Last night I flipped back and forth on television between two things. One, a CBC documentary on the rise of prostitution in Communist China. It’s something Communist nations typically have a stranglehold over—being totalitarian and all–but the Communist regime there is turning a blind eye because of the rising numbers of single men. CBC did not mention this is because of sex selection abortion and the one-child policy.
The program went on to say that these young girls are lured from the rural countryside into the cities, and they know nothing about “safe sex.”
The other program I watched was a “documentary” on how Sex in the City came to be a program. Lots of men talking about how they realized that there had never been a show about women’s attitudes toward sex. And wouldn’t that be so interesting. To have men decide what women’s attitudes on sex are. And how avant-garde it all was, and how they weren’t even sure if they could call it Sex in the City…And could they convince Kim Cattrall? The tension was enormous, as you can imagine.
And I was left thinking two things. One, the women on Sex in the City don’t know anything about safe sex either. But still, the girls in China are one up on them. For at least they are getting paid. The characters in Sex in the City give it all up, over and over—sex, dignity, you name it—for free. Very avant-garde, indeed.
(cross-posted to The Shotgun)
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Véronique adds: An excellent column by Fr. Raymond de Souza on that topic.
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Andrea updates: I wrote this blog post before I read this Globe and Mail review–which, ironically gave the movie a whopping zero stars. Apparently you don’t have to be a priest to have higher standards than Sex in the City offers. My favourite line in the review:
That means the iconic foursome with their adjectival personalities – bouncy Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), horny Samantha (Kim Cattrall), judicious Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), preppy Charlotte (Kristin Davis) – don’t perform so much as parade, fixed in their roles as semi-animated clothes hangers on a cinematic runway.
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