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           July 3, 2000

   Good matches and bad matches

Sometimes the match is perfect, but they can't be sure. Other times, the match is dreadful, but they don't want (or can't seem) to notice. Love is rarely perfect, and who can blame it? This week Conversely's feisty duo tries to sort out two of these flawed liaisons, while also counseling a husband whose wife might have traded sex with him for Sex and the City.

Dear Conversely,

My wife has become obsessed with the television show Sex and the City. She has bought the entire library of tapes from all past seasons and she won't miss an episode no matter what. She's now having slumber parties with her girlfriends all the time to watch the show. Why are women so crazy over this show? All I see is a group of women with too much time on their hands to think and talk about sex.

Dear Confused,

They like the show because women are crude and crass and use men for sex - something they can rarely admit to in large groups. When it comes down to it, women play with the best of them - they cheat, they lie, they use men and don't remember their names the next day, they date five guys at once and call out the wrong names during sex. Sex in the City makes this explicit, witty and fun. This show gives women a forum to be disgusting yet fashionable.

Promiscuous and frivolous is in, and it's fun - me me me and my sex needs. Why have one man when you can have several? Women find comfort and amusement in this show because they can come to terms with their crudeness. Forget your Laura Ashley girl - meet the American woman - base and chic.

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Dear Confused,

It's not hard to see why women love this show (I haven't yet met one who doesn't like it). Apparently, women enjoy thinking and talking about sex, and this series helps them do that, individually or - as in the case of your wife - in groups.

Personally I don't have a problem with slumber parties or other reunions to watch the tube. At least it isn't Melrose Place, where I couldn't watch for more than five minutes without laughing or crying.

I actually find myself intrigued by Sex and the City, and I catch myself pondering questions like: Don't these women work? Don't they go on vacations? Don't they get cold at night walking around half-naked? Don't they hate New York? Don't they get tired of seeing each other and discussing sex all the time?

But my only serious observation about this show is that the actors don't seem to get it - they perform as if unsure whether the whole thing is a joke, or as if worried that the joke might be on them. But so what? That's the way I feel half the time. Maybe that's the way you feel too?

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