The 10 best episodes about sex in Sex And The City

It’s been 23 years since the show premiered, but —especially as new generations of viewers consume a show that once offered some of the most candid depictions of sex on TV to go with its celebration of female friendships. The pendulum has swung between plaudits and criticism, but even with all the sexually frank series and women-led comedies that have premiered since Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis first strutted around New York City together, there’s still a lot to enjoy about Sex And The City.SATC’s portrayal of sexual encounters and conundrums, which could often be retrograde, still yielded many memorable moments. With a revival, And Just Like That…, premiering on HBO Max on December 9, the quartet-turned-trio will have a chance to make amends for the past and greater strides. But for our latest Inventory, The A.V. Club revisited the original series and found 10 episodes about sex that still hold up more than 20 years later.

“Threesomes are the blow job of the ’90s,” Samantha Jones declares in SATC’s eighth episode. Directed by Nicole Holofcener, “Three’s A Crowd” does an inspired job of manifesting the week’s sex theme—in this case, threesomes—in a variety of intriguing ways. Surprisingly, Charlotte comes the closest to inviting a woman to join her and her adventurous boyfriend Jack (Joseph Murphy), only to discover that it’s just Jack’s way of sleeping with someone else. Independent Samantha is not interested in mending the marriage of her lover and his wife by joining them in a tryst, however, and Miranda once again gets the dregs of the episode focus when she feels rejected by her friends because none of them wants to have a threesome with her. Carrie’s triangle, of course, is emotional, as she finds out Big (Chris Noth) has been married before, leading to his ex-wife’s unwanted phantom presence in her bed. [Gwen Ihnat]

SATC helped many women feel comfortable expressing their sexual desires, and “The Turtle And The Hare” remains one of the most impactful sex-focused episodes, despite not featuring any sex. When Miranda buys The Rabbit, a then-revolutionary sex toy, Carrie and Charlotte wonder how a battery-operated device could ever replace the touch of a sexual partner. But Miranda wisely responds, “Well, I know where my next orgasm is coming from. Who here can say as much?” Soon, Charlotte and Carrie are happy new owners of The Rabbit—and Charlotte in particular can’t keep her hands off it. The episode became a great reminder that the pleasure of masturbation isn’t just for men. , “The Turtle And The Hare” created a monumental shift for the sex toy industry. People couldn’t wait to try out the Rabbit, and it sold out at many sex shops. As Shay Martin, the vice president of Vibratex (the company behind The Rabbit) told the publication, many women likely thought, “Wow, if Charlotte is willing to spend an evening with her vibrator, what’s it doing for her?”—indicating that anyone could own a sex toy. [Tatiana Tenreyro]

Many of the show’s sex-related episodes about singlehood haven’t aged well, but “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” still rings true more than two decades later. After Miranda bumps into Josh (Mark Feuerstein), an attractive ophthalmologist that she ghosted because he couldn’t make her climax, she decides to give him another chance, only to encounter the same issue. Josh doesn’t seem to know where the clitoris is: “It’s about two inches from where you think it is,” blurts out a frustrated Miranda after she decides not to keep faking orgasms. Despite numerous op-eds, TikToks, tweets, and Reddit threads explaining to men how to properly make people with vaginas orgasm, there are still plenty of men out there like Josh who are absolutely clueless. At least Josh manages to redeem himself by at least attempting to figure out how to make Miranda come—but ultimately, they’re just not sexually compatible. [Tatiana Tenreyro]

Charlotte and Samantha’s opposing views on sex always made for fascinating SATC conversations and storylines. In season two’s “Shortcomings,” Samantha sleeps with Charlotte’s recently divorced brother Wesley (Jack Mulcahy) because he’s attractive, but also because she understands he might need sex to get his mojo back. It’s not an approach Charlotte immediately understands, so the two friends get into a fight. Not only does this conflict add a realistic and dramatic flair to the show, but it’s an opportunity for SATC to have a nuanced dialogue about what sex means to different people. Charlotte’s more conservative perspective isn’t disregarded when she finally appreciates what Sam did for Wesley. SATC isn’t as much about right or wrong views as it is about respecting different opinions on sex, and “Shortcomings” is a great example. [Saloni Gajjar]

One of the things that made SATC such a cultural touchstone was how open—and sometimes graphic—it got while discussing sex from the female viewpoint. But no dialogue phrase may ever have been more startling than Samantha’s announcement that she’s dating a guy “with the funkiest tasting spunk.” (It’s immediately too much for Charlotte, who wordlessly gets up and leaves; Carrie just cancels her rice pudding order.) Poor Bobby Cannavale stars as the date saddled with this strange affliction, which makes even Samantha want to give up giving head. When he protests, Samantha rattles off a speech immediately relatable to anyone who’s ever performed fellatio, ending with “Honey, they don’t call it a job for nothin’.” The episode contains some major milestones for the rest of the women—Charlotte gets engaged, Steve moves out of Miranda’s apartment, Carrie cheats on Aiden with Big—but these life events fail to stand out when compared to funky tasting spunk. [Gwen Ihnat]

Season three’s “Frenemies” delivers a reality check for Charlotte and Samantha about the influence they’ve had on each other in terms of sex over the years. Charlotte is frustrated over Trey’s inability to sexually perform, while Samantha goes on and on about having many orgasms. No wonder the two have a massive falling-out—as Carrie and Miranda hide behind gigantic menus—over their very different sex lives. But as they try to bond with other friends, they come to a startling realization. For Charlotte, it’s about how she’s become more open about her desires. She closes the episode by calling Samantha to talk about having sex with Trey, knowing her adventurous friend is the only one who would truly appreciate the victory. Samantha isn’t suddenly modest, but she grows to learn that being the “wild” one of the group is actually a good thing. Both “Shortcomings” and “Frenemies” answer the question of how Charlotte and Samantha are close buds despite their opposing views. [Saloni Gajjar]

This episode breaks down the idea that danger and risk make sex all the more thrilling. Samantha meets the male version of herself, only to have to stare down the scary truth that sometimes sex with unknown strangers puts you at risk for HIV and STDs. There’s an important discussion of how safe sex practices and STD testing does impede physical intimacy, but leads to increased trust in one another, allowing worries to be set aside. When Miranda and Carrie open up about having been tested multiple times, it helps dissolves the stigma surrounding HIV testing and previously held beliefs that only gay men needed to worry about getting tested. Carrie, engaging in a seedy affair with Big, inevitably gets caught, resulting in the hurt of not only her ego but in the physical injury of Big’s wife Natasha. Meanwhile, Miranda gets briefly caught up in fantasies about a man whose face she’d never seen, which leads to one of the most iconic lines of the series: “She was a lawyer. He was a sandwich.” [Gabrielle Sanchez]

This episode is one of the series’ most discussed because it centers on a type of sex that was anything but—on TV, at least. Even Samantha doesn’t actually say “anilingus” or “rim job” (Carrie, naturally, comes up with the goofy “tuchus lingus”) when Miranda brings up her latest beau’s overture. Miranda goes from shocked to interested to post-coital, though she can’t bring herself to reciprocate. Again, Samantha falls short of her usual open-mindedness, telling Miranda she “would never do it to them.” The ass-eating talk over lunch is enough to land “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” on this list, but what propels this entry to its own level is the fact that Charlotte is more open-minded on this front than Sam. It’s a huge step forward for the uptight WASP, who insisted in season one that “no one marries the up-the-butt girl.” By season four, Charlotte was married and rimming, proving that she could be plenty adventurous with the right person. [Danette Chavez]

Looking at this list, it’s clear that many of the series’ flashpoints involve Samantha and Charlotte—they were supposed to represent opposite ends of the sexuality spectrum, after all. Here, Charlotte is judgmental of Samantha once again, critiquing her friend’s response to the death of Miranda’s mother. But Samantha’s at a loss: She has all the right moves when it comes to sexual pleasure, which she shows off with one very flexible wrestling coach, yet she isn’t sure how to support Miranda after the loss of a parent. After briefly obsessing that she’d “lost [her] orgasm,” Samantha finds a different kind of release as well as a way to comfort her friend. It’s also reminds us that Sam was a bit more vulnerable early on (remember Dominic?), and that she became more sex-focused as the show went on, before opening up (ahem) once more when Smith (Jason Lewis) entered the picture. [Danette Chavez]

After five seasons of watching Charlotte struggle with sexual satisfaction, solo and within her marriage to Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan), we finally get to see her get some and enjoy it! This episode is really about Charlotte, with Miranda M.I.A. while Carrie and Samantha take a train across the country in search of some sex. Harry’s (Evan Handler) introduction is really wonderful because he’s not as conventionally attractive as the men usually seen on the show; at first, Charlotte seems repulsed by him. But “The Big Journey” shows that attraction can be surprising and found where you least expect it. Harry praises Charlotte in a way she’s never experienced on the show, and in a way she deserves. In the process, Charlotte challenges her own ideas that women cannot crave pure sex, and need emotional attachment to enjoy it. [Gabrielle Sanchez]