By Lauren Bishop
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Before Sex and the City, many of Alliea Phipps' friends wouldn't openly talk about their intimate relationships. It was just a line that wasn't crossed.

"Some friends would have rolled over in a pile of ants rather than talk about their sex lives," says the 39-year-old Norwood resident, the owner of public relations firm 3C Media Inc.

But soon after the show first aired six years ago, things started to change. They started having those talks and e-mail exchanges. And the show taught them things, like how the "rabbit" is not just an old Volkswagen model or an expensive wine opener.

"It was the show that generated those conversations," Phipps says.

Just as important, she says: "It was one of the first shows that openly talked about, and gave you an example of, a single professional woman who wasn't desperately looking to get married."

Though set in New York, Sex and the City still spoke to Cincinnati singletons like Phipps and her friends. She understood how both funny and heartbreaking it could be to cohabitate with someone, like Carrie. She had friends who donned outrageous hats and wigs while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, like Samantha; friends nearing 40 who yearned for children, like Charlotte; and friends she never thought would settle down who were the first to do so, like Miranda.

And, like all the characters, she spent the latter part of the 1990s growing up.

"Sooner or later," she says, "you have to grow up and say goodbye to the party girl of the '80s."