Sex Addicts Live the City Life

Who knew that there could be life after Sex? Though it’s been four years since Carrie Bradshaw and company found romantic bliss in the series finale of Sex and the City, HBO’s former flagship show is still as popular as ever. Heavily edited reruns of the comedy are ubiquitous on TBS and The CW. Sex and the City: The Movie is set to premiere in theaters May 30. Miley Cyrus even named Sex and the City as her favorite TV program in her recent (and infamous) Vanity Fair interview, the one accompanied by a shot of the 15-year-old star clad only in a satin sheet.

There’s another, more localized sign that people haven’t forgot about Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte yet. Since 2001, On Location Tours, Inc. has been leading twice-daily “Sex and the City Hotspots” tours, which take fans to over 40 real New York locations seen in the series. The company’s Web site promises a glamorous afternoon, unburdened by distractions like children—nobody under the age of 12 is allowed on the tour.

I braved the Hotspots tour on Saturday, April 19, along with a group of 10 other Columbians. We all got free admission, courtesy of Student Development and Activities’ Urban New York program—a good thing, since tickets for the tour will set you back $40, or about four Cosmos. As soon as we boarded the bus, our petite, blonde tourguide Natasha, a self-described “Sexpert,” greeted us. “We’ll be getting off throughout the tour,” she said with a lascivious smile as soon as everyone was seated. “Off the bus, that is. Get your minds out of the gutter!”

Bawdy humor was a recurring theme of the afternoon. At one point, Natasha told us that we were embracing the R-rated nature of the show’s original HBO run. Accordingly, she asked that we “please feel free to yell ‘fuck’ at any point during the tour.” Nobody actually did.

To get us hyped up while we sat in traffic, Natasha treated us to something special—the newest trailer for the Sex and the City movie. It was clear that our fellow tourgoers were die-hard Sex fiends. When Carrie told her beau Mr. Big that she would rather have “a really big closet” than an engagement ring, they hooted and hollered like a rowdy college crowd at a Dane Cook show. When Charlotte triumphantly announced her pregnancy, some people actually applauded.

After driving past the Plaza Hotel, where Samantha met and subsequently slept with an old man with a saggy ass, and Takashimaya, an upscale department store where Carrie announced that she was taking a “lovah,” we made our way to our first stop: The Pleasure Chest. That’s the sex shop where Charlotte bought her first Rabbit vibrator. The store looked much larger in the show than it actually is. We spent twenty uncomfortable, cramped minutes surveying pastel-colored sex toys with disconcertingly cutesy names like the Butterfly and Silky, then breathed a collective sigh of relief when it was time to get on the bus again. Nobody left The Pleasure Chest empty-handed—each of us was awarded with a free, foot-long wooden “spanker.”
Everyone felt a lot less awkward at our second stop, Magnolia Bakery. The tour’s Web site calls this “the bakery where Miranda stuffed cupcakes into her mouth.” Poor, frumpy Miranda—even now, she’s still the character with the least sexy storylines. We all ate complimentary cupcakes before boarding the bus.

There was a weird disconnect between the tour’s exaggeratedly explicit tone and the significantly more subdued Sex-aholics who were actually along for the ride. When Natasha coyly asked if any of us were “Samanthas,” no one raised a hand. Everybody was a lot more eager to hear bits of behind-the-scenes gossip and watch clips from the series than to do a “show and tell” with their Pleasure Chest purchases.

Before we left, Natasha gave each of us a “Sexionary,” a brochure that defines certain terms coined on the show—a “gherkin” means a small penis while “low-hangers” are “balls that hang so low they get in the way”—that never should be used in everyday conversation.

The Sexionary also contains a few special offers for alumni of the tour, including a coupon for a discounted Rabbit. I’m pretty sure I’ll never end up using it—if there’s one thing I learned from my tour, it’s that things look a lot better on TV than they do in reality. Unless, of course, you’re talking about Magnolia cupcakes.