Of all the words that one might use to describe the series Sex and the City, “subtle” and “restrained” are hardly among them. This is a show, after all, that had Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) refer to growing out her pubic hair as becoming “Bozo the Bush.”
Still, according to a recent Vanity Fair interview with some of the show’s writers and producers, HBO did draw the line somewhere for the sake of decency. And decency, in this case, involved, um, not airing a certain scene that featured oral sex and a golden retriever.
The incident occurred during the season 1 episode “The Monogamists,” in which Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is dating a man who seems to have two defining characteristics: the fact that he has a cute dog, and that he is obsessed with oral sex.
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“He basically was always pushing her head down to give him oral sex,” SATC’s creator, Darren Star, told Vanity Fair. “And he had this golden retriever who was always around. In the final scene, she basically let him have it about being offended by his insistence on just wanting a blow job. She accused him of only liking her for that and kind of stormed out. And then she walked back in and saw that his golden retriever was going down on him.”
The higher-ups at HBO, ahem, couldn’t help but wonder if that might be a little too much, even for them.
“It’s sort of horrifying that we shot that,” said Amy B. Harris, a writer on the show. “We shot him putting peanut butter on his penis, and Charlotte walks back in like, ‘Oh, I’m being unreasonable,’ and then she sees that...I can’t believe we even thought about doing it.”
It was probably best for the series that this particular scene didn’t make the cut. After all, considering how a good deal of the show’s storylines have already soured on today’s audiences, it’s hard to imagine how well that little tidbit might have fared.
In any case, at the end of the day, only one thing is important for Sex and the City’s eternal legacy — the gif Samantha saying, “It’s dicklicious.” As long as that remains untarnished, we’re happy.