Did ‘Sex and the City’ Change Our Sexual Health?

You know how Sex and the City taught us a bunch of stuff?

Like how it’s okay to be single, and sometimes even better to be? And how fashion risks can really pay off? And how we may just have two big loves of our lives (hoping that one isn’t true)! And how girlfriends are the real soulmates in this wonderful thing we call life!

But do you ever think about what else Sex and the City taught us? Have you ever realized that the level of sexual awareness – both sexual freedom, and awareness of general upkeep of sexual areas of the body? I hadn’t really either until this article from the Daily Mail discussed the British Association of Dermatologists – and yes, their acronym is BAD, hilariously enough – believe that a year 2000 episode of Sex and the City created the trend of bikini waxing, thus decreasing the frequency in the occurrence of pubic lice.

The episode, entitled “Sex and Another City” (because the girls go to Los Angeles, hey-oh!) has Carrie receiving her first bikini wax and freaking out about it.

Carrie: I got mugged. She took everything I got.
Samantha: It’s called the Brazilian wax.
Miranda: Why didn’t you tell her to stop?
Carrie: I tried. I feel like one of those freaking hairless dogs.
Samantha: It’s an aesthetic thing, everyone goes bare out here.
Miranda: Of course, they do. LA men are too lazy to go searching for anything.

Zing, Miranda. But anyway, the ladies get their Brazilians and apparently, everyone who watched the show did as well.

Reading this article, and thinking about the concept in general, I am pretty sold on believing that a television show could have such a strong impact on sexual health. For years and years we have learned from television, and it is easiest to note which shows have the strongest effect on us as a society years after their conclusions. Do we not reference shows like Friends, Seinfeld, and Sex and the City on a daily basis, perhaps without even knowing about it? Especially when a television show is built of characters that women (I’m speaking for women not men, since, you know, I am one) can look up to.

I am assuming we will not be able to prove that Sex and the City cured pubic lice necessarily, but I believe we should give the writers, producers, and actors credit where credit is due.

(Also, eeeeeeeeeeeeeek Brazilians scare the life outta me!)

Featured image via facebook, SATC image via airingnews.