Is There Still Sex in the City?

by Candace Bushnell

  Arnold explained it like this: The world was filled with women with okay jobs like real estate broker or hair stylist or yoga instructor and a lot of them had kids and ex-husbands who didn’t pay child support or were alcoholics—the whole panoply of human suffering—and while these women had enough to get by, they wanted a much bigger lifestyle. They wanted the lifestyle. A lifestyle they couldn’t afford.

  They wanted expensive handbags!

  And that’s where Arnold and his ilk came in.

  You’d think that after all his accomplishments in the world, Arnold would have had some broader empathy for these women in difficult situations but nope. When Arnold thought about women, when he described women, about as much depth as he could grant them was as handbag hoarders who used sex to fuel their addiction.

  Did he care that he, too, was being “used”?

  Absolutely not.

  Men, Arnold explained, don’t care why a woman is having sex with them as long as she is having sex with them.

  Plus, he reminded me, men have the power because if one woman doesn’t meet their demands, there’s always another woman who will. It’s a script that men with money control and continue to control even into old age—as long as they’re able to provide something some “greedy” woman wants. Like an expensive handbag.

  But what if the world were different and the income stream flowed in the opposite way? Not toward Arnold but to those women with the kids and no way to make more money. What if the world were completely different and there were no women who “needed” to have sex with Arnold for any reason?

  What the hell would happen to Arnold?

  * * *

  * * *

  I went over to Sassy’s house and told her all about the date. We agreed it was the same old, same old: you think a guy is maybe going to turn out to be great and at least have one or two unexpected depths, but then he turns out to just be another sexist jerk looking to get his wienie waxed. This, Sassy explained, was the reason why she’d never managed to get married. She’d be in a relationship for a while and then all of a sudden, something wild and independent and fierce would rise up inside her and say, Why?

  “I finally figured out that it’s not possible to have a real partner in life because relationships are inherently sexist,” she said. “You have to be the mommy and the caretaker and when they want to have sex, you have to want to have sex and at a certain point a part of me would say, ‘Why? Why am I doing all this for you and what am I getting out of it?’”

  And there it was, the question that women are never supposed to ask when it comes to relationships. What am I getting out of it?

  Because who cares, right? Who cares what the woman is getting out of it as long as someone else is getting something out of her.

  And then we did what we always do when we come up against the intractable realities of life.

  We laughed.

  The Spouse-Child

  Here is another common type who is now unfettered and on the loose. Like the hot-drop, he has also become sectionorced unintentionally. But unlike the hot-drop, he is not, well, hot.

  Indeed, he’s usually pretty much of a mess. Which isn’t, perhaps, surprising. This guy is the one women are referring to when they make comments like: “I have three children. Two actual children and my husband.”

  Like most unions, the spouse-child’s marriage began with the best intentions—as a contemporary marriage where both partners worked and would try to share everything equally. But somewhere along the way, usually after the second child, it all falls apart. Even if she works—and she most probably does—the responsibilities of running the house and taking care of the children fall to her. When she asks her husband to help out, he pouts or gets angry or needs so many instructions it’s easier to do it herself.

  And that’s the first brick in the wall of resentment.

  This, of course, is no reason to get sectionorced. If it were, nearly everyone would be. Indeed, the tricky thing about the spouse-child is that outside the house, he’s a perfectly nice guy. He does all the things perfectly nice guys do. He goes to work. He goes to his kids’ school events. He’s there—physically anyway—for holidays and birthdays. He could be anyone’s husband.

  But at home it’s a different story. It’s not just that he doesn’t do his share of the housework, but it’s also that as time goes on he does less and less of his share of everything. He’s there but not there. Not intellectually, not emotionally, and not sexually. He doesn’t take care of himself, makes no effort, and lets himself go. He gains weight, which makes his sleep apnea worse. At night he disappears into his snoring machine.

  Eventually, he stops going through the motions at all.

  Meanwhile, his wife lies next to him in despair, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the hell happened to her marriage and how the hell she ended up like this and how the hell is she supposed to fix it?

  If her husband does understand how unhappy she is, he ignores it. Because, while he isn’t necessarily happy, the spouse-child’s marriage is convenient for him. Like the child his wife declares him to be, he makes very little effort but nevertheless gets most of his needs met. And for his needs that aren’t met, well, there’s always the internet.

  And so, while he’s there but not there, he isn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon.

  This is something his wife instinctually knows. And what she realizes is that if she doesn’t do something now, if she doesn’t pull the trigger on this marriage, she’s only going to get older and unhappier until one day she’s too old and tired to leave.

  So, while the spouse-child hides out in his “home office”—a misnomer since he’s never produced any actual work there—his wife starts thinking about how great it would be if he were gone. How much she could use his closet space and the time spent picking up after him.

  How much better it would be if he just went away and never came back.

  And one day and seemingly out of the blue, she asks for a sectionorce.

  The spouse-child is taken off guard and throws a tantrum. In his mind, he’s blameless. It’s all her fault.

  Chances are, he will fight bitterly against the sectionorce. Just as he was noncompliant in the house, so will he be noncompliant with the court.

  The sectionorce will drag on forever. Even the spouse-child’s lawyer will say his client is crazy.

  Without anyone to take care of him, he falls apart. Kicked out of his house and with no place to live, it isn’t unusual for the spouse-child to move back in with his mother and start drinking too much.

  In short, he goes through what is basically a male version of MAM.

  The good news is that he is not a lost cause. Living with his mother and looking into the disappointed eyes of his now-teenage children every other weekend, he realizes he does not want to be a loser. And so he gets himself together. He goes to the gym. He finds a job and his own place to live, learns to do his own shopping and laundry. Thus rehabilitated, he’s ready to get back into the dating pool. And now it is entirely possible that he will end up becoming, yes, one woman’s ex-husband but also another woman’s new guy.

  The My New Boyfriend Phenomenon

  It was Fourth of July weekend. Over at Kitty’s house we were talking summer goals.

  Mine was, as usual, the least admirable: go to parties at rich people’s houses and drink free champagne.

  And just like magic, there it was: a text from Max.

  He’d suddenly decided to fly in from Spain to go to a tech-boy billionaire’s birthday party in East Hampton and did I want to go?

  The next afternoon as I was getting ready to go out, I found myself taking special care in my appearance. Was this a sign perhaps that I was no longer allergic to the idea of meeting someone? This party might be—unlike Kitty’s backyard—an actual place to do that.

  Or not.

&nbs
p; Max arrived a bit late and as we hurried into my car, he informed me that he was going to take a chemically manufactured designer drug called Special K and go into a K-hole and I should go with him.

  No. “I’m not going to take a horse tranquilizer,” I said.

  “Just a little, babes. It’s fantastic. You don’t have to sleep for twenty-four hours.”

  “Don’t you realize how horrible that sounds?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Max said. “You used to be fun.”

  When my friends would question why I wouldn’t get back together with Max and I said I just couldn’t, this was the reason. I couldn’t travel around the world going to burnings and closings and billionaires’ birthday parties and getting into a K-hole. It just wasn’t the kind of life I wanted to lead.

  As we made our way down a quarter-mile driveway that led to the billionaire’s house, we were stopped three times by three different sets of guards who checked our names on the list and shined a flashlight through the interior of the car to make sure we weren’t sneaking in uninvited guests. One even checked the trunk.

  “Oh, for god’s sake,” I barked at him. “We’re middle-aged people. Do we look like we’d hide people in our cars?”

  The guy shone the flashlight in my face. “You’d be surprised what I’ve seen middle-aged people do.”

  The party was in full swing on a large terrace behind the house decorated with holograms and unicorn lights. There was a marble fire pit and two tiki bars and a large patio filled with tables and chairs for dining. Beyond that was a covered tent where a line of caterers prepared dinner. Farther back was an Olympic-size pool with a covered outdoor bar. All ending, finally, in thirty-foot-high hedges.

  Max was immediately surrounded by a small group of “burners”—his pals from Burning Man who were dressed like a circus troupe. For some reason, they were younger than I’d expected. Then I realized this was due to my warped perspective. I hadn’t been around thirtysomethings for so long I’d forgotten how young they still looked. And how excited and enthusiastic they were. About everything.

  I was definitely going to need a glass of champers to deal with it.

  I elbowed through the crowd. More thirtysomethings! But these were the opposite of the burners. These were the super straights. Dressed in button-down shirts and blue blazers, they were Midwest conservatives. Married, with children.

  I wondered which direction to go in. To the fire pit, with the people in costumes who were on Special K? Or to the fresh-faced couples full of expectations that it was all going to work out for them?

  And suddenly, I’d never felt so out of place in my life. And so very, very—single.

  And that’s when I spotted him.

  That Guy.

  That Guy. You remember That Guy. I couldn’t remember That Guy’s name, but I remembered other things about him. Like how I’d always been curious about That Guy. He was very tall and kind of aloof.

  People said he was smart. Kitty had taken me to a party at his house years ago and he’d taken me on a tour and I remembered that he talked to me like I was a real person. But then Kitty said he only dated other really tall, beautiful women from countries like Sweden.

  And now here he was standing in the comforting yellow light of the house. He must have recognized me because he was smiling.

  Tonight, for some reason, That Guy was awfully happy to see me. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was actually happy to see me or if it was because he didn’t know anyone else either.

  No matter. We began chatting enthusiastically. About what we were doing this summer and where we lived. About the dinner party we both happened to be invited to the next night at the home of the F. Scotts’.

  This coincidence seemed to delight him. He had someone take a picture of us, which he then sent to the F. Scotts, with the sentiment that we were looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.

  He showed me the picture and I groaned. When I’d left my house, I’d been under some kind of mistaken impression that I looked sexy.

  I did not. My hair needed a trim. I looked, as Kitty would later say, “boring.”

  And then, because I knew I was going to see him the next night anyway, I excused myself and went back to the bar, where I looked around and was once again struck by how much I didn’t know these people. Like, not even enough to have friends of friends in common.

  That Guy materialized at my side. “Can I get you a glass of champagne?” He had a deep, soothing voice, like an old-timey radio announcer.

  “Thanks. But you really don’t have to.”

  “I think I do,” he said, with the nicest smile.

  After that, MNB did not leave my side. He held my drink as I went through the buffet line and made sure I had my cutlery. He found us a table, sitting next to the actual billionaire who owned the house, who was from Chicago and was with his two college-student daughters, who took us on a tour of the house. It had fifteen bedrooms and was appointed like a boutique hotel. There was a large gym, sauna and steam rooms, massage and treatment room, a hair and makeup room, and a home theater that could fit a hundred people. The kitchen had its own pastry and ice-cream chef.

  That’s the thing about rich people. They can have anything they want but like everyone else, they all just want ice cream.

  We went into another room, which was set up like a disco. MNB and I danced. He was a pretty good dancer. Then MNB heard about another party that was close to my house, so we decided to go there. But first I needed to find Max to tell him I was leaving.

  We discovered him on his hands and knees in the grass, acting like a dog. “Pet me. Pet me!” he said.

  “Max!” I said sharply.

  I tried to introduce the two men, but Max wasn’t having it. He began howling at the moon.

  I gave up.

  “Is he okay? Should we do something?” MNB asked.

  “He’ll be fine. I guess he’s in a K-hole. Apparently he gets into K-holes all the time.”

  “I don’t get it,” MNB said. “Did you really date that guy?”

  “It was . . .” I did the math. “Fifteen, twenty years ago? In any case, he was different back then.”

  MNB had a car and driver. On the way to the next party, we started making out. MNB was a good kisser and he made me feel like I was a good kisser, too. I hadn’t kissed anyone for a while, so this gave me hope.

  Later, when he dropped me off at my house, he said the strangest thing. He said, “I really like you. I have instincts about people and I’m not often wrong. I think you and I could be really good together.”

  “Ha. Get out of here,” I said, pushing him out the door. “You don’t even know me.”

  As I got into bed, I wondered if maybe I wasn’t out of the relationship game after all.

  * * *

  I woke up to a text from MNB saying he hoped I’d slept well and sending me the info about the car service pickup that evening, which he’d arranged so that I wouldn’t have to drive to the F. Scotts’ and back. This was slightly embarrassing. I didn’t even know him and he was sending a car to pick me up.

  I went over to Kitty’s. “You won’t believe what happened. I made out with this guy.”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “You know him,” I said, by way of explanation. “That Guy.”

  “That Guy?” Kitty was gobsmacked. Then she started laughing. “You made out with That Guy?”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You and That Guy. I would never in a million years put you two together.”

  “Well we saw each other at a party and we made out. And he gave me a ride home. And he’s sending me a car to take me to the F. Scotts’.”

  “That’s great,” Kitty said. “Then we can go together.”

  I’d forgotten that Kitty was going to the F. Scotts’, too.

  �
��Can’t,” I said, remembering. “I’ve got that thing at the library first.”

  The “thing at the library” was a panel discussion with Erica Jong and Gail Sheehy. It was one of those events they do every month at the Bridgehampton Library. Originally it was called Three Women Writers, but Erica thought that was sexist so now it was called, simply, Three Writers. I hadn’t told any of my friends about it because the evening was going to be cold and rainy, the event was held outdoors, and the audience would mostly consist of informed senior citizens. But I’d made the mistake of telling MNB about it and now he was coming.

  In fact, he’d constructed a complicated arrangement in which the car would pick me up and take me to Bridgehampton, then would pick him up in Southampton and take him back to Bridgehampton, where he would meet me at the library. Then we were going to go across the street to meet Marilyn and her sister, and then the car was going to take us to Water Mill for the F. Scotts’ dinner.

  I couldn’t imagine how Kitty was going to fit into this scheme. “We’ll give you a ride home, okay?” I said.

  * * *

  The library event was as miserable as I’d predicted. The temperature had dropped, and not one of us was prepared for the weather, so we were sporting various coats and wraps that had been procured for us from the audience.

  MNB arrived toward the end. He stood out not just for his height but also for the fact that he was one of the few men there. At that point, the conversation onstage had turned to the inevitable—men and how much they sucked but not all men.

  As I was pointing out how maybe it wasn’t “all men” but it was certainly “enough men,” I saw MNB waylaid by a woman commonly described as a little old lady.

  She turned to him and said, “You seem like a very nice, empathetic man. What are you doing here?”

  MNB laughed. “I came to see her,” he said, indicating me.