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EM: You go first, seeing as you made me watch that piece of crap.
LO: You mean Sex and the City 2.0? I didn't make you watch it--this is part of your job description.
EM: 2.0 implies an improvement, though, no?
LO: No, it's like Vista. Or a clone--there are always weird mutations in the copy.
EM: It made Gossip Girl look like Citizen Kane.
LO: Lucy Liu = Carrie (they're both in publishing and wear stoopid outfits), the brunette = Charlotte (wife & mom), the redheaded ice queen = Miranda, and the blonde experimenting sexually = Samantha.
EM: And this isn't even Candice Bushnell's rip-off of her own work! That's Lipstick Jungle, which starts on NBC in February, and is about three women juggling careers, family, and sex in NYC.
LO: On Cashmere Mafia, they've all got a little Samantha in them because they're all apparently obsessed with sex. I don't buy it.
EM: You mean, you don't buy that sex would be that high on their priorities list because of their age?
LO: Partly, but also because of their incredibly hectic schedules, and the amount of time it must take to get ready in the morning--Lucy Liu's hair in the last episode just to go to work was ridonkulous.
EM: And I couldn't get over how much freakin' lipstick every woman on the show wears. I kept thinking of that statistic about the amount of lipstick that the average woman ingests each year. I guess we're supposed to see it as war paint.

LO: I also don't buy for a sec that a successful, high-powered, sophisticated New York woman supposedly in her 40s is just now figuring out that she might be bi or a lesbian. Maybe if she lived in Hicksville, USA, where the biggest thing going on on a Friday night is the local "God Hates Fags" chapter's pot luck, but not in NYC.
EM: And the same goes for the ex she bumps into: What NYC guy would be BUMMED to see his ex making out with another woman? Come ON, he'd totally be trying to join in. That was such a Midwestern reaction.
LO: I think they just threw in that plot line in a desperate attempt to appeal to the three hetero guys whose wives made them watch the show.
EM: Did Joey watch it with you?
LO: He'd rather listen to Celine Dion.
EM: So what did you think about this line by the conniving stay-at-home mom: "The only safe affair is between two people who want to stay in their marriages. You have a good time, you go home, nobody gets hurt." Do you think there's any truth in that? Like, are some affairs "safer" than others, or is that just an illusion?
LO: I guess so. It's like sex--there's no such thing as safe sex, just safer sex. There's always the potential for serious damage.
EM: That plotline felt like Little Children for dummies.
LO: BTW, why do writers use tofu and vegetarianism as symbols of the villain? I'm offended--there's no way a vegetarian would be such a total evil bitch. It's just not in our nature.
EM: I think in this show, tofu = perfect mom, actually. They were trying to use tofu to show she's sanctimonious, not evil. Not that that's any better!
LO: I'm sensitive ever since that neocon Christian anti-choice big-coroporation propaganda film Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin cast the lame neighbors as vegetarians while the loveable main characters had McDonald's wrappers all over their minivan's dashboard.
EM: I felt a bit manipulated by Cashmere Mafia, like I'm supposed to get behind it just because it's flipping a few gender conventions. Ooh, look, she's got a hot buff guy as a harried secretary, this show must be totally feminist and for me!
LO: Wait, where was the hot buff guy? I missed him!
EM: He's the brunette's secretary who stays late at the office to fix her printer and remind her not to forget her purse.
LO: Maybe my feminist transformation is complete because I didn't even notice him, I just thought that seemed normal. Now I hope to automatically picture women in white lab coats when talk of doctors comes up. And who knows, presidents may now come in female form too!
EM: Only if they don't get all "hysterical" of course.
LO: The Toles cartoon the other day nailed it. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't...show emotion, wear makeup, gain or lose weight, wear the "wrong" outfit, enjoy sex, think sex is not the end all be all, the list goes on...
EM: Imagine if Hillary had gone through the kind of Subway-diet weight transformation that Huckabee did...you'd be seeing those "before" photos every time there was a story about her.
LO: The Gloria Steinem trick of putting a different sex in the same situation is the best way to reveal gender bias--like she did this past weekend in the NY Times, imagining how a female Barack Obama would be laughed out of the race for inexperience.
EM: Okay, one more Cashmere Mafia question for you:
LO: Hey, Cashmere Mafia, the presidential race--it's all related: women, success, ambition...
EM: So this is what I don't buy: how quickly the brunette agrees to let her husband go work on the stay-at-home mom's kitchen. He's all like, "I support you in your career so you should let me go work one-on-one with this gorgeous bitchy woman who wants an affair with me." Like those two things are even remotely equal?
LO: Maybe we're supposed to think it's working-mom guilt that made her give in like that? Or maybe all the fumes from her lipstick are affecting her brain.
EM: You know how her husband says, "Nothing would ever happen"  and she responds, "Isn't that just what people say right up until something does happen?"
LO: Oh, I gotta say I liked that line.
EM: Well, if you knew there was some woman who totally wanted to sleep with your guy, would you ban him from hanging out with her, even if he swore nothing would ever happen? Like, can fidelity ever be a unilateral thing, or do you have to trust BOTH parties not to screw around? If only one party is determined not to have an affair, is that enough, or is it putting monogamy in the line of fire too much to let him hang out with her one on one if she's in the mood for an affair?
LO: Are you saying she may trust her husband, but she doesn't trust the would-be-mistress, so why stack the cards against monogamy at all, when it's so fragile to begin with?
EM: Exactly.
LO: Tough one. I'd like to think that I'd be okay with him taking the job (not so sure about "hanging out") since I don't think "not allowing" him to do something is going to prevent a future affair. In fact, NOT trusting him might create some negativity in the relationship that would make infidelity on his behalf maybe more likely.
EM: You're so evolved!
LO: I think we'd just talk about it very honestly, set some boundaries, and assume that he would tell me everything that happened, and then we'd laugh together about what a sad, lonely, pathetic woman she was while we took her fat check and laughed all the way to the bank. What would you do?
EM: I really don't know. The whole "it'd make his career" thing is a toughie.
LO: Aaaaachooo-cop-out-oooooo!
EM: I'd be pretty crazy jealous, but maybe if he promised to tell me everything and made fun of her, that would help.
LO: Yes, making fun of her is essential.
EM: I mean, every woman likes to know that some other woman wants her man, right? I'd just have to channel it all into bitchy "I have him and you don't" feelings. And maybe check his collar for lipstick, too. At least you know, with war paint like that, there's BOUND to be a lipstick trace somewhere.