Sex and the City: Samantha Jones, Gender, & Power

You have two choices: You can bang your head against the wall and try and find a relationship, or you can say “screw it” and just go out and have sex like a man.

So spoke Samantha Jones in the pilot episode of Sex and the City.

Throughout history we have longed to point at a made up guy and say, “it me.” Mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, even Star Wars. In that most homosapien of traditions, Sex and the City was a sort of big bang for the modern lens on female sexuality. Jung found shaking and crying, new archetypes in New York. Are you a Carrie, a Charlotte, a Miranda, or… a Samantha?

Samantha- oft painted as a force for feminine sexuality or else a spokesperson for being sex positive- is much more at odds with gender than she is affirming of it. She’s less femme fatale and more post feminism Rhaenyra Targaryen. More likely to give Lady M’s “unsex me here” monologue than Amy Whatsherface’s Cool Girl Monologue.

Samantha’s greatest leap in character development happens in season 4, bookended by two great loves. Maria and Richard. And I couldn’t help but wonder… is Samantha Jones’ rejection of gender roles less about corporate post-feminism and more about a feeling she has been chasing her entire life? As Carrie Bradshaw projects herself onto New York City, I projected the genderqueer, pansexual feelings I had pre-language, pre-the solidification of my frontal lobe, pre the realization that those intense teenage friendships had a little sapphic spice to them, pre the community, or safety to consider gender as anything but a suit of armor or code of conduct, all onto Samantha.

I know I’m not alone.

Through the millennial rose gold colored glasses of the late 2010s retrospective SATC discourse, Samantha seems at odds with the other women. She is untethered, unapologetically herself, and doesn’t seek male approval. Yes, we LOVE telling ourselves a little lie. Samantha is flawed, insecure, and flighty as any of them. Samantha is doing more than seeking male approval. Samantha is hoping that she can outfuck the gender binary.

Maria

Maria exists in a tangle of episodes breaking down boundaries and indulgence. Samantha’s flirtatious, light-hearted protestation of “I came to buy art, not make it,” is more than a throw away line. It is the difference between Sam and Maria. For Samantha, sex is a commodity, a practice. Maria makes love. It’s ritual. It’s expression.

Maria, not without the writing room’s pitfalls, is a definite Other to Samantha. An artist from Brazil, Maria is independent, creative, expressive, and deeply sensual. Her art is the very same. When Samantha meets Maria, it is not on her home turf of the corporate-defined, money-obsessed, brand-labeled flirtatious battlefield of a PR deal. The art on the walls is by Maria and so the art on the walls is Maria. Maria does not witness Samantha Jones, Public Relations mastermind and Notorious Femme Fatale. Maria witnesses Samantha, a human person, so moved by art that she wants to buy it. Not art reflective of corporate grandeur. Art that surrounds her and resonates. Maria sees Samantha before she turns on her persona.

Maria invites Samantha into her home. The colorful walls, somewhat maximalist decor, and ready-to-go art station in the center of her home speaks to a self confidence and authenticity that Samantha herself lacks. Samantha’s fashion, home decor, and the way she carries herself, are in service of an expectation of corporate femininity. With Samantha, her job and her thesis on sexuality are both facade and affirmation. Except for when there isn’t. Maria’s art is curated, but Maria is not. What you see is what you get. Outside of the offer of romance, Maria is already as much foil as parallel to Samantha. This is the sex and relationships show, of course. So romance it is…

“I want you to look at me… connect with me. This is love-making. It’s not a porno flick.” -Maria

Samantha is perhaps more genuinely attracted to Maria than any of her previous partners. She is impressed not by the sexual conquest of Maria, but by Maria herself. This sends Samantha’s need to perform into overdrive. Samantha’s technical sexual skill is unquestionable. But until Maria, with men or with women, Samantha has been using this tool box for the sake of performance. To give her partner’s not an experience of mutual sexual expression but a sort of cabaret of fuck. Samantha doesn’t hesitate to cut the cord on connections that don’t get her off but most of what gets her off is knowing she is fulfilling a fantasy. Samantha’s fantasy is that she is the fantasy. No vulnerability, no real risk, no real loss. And so, no reward outside of the fleeting sensation of an orgasm and the knowledge that she will define good sex for her partners probably for the rest of their lives. Samantha sees endless benefit to the self protection and sense of agency that fulfilling this role offers. But if every partner is an audience, you’re a character, not a person.

For Maria, the performance is not enough. Samantha does not process that in meeting Maria in her own home, she has been moved off of the stage, out of the gallery, and into a real relationship.

Time and again, Samantha chooses vulnerability for Maria. It is her biggest risk in the show up until this moment. And this risk, for Samantha, is not about identity or exploration. It’s truly about connection. As she says when met with the gang’s at best immature pushback, “This is not about being gay or straight.”

They find themselves at an impasse. Samantha wants passion, which is not necessarily the same as connection. Maria gifts Samantha her very own dick. Samantha throws her back out using it. And with the acknowledgement of her intimacy issues, they break up. Samantha’s sore back a metaphor for the injury of embracing stereotypically feminine, sapphic traits- sensuality, femininity, and vulnerability.

Richard

Richard Wright is Samantha’s equal on many levels. Confident, bold, and in command. Hyper masculine. What alphas and sigmas and whatever other little genders reddit has made up dream of. For better and worse, he echoes Samantha’s disinterest in commitment and playing the part, “We’re not the monotonous- I mean the monogamous type.” More importantly, Richard is Samantha without the confines of her assigned gender. Samantha’s role- PR mogul, hypersexual ball breaker- is essentially the girl version of a Wall Street Womanizer, Hotel Guru.

While Maria modeled boundaries and honesty for Samantha in a new way, she still struggles to do these things for herself. Samantha twists and turns between assuring herself she doesn’t want anything more and striking paranoia that leads her to lash out. Be it self fulfilling bias or the inevitable, Samantha is right. Richard does cheat on her. And even when she gives him another chance, it just can’t work. Samantha knows what he is… it’s what she thought she could be by fucking him. It is no coincidence that the person Samantha falls hardest for gets away with the crimes she can’t and climbs higher than she has been allowed.

“The new millennium won’t be about sexual labels, it’ll be about sexual expression. It won’t matter if you’re sleeping with men or women. It’ll be about sleeping with individuals. Soon everyone will be pansexual. It won’t matter if you’re gay or straight.”

With both Maria and Richard, there is fear whenever the sex is lessened. Never a disbelief in skill or an unwillingness to try. It is a fear of being resigned to a specific role. What Samantha can offer is sexperience. Samantha thrives in the masculine role she takes on in her relationship with Maria until it vetoes performance. With Richard, there’s constant hysteria, as she is pressured to perform femininity, and is at odds with Richard’s perfect masculinity (Richard is as flat as folks think Mad Men’s Don Draper is in this regard). She is at risk of being compared to a roster of women as expansive as her own roster of conquests. In claiming men, Samantha claims power and masculine performance. In Richard’s “claiming” of so many women, Samantha is out performed and face to face with how many ways a woman can be a woman, how many ways a woman can be used by a man, and so not a man within the binary reality of SATC.

Samantha goes on to meet Smith. She was never truly at odds with monogamy. Samantha’s antithetical to relationships because in Sex and the City, relationships ARE defined by gender roles. What Samantha DOES reject is psychoanalysis, the neuroticism of heterosexuality. Samantha rejects BEING DEFINED, even or perhaps especially when that definition is locked around her by her closest friends. Samantha’s past with men litters the city and all of her relationships. For Maria, for her friends, for us, it’s inescapable. So many flags planted (including one in a man named Sam Jones). CONQUEST AND PERFORMANCE, BABY! This performance is perhaps entirely for herself. How close can she get to walking the line between traditional feminine and powerful masculine?

Samantha is undoubtedly ahead of the curve in this group. With kinks, shame, expression, and a willingness to try, explore, check in on trends and discard them as she will. She inherently exists in the gray areas of romance, love, gender, sex.

And so, I couldn’t help but wonder… who would Sam Jones be armed with the queer context I have?