One in three single women admits to having "friends with benefits" sex, according to a recent poll of 2,168 women in the UK, and half of those women say they do so because they don't want a serious relationship.
All right, so the poll was conducted by a fashion group -- MyCelebrityFashion.co.uk -- but whether you take its results seriously or not, the idea behind it is an important one: women don't always want commitment.
According to the Daily Mail, only eight percent of the women surveyed said they slept with a friend with the hope that it would develop into something more -- that's half as many women who responded that they did it to "have fun."
For many, these results aren't shocking. Real women don't always want commitment. But you would never know that from the "friends with benefits" movies that always seem to portray the woman secretly hoping that the casual sex she said she wanted will lead to a real relationship. (In true Hollywood fashion, it usually does.)
While two recent films -- "Friends with benefits" with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake and "No Strings Attached" with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher -- complicate the tired idea that it's always the woman who wants more (it's Portman's character Emma who proposes the idea of casual sex to Kutcher's Adam and Adam who falls in love, and Timberlake's Dylan that falls hard for his female friend) their respective endings (Spoiler Alert!) perpetuate the myth that a happily-ever-after ending was what the woman wanted all along.
What these movies represent is a discomfort with the variety of sexual desires women have, and that those desires don't always involve long-term commitment or monogamy. "Friends with benefits" arrangements aren't easy or necessarily functional for all of us, but there's nothing surprising or really that unusual about them. The fact that you are friends in the first place probably means you have some commonly-held beliefs and values. You might at some point find yourself attracted to that friend. As long as you both understand the terms of the sexual relationship -- that you both really don't want a romantic relationship -- no one gets hurt (in theory, at least), and you both get, well, laid. It's not the stuff of romantic comedy, but what would happen if someone made a movie where a perfect friends with benefits relationship didn't end in the longed for happily-ever-after? Harder to do, but a film I'm much more interested in watching.
How do you feel about "friend with benefits?" Share your thoughts (and success stories or warnings) here.
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When its something that has happened just a couple of times when you were super horny and both know its nothing more that just letting out tention then its all good..
(unless your really good in bed ;) lol
I was in my late forties at the time, and honestly don't think I could have had such a casual, relaxed, friendly sexual relationship at any point in my twenties or thirties. I had to mature to a certain point where my biological clock was winding down and I had completely outgrown my clingy, needy, possessive stages.
He went on a vacation with another woman and I literally didn't feel a single pang of jealousy, nor did I feel threatened or fearful. If he'd come back saying, "I've decided to be in an exclusive romantic relationship with Madame X" I would have been happy for him, happy that he found someone with whom to be in a serious relationship.
We were friends. Period. The sex wasn't the focus of our relationship, but when it happened, we both enjoyed it. If you've never experienced that kind of friendship, I can't really explain it. We cooked together. We played music together. We shopped together. We were friends. And sometimes, when we both felt like it, we had sex. That's it.
If I'm sexually attracted to a man, that doesn't necessarily mean that I want to make him oatmeal every morning or let him hang his toothbrush next to mine or spend day after day being supportive and involved in every aspect of his life. It doesn't necessarily mean that I'm deeply in love with him, either.
Maybe I just like him as a person and want to spend time with him as a friend and feel enough of a physical attraction that I want to have sex with him from time to time.
Of course I'd much rather be in a deeply fulfilling and loving relationship with my perfect mate, but life isn't always perfect, is it?
Sometimes the smart, nurturing, compassionate thing to do is to be grateful for a really great peanut butter sandwich, rather than rending your clothes and tearing out your hair because peanut butter isn't filet minion.
After a 17 yrs of marriage and subsequent divorce, this is the ONLY manner in which I engage women. Don't have to jump through hoops for sex. Don't have to meet anyone "emotional" needs. Don't have to walk on eggshells. Don't have to deal with the dishonesty of many women.I enjoy the company of women and the sex. Works just fine for me.
Life is Good!
It was my experience that women are just not very good at the FWB thing....so I found one that I could live with and married her.
Any deal in which sex is involved - marriage; LTR; engaged; serious dating; keep going - carries the potential for unintended consequences. Marriage is no more immune than anything else.
If you are making love to a friend, it isn't casual.
So, visiting a brothel also carries "unintended" consequences, too?
I do not see your point here. Life has "unintended" consequences. So what are trying to say?
If all we wanted was just to simply satisfy ourselves, well then, there's always the hand and plenty of toys to use for that very purpose.
Therefore, even FWBs enjoy certain emotional connections, albeit most never long-lasting. They are inevitable I think.
So in my experience, every time I have had casual sex, I would do little things that implied intimacy. Such as sleeping over, cuddling afterwards, kissing her forehead, embracing her, hold interesting conversations about past love interests, the good and the bad experiences in our lives etc.
I think that is proper behavior, regardless of whether it's just sex or something more.