The Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome, Or, Why Sex Writing Is A Quick Way For Women To Get Ahead

A friend of ours recently Twittered (All the cool kids are doing it. And even some uncool ones.) about this article, and it immediately got our attention, distracting us from our daily mid-morning orgy. Why does sex writing seem like a relatively quick and easy way for women to get ahead in journalism? Paco and Tito didn’t know, so we hosed them off and sent them home. Oh. TMI?

In her article, sex writer Jennifer Armstrong cites several relatively high-profile examples of women who write about their personal sexual experiences in a way that’s garnered them acclaim, attention, respect… Or some combination thereof. We tend to call this “The Carrie Bradshaw Syndrome.” Or “CacaB.S.” for brevity.

Erica Jong and her “zipless fuck” is certainly an example of fame through sex writing, as is Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell, Juno scribe and former stripper Diablo Cody, and Jezebel editor Tracie “Slut Machine” Egan. 

Jennifer makes it a point to ask why it is that so many of these writers seem to feel compelled to share personal experiences - Is it meant to educate? To bring attention to one’s self? A little bit of both?

These questions hit particularly close to home since we started out writing about, what else? Sex. At the time, probably because we’d never so much as seen an episode of Sex and the City, we wrote about sex because we loved the magazine where we were interning and because the topic was fun, interesting and useful. 

Then, over time, we started to notice more of an interest in what we did, and a plethora of women writers - some funny, some talented, some well-informed, some… not so much - who were penning their own “sex and dating” columns. And most of these revolved around personal sexcapades. Which, to be honest, we couldn’t always relate to. Jennifer articulates our initial feelings:

My question, though: Can’t sex be so much more interesting than your own string of one-night stands? Well, yes. (Little-discussed problem with one-night stands: They’re kinda boring a lot of the time.)

They really are, you know? Why should we, as a reader, be automatically expected to drum up interest in a stranger’s one night stand or first time using a butt plug unless there’s something in it for us?

So, Jennifer asks, where is the line between a salacious tell-all and a steamy, sexy - yet informative - column about sex? And why has sex writing so often been associated solely with woman (And gay men - Hi, Dan Savage.)

We’ll venture to guess that men are expected to know and think about and love everything about sex from the time they spring their first boner, whereas women are seen as innocent and impressionable when it comes to all things sex-related. Plus, women are seen as having to learn how to please - men can just thrust and bust. To coin a phrase.

We’d love if you’d untie yourselves from your swings and let us know what you think. Do you read sex columns? Are they written by women? Are they more masturbatory sessions, or relevant and informative?

Why Is Sex Writing the Fastest Way for Women Writers to Get Ahead? [AlterNet]