Sex and the Helium marketplace

See? This is what I'm talking about.

I write on Helium, when I can, which isn't as often as might be, because I am busy writing to earn the money that Helium doesn't provide unless you write night and day for Helium, earning those Writing Stars.

I used to be a Marketplace Premier Writer on Helium, and so able to write and submit articles for actual money for actual publishing firms which have begun to use Helium to find writers and content. No more. I logged on today to surf the Marketplace, found an interesting title from a new network called Theory Media Corp, wrote to it, and was all set to paste it in and submit. When I got this message: "We're sorry. You have to be a member of the group associated with this title to write to this title."

In other words, you have to be a Marketplace Premier Writer, which I no longer am because they've changed the rules and you have to have gobs of Writing Stars to be designated so. Which means writing day and night for Helium, for no money, to get the gobs of stars.

Frustration aboundeth. I thought I could sneak into Theory Media Corp through the back door, by simply finding them and submitting as myself anyway, but either this group is so new it can't be googled, or else it is a wholly owned subsidiary of you guessed it.

This is why I have this blog. You want my theory on why Sex and the City is popular, even though it's all about skinny fifty-year old adolescents of limited acting skills sleeping around Manhattan? Here you go, and my blessings.

By the way, the instructions said I should include one YouTube link and five other external links, but now I feel like I don't have to.

Word limit: "about 300"

Sex and the City shows America to be ...

There is a huge audience of middle-aged, middle-class (white) women out there, who want the fantasy of making it in New York. They also want the fantasy of having a close set of girlfriends with whom they share deep confidences. They want the fantasy of sleeping around.

They want the fantasy of a fabulous job and fabulous wealth and access to great restaurants and exciting “clubs” where you wear slinky clothes, sip cocktails, and watch a floor show of transvestite firemen dancing in feather boas. They want the fantasy of being able to walk around safely and even hop a ferry in a chic metropolitan area – the chicest of all – in a spangly dress and high heels at midnight, and not run into any trouble. They want ... but need I go on?

The women watching Sex and the City are, let’s see – well, let’s just pick one, out of all the “squillions” (I learned a new word from Vogue this month) of American households whose windows are flickering blue from the TV screen late at night, at whatever magic times La Sex is being shown in reruns. Our gal is about forty. She is married to a husband whose private life with her she would never divulge to anyone. She has two kids, and no nanny. Every day is a day of running errands, soccer practice, making dinner, cleaning. She looks like Kate Gosselin , before somebody gave Kate a makeover because she looked too much like a mom.

When our gal can sit down for her Me Time, she relishes the fantasy, the clothes, the expensive hair, the city, the men, the fun. And she gets the flip side of fantasy, too, which is always feeling superior to it after all. In the end, what did almost all four La Sex friends want, but marriage and kids? Our gal Kate, in her millions, was always way ahead of them.