Sex and the City is a beautiful, strange little time capsule. It’s a world where email is a novelty, the ladies simply eat brunch without making TikToks about it, and a newspaper columnist can afford a few new pairs of $500 shoes a week. Okay, maybe that last one is more of a fantasy than a time capsule, but still, there’s so much of Sex and the City that is so very 2000 and late. Some of it for better, and some of it for much, much worse.

With the new season of the reboot series And Just Like That… beginning May 29, I couldn’t help but wonder just how outdated is Sex and the City? With And Just Like That…, the creators have made some big efforts to try to update Carrie Bradshaw’s world for a new era. There’s more diversity in terms of race and gender, and Carrie even had a podcast for a little bit. I guess that’s progress! But that’s not how things were during the original Sex and the City‘s six seasons and two movies. There’s a lot about the original Sex and the City storylines that did not stand the test of time. Grab a cosmo and join me in this walk down memory lane.

Sex and the City Moments That Aged Poorly

Carrie’s Weird Take On Bisexuality

This episode is always at the forefront of my mind when I think about how problematic Sex and the City can be. Carrie is a sex writer, and yet she has some really close-minded views about sex, especially about bisexuality. In season 3, episode 4, Carrie finds out the guy she’s dating is bisexual and flat-out freaks out. She even has the audacity to question the entire identity as a whole: “I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it’s just a layover on the way to Gay Town,” she tells the girls over brunch. As a proud bisexual woman, I’m here to say hi, Carrie! We exist!

Judging Samantha For Dating A Woman

Speaking of non-hetero sexualities, Samantha actually does explore her sexuality in a relationship with a woman in season 4. It could have been a cool opportunity for the series to show how identities can shift and evolve. Instead, all the other women just flat-out make fun of Samantha. And they call themselves friends.

Samantha Getting Body-Shamed

Once again, Samantha got thrown under the bus, this time over gaining a few pounds in the Sex and the City movie. She still looks absolutely gorgeous, but that’s kind of beside the point. No matter how she looks, I don’t think it’s great for her friends to comment on and judge her body.

Racial Stereotypes

This one’s a doozy. In the original Sex and the City series, the vast majority of characters were white. One of the few times there were some Black main characters, it didn’t go so well. In season 3, episode 5, Samantha dates Chivon, and basically, the entire episode, from beginning to end, aged poorly. Samantha speaks in AAVE, she objectifies Chivon, and the portrayal of Chivon’s sister feeds into “angry Black woman” stereotypes. Yeah, the whole thing is really rough.

Some Haphazard Use Of Slurs

Another episode that’s really tough to watch now is season 3, episode 18 when Samantha gets in a fight with the trans sex workers on her street. In the middle of that fight, Samantha calls them a slur — yikes!

The Guy Who Filmed People Without Consent

This one is so bonkers. In the second episode of the whole series, Carrie meets a guy who secretly films his sexual encounters with models without their consent. Not only that, but he shows his tapes to Carrie, who shrugs it all off and simply decides she wants to sleep with him and be filmed, too. Wild behavior!