Friends With Benefits: Part 2

Informational: Non-Fiction

Part 2 based in part on the study “Negotiating a Friends with Benefits Relationship” by Melissa A. Bisson & Timothy R. Levine in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, dated September 2007.”

You can pull this study down from the “Springer Web Site” and read it for yourself.  

Despite the name it is a very academic study with a lot of brainiacs making interpretations on their own data given the definitions they have assigned to certain acts, words or behaviors in their study.  But for me it boils down to this:

The reason why there is very little talk of relationship or ground rules in an ‘FWB’ arrangement is because if the people who know each other are “friends” they already have known boundaries that are quite understood to each of them.  Rules get laid down when each ‘friend’ has something to hide, something to protect or something to attack.  If you are a ‘friend’ you protect your ally status while submitting to the rules or making rules that are easily conformed to.

After reading the study I’ve come to the conclusion FWB relationships are very exciting because they don’t make emotional demands, don’t approach the scales of custom, religion or community.  

All of this can be discreetly hidden in the microcosms of culture and association necessary when interacting in the 21^st century.  

In other words ‘FWB’ arrangements are the perfect neo-epicurean stage to live your sex fantasies in a lucid and intoxicating reality.  Just don’t get emotionally involved, don’t fall in love.

So at its core what is a FWB relationship?  Consensual sexual submission for personal gratification alone would be fornication.  Is consensual sexual submission out of feelings of obligation or to effect living standards that are dependent or interdependent in your ‘FWB’ a kind of mutual prostitution?  And if the ground rules are set by the female is she a domme or servant?

If the ground rules are set by the male is he a ‘john’ , deviate, pimp or self imposed master?  What if none of this is the case?  What if this is a case of ‘friends’ just wanting to get off without any sociological, economic or emotional strings attached?  That’s about what is concluded by this study.

So, most ‘friends’ being monotheists (Christians, Muslims, or Jews) living in this kind of arrangement, don’t believe the weight of ‘sin’ applies since they are not in love, and there is not any binding strand to any personal emotion, FWB’s don’t see a problem with them and ‘God’ because body’s get dirty but souls go to heaven.  You can wash a body and get forgiven ‘if’ you did anything wrong.  Right?

The ‘Church’ (all of them - Catholic especially) labels this kind of living behind  ‘FWB’ thinking ‘gnosticism’ and it is a sin of grievous proportions which deserve an inquisition, burning at the stake and finally excommunication.  And the reason is obvious.  If everyone is getting off without procreating (having babies) the church and the community will die off.  Control the context of relationships, control the community.  Ask your Government.

Should we condemn FWB arrangements or celebrate them?  Well, ‘we’ must put our perspective into context.  If you have an FWB arrangement you may not want to be condemned or burst into celebration.  

What is at the core of the FWB arrangement is a kind of danger and excitement that has existed in humankind in all cultures on this planet.  We don’t want our feelings hurt, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

But we do want to be ‘satisfied’ we do want passion, pleasure and even pursuit but we don’t want baggage, judgment or shame.  Should society accept this kind of living between ‘friends’?  Even if society does not accept it, the FWB arrangement in its many forms will go on as it has gone on for at least 25 centuries.  The FWB arrangement will be as real and clandestine as smoking grass, snorting coke or drinking.

I close with a quote and a maxim.  Voltaire said, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.”  In this life, I took this saying to a maxim (a maxim is a life or discipline principal) due to having to make a choice to live or to kill off my family, then my friends.  So by this maxim based on Voltaire, I leave you with this thought in weighing the FWB arrangement on any scale you choose:

“I may not agree with how you choose to live; I may despise, even hate how you choose to live, but I will always as I have before, defend your right to live that way even in the face of death.”  

As Americans we have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as outlined in the Declaration of Independence. 

How you live this life, exercise this liberty and chase your happiness is totally up to you.  If you have ‘friends’ your already reaping the benefits.  If you have friends and live in America you have every reason to wake up with a grin.

However you choose to see the issue, you'll figure it out!

RJ