Play the Field

In Sex And The City, Samantha Jones was the character whose bedroom exploits some of us secretly wished we could emulate. Brazen, adventurous and overtly kinky, she had the ability to have sex - and lots of it - without emotion. Kim Cattrall's character changed her men as often as she changed her sheets. By the end of the series she had bedded 41 men (and one woman). A less extreme take on this is a trend called Manhattan dating.

The concept is not new: men have been doing it for years - dating many women at the same time. Increasingly, however, women are now adopting this approach to dating and are juggling a number of, er, balls at the same time.

Penny Conway of the dating website in the UK says they're independent women who don't want to be limited by what society says they should be doing. There are two types of Manhattan daters, she says. The first kind dates several men at once, whittling them down until she finds one to have a serious monogamous relationship with. The second type is happy to be single and doesn't feel any pressure to settle down even though she is in her late 20s or early 30s.

Promiscuous Girl?

'If I met someone I saw a future with, I'd stop dating the others,' says 27-year-old Kim Andrews, a production assistant. ‘That said, unless they ask me whether I'm being exclusive I don't reveal that I'm also seeing other men.’

She says that while one guy might stimulate her intellectually another one could make her laugh or be a really good listener. 'I keep it casual but at the same time I'm open to the possibilities of the relationship turning into something more.'

The advantage of seeing more than one guy at a time, she says, is that she gets to try out different kinds of men she wouldn't necessarily settle down with. 'I'm young and don't have any responsibilities tying me down,' she says. 'I'm just having fun.'

But while you may feel as though you're in control, it's important to remember that if you're not being exclusive the guys probably aren't either. So if you're looking for a monogamous relationship, speak up.

She's a Man-Eater

As much as the SATC women have helped the cause for no-nonsense, no-strings-attached dating, they've also given women a somewhat unfair reputation - that of having sex 'without feeling, for pleasure only and without commitment', as researcher Gail Markle from the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University in the US noted earlier this year in a thesis called 'Can Women Have Sex Like A Man? Sexual Scripts In Sex And The City'.

'I don't consider myself a heartbreaker. I'm honest with them. And no, sex doesn't come into the equation,' says Andrews.

Things are bound to get tricky if you have sex with your multiple dates. Women in particular attach a lot of meaning and emotion to sex and are often left feeling vulnerable and exploited when the sex is not supported by a loving, positive relationship.

The best advice? Date on your terms. Men multi-date without their behavior being regarded as cheating. Just be open and honest about your expectations. If both of you agree that it's just a fling, there's no room for misunderstanding.

About the Author:
Sandra Prior runs her own bodybuilding website at http://bodybuild.rr.nu.