Let's Talk About Sex!

Let’s talk about sex! Not just any kind of sex, but sex between friends, better known as friends with benefits (FWB). There are people all over the world thinking this is the best thing since sliced bread. These are relationships that stem from already existing friendships that cross the line and move into the physical world.

The beginning stages are the best as there are no strings attached. Good sex with no obligations after the deed is done. Both parties are satisfying a natural urge without having to rely on a one night stand.  Sounds great right? Wrong. Overall, girls get very emotionally involved and want commitment, while the guys still only want the physical benefits. 

According to a survey done at Michigan State University of 125 students, 60% of those surveyed have had a physical relationship with a friend. 10% of these FWB relationships turned into committed relationships. 33% stopped having sex and continued their friendship, and 25% stopped talking altogether. (Carey, 2007)

So why do people choose to enter into a FWB relationship? Is it because of attraction, passion, romantic feeling, or is it just trying to fill a need for sex? These types of relationships are seen as ones where the people have sex without feeling or emotional ties. However, when sex gets thrown into the mix, things inevitably get complicated because men and women have different ideas on what the benefits entail. Women are much more likely than men to place more emotional weight on a friends with benefits situation and they also have a tendency to feel more involved in the relationship.  Men focus more on the sexual aspects of the relationship as they see a friend with benefits as carefree sex or a reliable booty call. This difference in perception of what the relationship is creates issues that people would rather avoid in a supposed just sexual relationship. (McGinty, 2007)

Here’s an example of a friends with benefits situation gone wrong from one of our group members:

“A high school friend and I began talking after years of not seeing each other, initially just to catch up, but eventually we got more and more physical while still maintaining the friendship we had…or so I thought. We never talked about feelings because we didn’t want them, we just wanted to fool around and have fun, we both understood this and were ok with that. One day though, she looked me dead in the eye and said, “I love you.” This floored me, what I thought was just casual sex with a friend had escalated so quickly and now she was saying that she had this strong feeling for me. I had no idea what to do so I just brushed it off. But after she said that things got different, we started talking about more serious things and began hanging out more often outside of the bedroom, we were in a full blown relationship just without the label. The lack of a label made things worse as she started going for other guys which hurt me and I started going for other girls which hurt her. Eventually what we had turned into a mess and we fought about things and stopped talking all together.” – Chris B.

Chris’  experience shows how things can turn bad very fast if you aren’t clear as to what you want in a relationship; he thought it was just sex, she turned it into something more which lead to them no longer talking to each other. Since they had different ideas about what they were doing, they acted how they thought was appropriate, yet in the grand scheme of their relationship, it didn’t work. Friends with benefits seems like a good idea, but it can get sloppy fast and often times leads to a de-escalation of the relationship back to friends or a complete termination of the relationship. If you want carefree sex with someone, don’t go to a friend, find a stranger, it’s harder to get emotional with them. 

 

 Citations

1. Carey, B. (2007, October 2). Friends with benefits, and stress too. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/health/02sex.html

2. McGinty, K. (2007). Friends with benefits: women want "friends," men want "benefits".

"Dude, You're a Fag!"

                Why is it that a step outside of our designated gender boundaries leads to embarrassment, mockery, or disgust by others?  It is at a very young and impressionable age we learn what it means to act in a masculine or feminine way; and as we get older, these become ingrained in us.  Specifically, intra-gender interactions follow a set of unspoken guidelines that are telling of just how important it is for us to stick to our gender roles.

                We are drawn to people for many different reasons, varying from physical, to sexual, and social attraction.  We often associate physical and sexual attraction together, however, they are very distinct and separate factors.  When we are physically attracted to someone, we are drawn to physical aspects of them, whereas sexual attraction brings about feelings of arousal in their presence.  A clear example of this difference is when heterosexual people discuss feelings of attraction to their same sex.  A girl will recognize when a hot girl walks by, and she is likely to say something to her friends.  

 In this picture from facebook, girls are complimenting this girl on how pretty she is.

In this picture on facebook, guys are complimenting the guy on his keg-stand. They aren't saying anything about how attractive he is, unlike the girls in the photo above.

A guy, on the other hand, may notice an attractive dude, but he wouldn’t dare acknowledge it.  Even if a girl specifically asks for a guy’s opinion about another guy, he is hesitant to give his opinion.  If he does, there are very few things he can say so he doesn’t sound gay. He can be “good looking, decent looking, or alright”.  These compliments are all acceptable, but anything past this, and he’s crossing the masculine line.  A guy can NEVER call another dude hot. When assessing another guy’s buffness, it’s masculine enough to say “that dude’s jacked”. All of these convoluted rules stem from gender differences that are established very early on in life. Parents make it clear to their children what is acceptable behavior as a boy and girl, and most parents don’t allow any mixing of this behavior.  

Intrigued by these gender roles, C.J. Pascow spent a year and a half in a high school ‘studying guys’.  She wanted to study masculinity in both males and females.  She found that “fag” was the worst word a guy could say to another guy, and that girls rarely used the word.  Guys used the word, fag, as a means of policing the behaviors that lacked masculinity in their male peers. (2)

When it comes to discussion of the girl a guy is getting with, it is more than likely his friends will confirm her hotness.  When guys do compliment each other, it is usually by his choice of girl.  Guys will say things to each other about his girlfriend that girls would never say to each other.  This may be indicative of the fact that a girl would take a compliment about her boy’s attractiveness to heart.  She may interpret her friend’s compliment as ‘I want your boyfriend.’  On the other hand, guys are comfortable and encouraging in discussion of their friends gals.  When a girl does compliment her friend’s boyfriend, it is only when her friend has asked for her opinion.  Otherwise, she may get upset and think her friend is trying to steal her man.

                When girls complement one another, they are often looking for a compliment in return. Sometimes girls give complements to their friends specifically because they want to hear something nice about themselves.  In fact, she will make it very clear that she’s waiting for one back, by staring at the compliment-giver and making her feel uncomfortable.  Guys don’t seem to feel this ‘chivalrous’ necessity to return complements, so as not to hurt their dude’s feelings. 

                So, at the end of the day, there really isn’t much research done in regard to these abstract rules we follow.  However, we can conclude that these rules are most important during our teen years because as we get older, it seems that one man telling his business partner he looks nice in his suit isn’t so ‘gay’ afterall.

1. "Intra-Gender Communications." May 5, 2007. Online Posting to Can't We Talk? (from: You Just Don't Understand. Web. 6 Nov. 2011. <http://forum.netmuslims.com/showthread.php?6568-intra-gender-communications>.

Schoepflin, Todd. "Dude, You're a Fag: As Exemplary Ethnography." Everyday Sociology Blog. N.p., April 28, 2011. Web. <http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2011/04/dude-youre-a-fag-an-exemplary-ethnography.html>.