Unless a woman has two heads, I see no reason why she can't get laid."Sound advice, if it's just sex you're looking for. But the truth is that the women in Sex and the City want what all single thirtysomething women are supposed to hanker after... love, marriage and babies.Now that's something altogether different. "Female columnists have a particularly terrible problem here," says novelist Sophie Parkin, daughter of the original sex guru Molly "They have power and huge amounts of disposable income. Yet they're looking for someone more powerful, slightly older and richer God knows why, but that's how it is. However, if men are in that position and are still single, well, you have to ask yourself why."What women like Liz Jones need to do, suggests Parkin (a 38-year-old mother of two who has been in a relationship now for six months), "is look in other places. They might find that their milkman would be infinitely suitable but have left him out of the equation."In Parkin's latest novel, Take Me Home, a single mother finds happiness with her neighbour upstairs "It isn't necessarily where you would look.

In fact, if a bloke in your street made a pass, you would think it weird. Yet if you met him in a bar you would be more accepting."Over at Maxim magazine, deputy editor Michael Hodges agrees. "The chattering classes would never go out with their milkman because they're snobs," he declares "These women are looking for their dads. They don't want the reality of their dads, who smell of beer and fags. They just want the comfort."They spend all day being powerful women, then they want to be looked after in the evening Men find it a little unfair. It's like Chelsea beating Newcastle then asking Newcastle to help celebrate and buy the beers while they're at it."Maxim caters for men aged between 27 and 35 and Hodges is clear about what they think "I don't buy this idea that men shrink from responsibility Men are not scared of marriage.

The way I see it is that you meet someone, fall in love then get married What is scary is that some women put one before the other. It's frightening when you meet a woman and marriage is in her eyes immediately Men are realistic. A marriage based on desperation won't work."Hodges, 35, has been in a relationship all of six weeks. How did he get hooked? "I don't want to discuss it," he says. What he will say is: "I hate this idea of men being perceived as catches. You can see women reeling off a check list, the right suit, apartment in the right part of town, the right car. It's patronising."At the Erotic Review, its female editor Rowan Pelling suggests we all calm down and address realities.

Single women writers must produce "sad and lonely" columns while married columnists must perpetuate the myth of domestic bliss. "Marriage is perceived as nirvana, when we know it blatantly isn't," says Pelling, who's 32 and married. "It's a bit like believing in God when everything set out by scientists suggests otherwise. It's an act of faith and extremely difficult, though fantastic at the same time."What I would say to these women - if they really exist - is 'go out and enjoy yourselves'. The right man will come along when it's the right time and you can still have babies in your forties. I met my husband at that temple of laddishness, the offices of GQ magazine, which proves it can happen anywhere."I blame Bridget Jones," she continues.