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"   Photo: HBO/ Courtesy: Everett  When we ran a pair of stories on Sex and the City last week (The first story, from our friends at Esquire.com, inspired this piece from our writer Faran Krentcil on her conflicted relationship with the show) we were overwhelmed, though not surprised, at the amount of thoughtful feedback we got from our readers. While there were plenty of people who agreed with both stories, many of you have a lot of love for Carrie Bradshaw, and you weren&amp;#039;t afraid to let us know exactly why. While your reasons varied, from how the show taught you to accept your own mistakes and weaknesses, to how it put a new lens on the lack of suitable men, your passion was clear. This piece, by reader Celeste Kaufman, was the one we thought summed it up. As a twenty-something girl living in Brooklyn, I know that it&amp;#039;s no longer cool for me to love Sex and the City. I know this because every few months an article gets circulated around the female-centric parts of the Internet talking about how the writer has decided that, you know what, she wasn&amp;#039;t a fan of Sex and the City after all, and isn&amp;#039;t that shocking? Frankly, I&amp;#039;m tired of it. With each wave of backlash, I stand firmly in my love for the show and take my stand as its passionate defender. Sex and the City has meant different things to me over the years. Yes, I may have originally started sneaking peeks at the show when I was younger with eager anticipation because I had heard that there were boobs to be seen and, hey, I wanted in. But, once I started to actually sit down and watch the episodes all in a row with my best friend, the show began to open my eyes to the entire world of what it meant to be a woman. Raised by a single dad with no older sisters and at least ten years and geographical distance between me and my female relatives, I had been feeling around in the dark trying to figure out what being a woman meant and what it all entailed. I was so removed from pop culture because I found so very few female characters at all to turn to, let along ones that I could even remotely relate to, that I was having trouble even beginning to cobble together what I wanted to become. But then, here were these women \u2013 exciting, interesting, successful, funny, glamorous women \u2013 who were front and center of their own stories and tackling issues that were specific to the female experience. Even these days, with the incredible increase of female-led shows and female characters that I love, I am disappointed with the lack of focus on how women relate to each other and the world around them. Even Girls, the so-called Sex and the City reincarnate, had their four characters running parallel lives to each other come the second season and narrowing in almost solely on their relationships with men. I think that Sex and the City suffers from a bit of hindsight bias, and has become unfortunately synonymous with the glitz and superficiality of a different time. For every Manolo Blahnik and cosmopolitan, these women were there for each other through some serious business. I still break down in tears at Miranda&amp;#039;s mother&amp;#039;s funeral, or Charlotte&amp;#039;s miscarriage, or Samantha&amp;#039;s struggle with cancer. And while I know that not everyone agrees with Sex and the City&amp;#039;s particular brand of feminism, I love and applaud their frank, realistic portrayal of a huge list of feminist talking points from abortion, to differing views on motherhood, to balancing a personal life with your career, to breaking rules and expectations for women aging, to what is still considered revolutionary attitudes towards women&amp;#039;s sexuality. Speaking of sex \u2013 yes, the show had a lot to do with sex and relationships and men. If you want to watch women primarily dealing with financial hardship or fighting inequality, watch another show. It had a lot of worthwhile things to say about relationships and, for better or worse, gave me some foundation to stand on when it came to figuring out how to deal with them on my own. (Shout out to the guy who also &amp;quot;raped my face&amp;quot; after what I thought had been a promising first date. That clip came in handy for explaining to my friends why I probably wasn&amp;#039;t going to return his call.) Were these women perfect? No. And it upsets me to read criticisms hurled at Carrie Bradshaw by the same women who defend the recent surge in trying to bring flawed female characters to the screen. I don&amp;#039;t want perfect women. I see enough perfect women as girlfriends and wives and best friends in the vast majority of male-dominated media that exists in the world. I want to sheepishly identify with their insecurities, mistakes, and neuroses. Was it petty and juvenile for Carrie to take such joy in Natasha&amp;#039;s incorrect &amp;quot;their&amp;quot; in her card? Of course it was. But don&amp;#039;t act like you haven&amp;#039;t feverishly scrolled through an ex-boyfriend&amp;#039;s new girlfriend&amp;#039;s social media page looking for a reason to feel superior to her. If we want a realistic portrayal of womanhood, we need to accept the portrayal of our flaws as well. Maybe they&amp;#039;re not your flaws, maybe you think you&amp;#039;re nothing like any of the characters, but I do think that between 4 female characters and 6 seasons, so many of us can see something of ourselves in them. Now, I&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time promoting and defending the show&amp;#039;s seriousness and reality and contribution to society, but you know that superficiality I mentioned earlier? That was really fun too, okay? I&amp;#039;m not going to sit here and pretend that I like Sex and the City solely as some sociological study of human nature. I love the fantasy of it all and, trust me, I can recognize that the show was fantasy and it&amp;#039;s insulting to suggest otherwise. I loved the drama and the romance. I loved the impossible lives they led in the city. And, oh god, did I love the clothes. I still find myself getting ideas from Carrie when I rewatch the show. I&amp;#039;m certainly not ashamed that this is a huge reason why I found the show so enticing. Lest we forget \u2013 this was a television show. So, from a girl who was once described as &amp;quot;some strange combination of Carrie Bradshaw and Daria,&amp;quot; I beg you to disassociate Sex and the City from the symbol it has become, and the groups of girls teetering in heels holding cosmos, and the selfies taken at Magnolia Bakery, and remember it for what it actually was. The show, with all of its imperfections, continues to be a powerful and empowering portrayal of the female experience and, yeah, those were some pretty great shoes too.   Photo: Celeste Kaufman  Celeste Kaufman is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find her at celestekaufman.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/news/a18834/in-defense-sex-and-the-city/>