What Being a Gay Black Man Abroad Taught Me About Objectification
After spending 13 years living outside the U.S., I finally understood what women deal with every day.
One of my all-time favorite Sex and the City subplots involves Miranda and a guy wearing a Blimpie sandwich suit. Every time she walks by him on her way home from work, he says, “Eat me” — and he’s clearly not talking about a ham and cheese special. Miranda is naturally appalled, and after the Blimpie manager shrugs off her complaint, she decides to talk back.
“Oh, you’re so brave inside your sandwich,” she shouts at Blimpie guy after yet another “Eat me.”
That’s when she gets a glimpse of his “full lips and shiny white teeth” and realises that he might actually be kind of cute. Too late, though. He’s already ruined for her. It’s hard to come back from “Eat me.”
As much as I loved this SATC subplot when I first saw it, and as much as I’ve always considered myself to be a Miranda with an occasional Samantha rising, I had to leave Manhattan and move to Buenos Aires to truly appreciate Miranda’s reaction to Blimpie guy.
