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Yet there are doubtless few women who recognize much about the wild, bed-hopping lifestyle that Sex and the City portrays every week. Indeed, only a fifth of single women who watch the show said in the TIME/CNN poll that their life mirrors the show's sexcapades. Yet when asked what they miss most from not being married, 75% of women said companionship, and only 4% said sex. While surveys show married people generally have more sex than supposedly "swinging" singles, it's clear that living alone does not mean a life of abstinence. Experiences vary widely, from women who go through long periods without sexual relationships to others who have regular, casual flings. "You can easily take care of your needs," notes a D.C. single woman. Many women enjoy comfortable relationships with men that include sex but no hint of marriage--like the fiftysomething Nashville, Tenn., woman whose male friend comes to town for a handful of visits each year. "He's someone I know and trust," she says. "The sex is great, and we stay up till 4 a.m. talking."
One thing women find more real about Sex and the City is the parade of sorry guys whom Carrie and her friends encounter each week. It's hard to find a woman without at least one horror story of a guy like the one Bank used to date, who in the middle of a fight blurted out the reason for his resentment of her: "You have never cleaned my bathroom." Says Bank: "I hate to feel like someone wants to control me. And I've ended up with a lot of men who do."
Yet the choice to be single involves more than just rejecting the inevitable boors and slouches. More often, women speak of affairs that lasted for months, if not years, with men they in many ways loved. But after much turmoil and tears, they ended things, deciding that being on their own was simply better than the alternative--being stuck with a man, and in a marriage, that didn't feel right.
"I totally adored him," says Lila Hicks, 32, a media producer, of the investment banker with whom she ended a seven-year romance not long ago, deciding life with him would be too limiting. "But I wasn't happy. I didn't think I could make him happy and retain my spirit, what makes me shine." Shawna Perry, an emergency-medicine doctor in Jacksonville, Fla., recently ended a 10-year relationship with a man whom she loves but feels is behind her in personal and professional growth. "His ups and downs were affecting our relationship and my security," she says. "I realized we were not building a life together and that this was not a good place to be considering marriage."