Sex and the City 2--A WMS Don't

I loved the Sex and the City television series on HBO. It featured smart, sexy, flawed individuals who truly understood the importance friendship between females. There is nothing more important to the development of true feminine confidence than a nonjudgmental friend who not only allows you but encourages you to be you with all of your glorious flaws and imperfections. A woman who doesn't compete with you but rather compliments your version of sexy and smart. I've said it before, women make other women good at who they are.

Sex in the City was a cheerleader for female empowerment--women taking charge of their sex and love lives and living them both with the scandal that can come with living one's own truth. I found them to be fabulous--not because of their fashion or fame or fortunes, but because of the way they walked through life (in stilettos of course!) on their own terms. But in SATC2 these women have fallen off their fierce girls pedestal and are floundering. They have forgotten all of the lessons they spent years teaching us and are looking more and more like aging women desperately clinging to their youth.

I wanted to love this movie but spent most of the two hours plus feeling annoyed and offended. It started out well but then went steadily downhill. No real story, weak dialogue (Carrie's puns were so lame it was embarrassing) a lot of stupid whining (between crying baby Rose and baby Charlotte, I was ready to walk), and ridiculous, out of place fashion choices (seriously, who walks sand dunes and rides camels in stiletto heels? And who bares their porcelain white chest and shoulders or covers them in huge, metal bibs in blazing desert heat?).

But what really irritated me most was the incredibly stupid, disrespectful and obnoxious way these intelligent, worldly women behaved while in Abu Dhbai. All were annoying in some form, but Samantha's behavior is totally outrageous, and not in a good way. She, a public relations expert, no less, is completely disrespectful to the culture, laws, and religious sensibilities of the country she is visiting and hopefully will be representing. She dresses and acts inappropriately (grabbing a man's penis in full view of other guests, holding up a gross of condoms in the souk and screaming "Yes, I love sex," to a throng of conservative, Muslim men), and portrays the ugly American to perfection.

This movie is not WMS friendly because truly confident, sexy women understand that respect for other people and their beliefs is hot, while ignoring them in pursuit of your own selfish pleasure is not. Additionally, Samantha, with her 40 plus pills a day to trick her body into being young, has become a desperate parody of her former self. A seasoned woman is sexy because she is confident enough to quietly go after what she wants with style and elegance. She doesn't need to compete with younger women by wearing the same clothes, just because they fit, because ultimately she ends up looking older and more insecure than they do. What Samantha doesn't seem to understand is that yes, her insistence on letting everyone know within earshot that she's game for a fuck, does make her appear younger, but in all the wrong ways. Instead of looking worldly and self assured, she looks like every other young girl who thinks that a reputation for putting out is what makes her sexy and popular with the boys. It's a troubling perspective at any age, but Samantha just looks old and desperate because at 52, she should know better.

One of the delightful new flirt tools that comes with age is mystery. Samantha needs to put that in her trick bag and learn to work it to maximum effect.

P.S. Search on this website, Ciao Bella and get more tips on how to be a Weapon of Mass Seduction while traveling abroad.

Sex in the City and Me

Yes, darlings, I've been lax about my blogging. And I did have such good intentions to blog up until my milestone birthday, but damn it, BIG FUN got in the way! So here's the another item on my gratitude list.

To recap: #1 is LOVE. #2 is PASSION and #3 is...

# 3 Great Women Friends

I have great and eclectic group of amazing and oh-so-very real friends. Some are earth mothers, others divas. Some are intellectual heavyweights, others creative geniuses. Some are sexually assertive and out there, others are conservative and modest. But all, in their own way, are some of the most giving, beautiful people you will ever meet.

You know, we are a lot like those girls on Sex in the City (have you heard, they have a new movie coming out!), a family of females who love, support and empower each other to be the best women we can be, all the while acknowledging and reveling in our own personal quirks and issues. I call them my 'soul' sisters. And as I always say in my workshops, men teach us to be good at what we DO, women teach us to be good at who we ARE, and our Soul Sisters teach us to combine both and OWN ourselves. My soul patrol has definitely taught me to do me.

Being friends with women can be a really difficult task. We are taught from early on that women are the enemy. We get thrown into that crabs in a barrel mentality very early and the idea that only one queen crab is allowed to claw her way to the top, cements the idea in our heads that women are our competitors and there for can not be our friends. We look at each other with envious eyes and instead of understanding that the fabulous things we are drawn to (or envy) in other women are usually aspects of ourselves that we have yet to acknowledge, we label them bitches and try to build ourselves up by tearing them down.

Player haters inhabit the worlds of many women out there, but gratefully, not mine.

Like Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, my friends and I are a vast and variety group of personalities with different body types, talents, sexual appetites, religious outlooks and personal styles. And like the SITC girls, we allow and encourage each other to be fully expressed and individually empowered. I have been fortunate to draw into my life women of various ages and races who have and still do, love me, nurture me, respect me and most importantly are brutally honest with me when need be. They are lovely women who always have a compliment at the ready but just as quick will tell me what I need to hear, not just what I want to hear. And most allow and expect me to do the same.

They revel in my accomplishments, cry with me through the disappointments. They blow me away with their insights and buoy me up with their love. They are a reflection of me and I most definitely am a composite reflection of all of their amazing tricks and traits that I have first admired and then stolen and added to my own repertoire--all with their blessings.

My Stiletto U students are women who attend the workshops ask me all the time, "How did you get like this?" The answer is simple, because I learned a long time ago that birds of a feather, do indeed flock together and the chickadees that feather my nest are some red hot, awesome women who believe as I do that 'you be you and I'll be me and together we'll own our little corner of the world!!

What do you think?

What I Learned from Carrie Bradshaw

Despite what many TV Watch groups think, you can learn a lot from TV--even when the show you're watching is, on the surface, about the fabulously, frivolous things in life--shoes, purses, cocktails--and always the men for good or bad, we love and lust after.

I don't think there are many WMS who haven't seen at least one episode of the pop culture classic, Sex in the City. That show was the program that gave the concept of being a woman who lives her own truth wings. It was our Star Trek, daring to go where no man had gone before to explore the female psyche.

Each one of those characters was flawed and fabulous, each had her own unique idea of what was right and wrong for her. Samantha wanted to be an full-out sex goddess, and she was. Charlotte wanted to be an uptown society wife, and she was. Miranda wanted to be it all--superlawyer/supermom, best friend, and she was. Carrie wanted to explore and discover and enjoy herself and her life as it unfolded, and she did. Each was sexy and interesting in her own way.

They each lived their personal version of life with no apologies. Oh sure, there were often consequences for some of their decisions--they got their hearts broken (and broke a few themselves)--but they weren't afraid of living and loving full out accepting the sunshine with the rain, the joy that was sometimes laced with pain. They were quintessential Weapons of Mass Seduction who were fearless and confident--even when they had to fake it until they make it.

Carrie was the one I most related to. Probably because she was a writer and loved shoes and kind of flew by the seat of her fancy pants. And when it came to men, she definitely did not have a type. Millionaire or carpenter, struggling novelist or world renown artist, Carrie went with the flow, falling in love with who was sexy and interesting to her at the moment. I saw myself in her struggles and her joy.

So, what should I have learned from Carrie Bradshaw and why am I even bringing up a show that hasn't filmed a new episode in years? Well, remember the episode when Carrie's hard drive died? She lost everything, all of her columns and other parts of her life that were chronicled on her computer. It killed her because, you see, for writers, our computers are the scrapbooks and journals of our lives. Photos, files, emotions, ideas, secrets--everything is stored there. That hard drive represents our livelihood, our passions, our loves, our past, present and future.

So like Carrie, I lost everything on my hard drive last Thursday, the day before my birthday. Like Carrie, I hadn't backed up my stuff (long story, too long to get into here). And like Carrie, I wrapped my baby up and took her to the computer doctor, who sadly informed me that they'd done all they could but everything was lost, including the latest version of my next book (good news, a friend had a copy and sent it to me!).

So, last week, I spent my birthday on Friday through the Memorial Day weekend, in a Silver Patron daze. I gave myself a combination pity/birthday party and refused to be upset by the fact that years of work and memories were lost. Then today I sobered up and tried to find the lesson behind this.

Here's what I came up with: The past is lost but I have every ability to build anew and create from scratch the next chapter of my life. Nothing is written in stone. I have a new hard drive in an existing body and with the wisdom and experience behind me, I am gifted with the thrill and excitement of writing my future.

So that's what I learned from Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City. Be fearless. Be fabulous and true to myself. Own my truth. Live my life. Love my loves, write the journey down and back that sucker up every which way I know how!

Maybe what you can learn from my experience and the SITC girls revolves around the idea of a new hard drive in an existing body. Sometime life through divorce, death, boredom, and/or personal growth forces you to wipe your slate clean. And all you can do is insert a new attitude into your life as it exists and proceed forward--fearless and confident (with your signature cocktail in hand, of course!).

What do you think?