy being stabbed with a pitch fork but I do not think the show was suggesting this was a good or laudable thing. Or even common.

I never especially liked SITC. I find a lot of comedies don't work for me so it is partly just that, but I also felt that rather than normalizing single women without kids and that being fine, a lot of the time it made them look like of like selfish wankers, which was rather off-putting.

Hold on- not seen it.

Reading the posts I think what happened is that-

A woman is talking to a man (men?) for her podcast.
Somehow (who starts that conversation?) it leads to-

A man telling a woman about his public masturbation habit.
-well that's not at all likely to be something many women would feel even at all comfy with
-many women know that men talking about things that are likely to cause a woman real discomfort with, is done deliberately to make her feel really uncomfy
-assuming he's not telling the truth is a mistake

She doesn't like it and the men laugh at her.
-see above re men doing this stuff because woman will feel really uncomfy, laughing at her is standard. With this behaviour. More than one man hearing/ joining in/ laughing. Well it's happened to a lot of women and girls, however many times. And it's just really totally shit. And that's why they do it.

men insisting wanking in public is NOT a problem in any way so why she being so prudish.
-nonsense and really extreme nonsense at that.

Ask the woman if she masturbates in public.
-yikes. That's taking it further than even men who do this tend to go.

On mainstream popular prog that will have massive audience.

Unless this bit was obviously about nasty horrible men being really nasty to women?

Maybe she told the others after and they all said what total utter bastards?

(Hopeful!).

It was the woman pushing the subject, @CheeseMmmm

My friends want to go and see this .. think I will be after making my excuses

Your friends want to see it where, @Pickledlipstick?

Oh FFS!

So edgy.

A woman pushing a man/men to tell all about his masturbatory habits?

That's somehow even worse!

Men need less encouragement to bring their penises to the attention of women! Not more.

And women and girls really don't need the message that it's cool to be interested when it comes to random men and anything to do with their willies..

Unless that's not quite it either...

Really don't want to watch it suppose need to if want to get pissed off about it!

Whenever or whenever it comes out I assume ? We’re taking about watching it the other day unless Uve got mixed up thought it was a movie ?

Sorry for typos

TV series I've not seen it.

You didn't get the same message as OP?

@CheeseMmmm Not quite that either. The (female) main protagonist of the series has began taking part in a podcast with a man and another woman (who calls herself non-binary for whatever reason).

The man and other woman begin talking about masturbation (a topic the protagonist doesn’t shy away from in her newspaper column in the original series). However, they begin talking about where they have masturbated, where in public they’ve done so etc. Then they begin to quiz the protagonist about her masturbation habits. She stutters, is embarrassed, and doesn’t answer.

Then in private, the other woman gives her a hard time. Protagonist explains it’s not her scene to discuss masturbation in such a way. Other woman accused her of being a white, middle class, cis, het woman, and protagonist vows to do better (because she wants to keep her job).

It is absolutely excruciating and I am praying that ‘woke’ is being made to look so ridiculous that the series might be gearing up to surprise us.

It’s a TV series @Pickledlipstick. No excuses necessary.

Hole is the message that the cishet etc view is the right one?

The show leaves it up to the viewer.

Hole is the message that the cishet etc view is the right one?

Yeah, so far I agree with @LobsterNapkin. Only two episodes have dropped so far. They have rammed down our throats that our protagonists are desperately trying to make a huge show of being cringingly try hard when it comes to wokeism, with a couple of tiny moments where Carrie was slightly hesitant. I am hoping, as it progresses, that it will become apparent that it is trying to portray some of it as ludicrous, but it is not clear yet.

I think you'll be waiting a fair old while!

Unless they want to make this series as contraversial as the original... Could happen I suppose!

I would be SATC core audience but was alienated in the first 5 minutes, so I switched off. Life is too short to sit through shite.

Having just read a few articles with the writers and actors speaking about how vital the inclusion of trans and non-binary characters, and how cis people need to learn tolerance, with a bit of JK Rowling bashing for good measure, I’m going to say my hopes are in vain and it’s sadly not ironic and it’s just going to make us see how these 50 odd year old women are out of touch but will be re-educated.

A sad way to end what was, I still believe, a groundbreaking series for the representation of women.

In that case I reckon good chance Miranda coming out as trans.

@Holeandthentwo

Having just read a few articles with the writers and actors speaking about how vital the inclusion of trans and non-binary characters, and how cis people need to learn tolerance, with a bit of JK Rowling bashing for good measure, I’m going to say my hopes are in vain and it’s sadly not ironic and it’s just going to make us see how these 50 odd year old women are out of touch but will be re-educated.

A sad way to end what was, I still believe, a groundbreaking series for the representation of women.

It wouldn't surprise me at all. Though sometimes actors don't always understand the content any better than audiences do. And I've seen some cases where writers had what seemed to be a clear viewpoint in discussing their writing, but which came out as much more balanced within the narrative.

I always find that a bit odd, that that can happen.

But I do think that at this particular moment in time smart humour that deals with social issues is almost impossible to make. Lots of comics have spoken to that problem, and it seems to come from a lot of directions.

But one is that we expect shows to come down on one side or another, so we interpret depictions of certain things as approval or normalisation. It's not a positive way to interact with literature, or even pop culture, though, it becomes impossible to tell a real story if the audience is reacting that way.

I thought the first two episodes were mostly terrible, including because of the handling of gender identity and diversity. Leaving aside my political objections to the gender stuff, there is also an aesthetic problem. To me, the 55 year old versions of Carrie and Miranda, in particular, are not in keeping with their younger selves. Both were smart and confident women. So why are they now so bumbling, uncritical and apologetic? I'm perplexed that not one of them has become one of those strong middle aged women who doesn't give a f* what anyone else thinks, and who would have told the podcast hosts that she's not interested in public masturbation "jokes". It's actually quite ageist and misogynistic. I thought SATC2 was bad - AJLT has shows its possible to plumb even lower depths.

I never "got" SATC

Yeah there’s no way they are poking fun at woke culture. It’s very clear they are poking fun at the out of touch women 🤮