I'm surprised to find Sex and the City to be rather conservative

I'm watching satc for the first time with my gf (currently in S4) and i'm thoroughly enjoying it, the writing is amazing, great characters, we find endless points of discussion in the episodes

one of the themes that I have been noticing is that for all of the aesthetic boundary-pushing, showing female pleasure, normalization of kink, trans etc. the show is formally a cautionary tale against feminist liberation.

Samantha as a model for sex-positivity is comedic relief, inhuman and written to fill out the extreme end of the feminist spectrum. She "fucks like a man" and embodies what critics of feminism say is wrong with the movement.

Charlotte represents conservatism attempting to find it's way in the new free world but she continually finds herself disgusted with the realities of her liberation. She longs for things to return to the way they were, when men provided the support and foundation for a family. She is the most relatable, human character in the show. She has the best sense of any of them in regards to finding long term love, says things like "if I want to get married I should stop hanging out with single people."

Miranda is objectively the most successful character whose love life is the most doomed. She is unable to form a connection with Steve, who is written to aggravate her but offers the prospect of family life which she cannot accept. She breaks up with him and the very next day accepts "partner" at her law firm. The writing could not be more clear: women in her situation have no personal space or need for a family. Yet she still desires it. She is doomed to fall for sleazy men and desperately asks to see the face of the sandwich.

Carrie as an everywoman protagonist suffers from the same neuroses as Bella in Twilight: she is clumsy, awkward, and self-absorbed to the point of absurdity. Her smoking and extreme outfits compliment the inner-monologue structure of the show very nicely. Her relationships have the most on-screen chemistry but are also the most unhealthy. Big is a sociopath, Aidan is explicitly too-good-to-be-true and lacks actual depth. He is clearly just there as her version of Mr Right where Big was Mr Wrong.

None of the experiences of these characters thus far show any hope that liberation for women is likely to lead to the kind of stable monogamous hetero family structure they are looking for. On the contrary, they are presented with setbacks at every turn, reject suitable men that they manage to find something wrong with, and continually raise honest questions about WTF they're supposed to do to find love and belonging, ie the "family values" they seem to have bucked in order to move to the city and have lots of sex

The thesis of the show seems to be that they're not going to find it