Stephanie Harzewski, "The Limits of Defamiliarization: Sex and the City as Late Heterosexuality"
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Secondly, late heterosexuality highlights the growing challenge of separating considerations of heterosexuality in American culture from business-based rhetoric and theoretical frameworks.[4] This attribute is a concern not only for heterosexuality studies but also for economic theory.[5] For instance, Cameron and Collins acknowledge that commercial or market considerations have long been part of the partner-matching process in many cultures and societies through the ages, applying recent economic rubrics to the study and practice of partner search (170–71). In their analysis of British matchmaking services, relationship partners are theorized as "risky products" that require extensive search and evaluation before a decision is made, while matchmaking agencies serve as "risk reduction proxies" that alleviate anxiety aroused when initially encountering a stranger (107, 123). Such rhetoric animates much of the self-help genre, Rebecca Mead and others argue, as women's self-help books of the 1970s and 1980s, written by therapists, typically in an empathetic tone, have been replaced with a model drawn from business management theory (106). In her essay collection The Commercialization of Intimate Life (2003), sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild contends from a review of women's advice books that postfeminism is a manifestation of part of the spirit of capitalism being displaced to the intimate life: "Their activism, their belief in working hard and aiming high, the desire to go for it, to be saved, to win, to succeed, which the early capitalists used to build capitalism in a rough-and-tumble marketplace, many advice books urge women to transfer to love in a rapidly changing courtship scene" (24). For example, John Molloy's Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others: The Fascinating Research That Can Land You the Man of Your Dreams (2003) details relationship-stage schedules, offering quantitative benchmarks to measure if a courtship is progressing on schedule. Malloy, image consultant and New York Times best-selling author of the Dress for Success series, purports to offer dating dos and don'ts that insure an "up to 60 percent" increase in the odds of marital likelihood when modeled correctly. Featured guidelines specify that the shift from casual to monogamous dating should occur between the 1st and 4th month and that the 22nd month of dating marks a watershed moment as the statistical trend line for receiving a proposal begins to drop off. In late heterosexuality, capitalism levels heterosexuality's claim to naturalness in that successful heterosexuality is shown to be the product of labor or a resilient entrepreneurial esprit. (The series-inspired career guide Sexy Jobs in the City: How to Find Your Dream Job Using the Rules of Dating (2003), offers an inverted application of this thematic, connecting media-sector job hunting to dating savvy.) In sum, this form of what American sexologist Laura Kipnis has called "labor-intensive intimacy" circulates the idea that if we work hard and network enough in our soul-mate search, payoffs will yield, an idea touted by a self-help lecture program that Charlotte and Carrie are featured in season 5 as attending (Kipnis 18; "Unoriginal Sin," episode 68).[6]

Samantha's assertion that the new dating field is "all about multitasking" and that none of the group can afford to fall into a "one-man-at-a-time pattern" utilizes contemporary business metaphors to promote retrograde sexual politics. Playing the field is mandatory, according to Samantha's message, because the right men do exist but in sorely limited quantities.[7] Charlotte attempts to share her reading of Marriage Incorporated: How to Apply Successful Business Strategies to Finding a Husband, which "encourages professional women to approach finding a mate with the same kind of dedication and organization they bring to their careers" ("Drama Queens," episode 37). Perhaps Rachel Greenwald was inspired by this fictional self-help title as her Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School (2003) pitches the idea that with the right marketing and product development women can succeed at obtaining a marriage proposal even if they are chronologically challenged. Carrie, who likens first dates to "job interviews with cocktails" in "Luck Be an Old Lady" (episode 69), later in "To Market, to Market" (episode 75) ponders as she types on her Macintosh laptop the rationale behind speculative investment: "When it comes to finance and dating I couldn't help wonder why we keep investing." Choosing to keep her capital right where she can see it—hanging in her closet—she assesses that "after weathering all the ups and downs you could one day find yourself with nothing." Yet the possibility of no return, coming up empty, is not enough to fold her hand. Carrie, like the spirit of her book dedication, is hopeful, and, despite Carrie's labeling Charlotte in "Drama Queens" (episode 37) as a "professional husband hunter," the series portrays optimism and romance alongside of market considerations and dating venture capitalism. Late heterosexuality is then marked by a postmodern contradictoriness as to the function of romance, traditionally opposed to monetary gain[8]: Carrie deliberates as to whether to conclude her book on hope or despair, and while uncertain in her own mind about love, she opts to end her book on hope because she guesses correctly that hope sells.