Good sense of humor? Check. Good conversationalist? Check. Good in bed? If so, your old friend might just be your new friend with benefits.
A recent Michigan State University survey investigated the prevalence of "friends-with-benefits" relationships among college students. The term refers to friends who have sex or engage in sexual activity, but are not in a romantic relationship - at least not in the traditional sense.
The survey found that such relationships were surprisingly popular: 60 percent of individuals polled reported having been in a friends-with-benefits situation.
But it also raised a number of potential concerns about how sexual activity can affect a friendship. Participants said that sex can complicate a friendship by "bringing forth unreciprocated desires for romantic commitment," according to the study's abstract, and that friends-with-benefits relationships can be "problematic for the same reasons they are attractive."
At Tufts, students varied widely in their opinions of how common friends-with-benefits relationships are on campus.
"It's really common," freshman Roxie Salamon-Abrams said. "I have more friends that are in relationships like that than in real relationships."
Junior Warren W., on the other hand, said that he sees fewer friends-with-benefits situations as he gets older.
"It serves as a forum for experimentation when you're first learning about your sexuality as a teenager," he said in an e-mail to the Daily. "Now, as an upperclassman, I have many friends in serious relationships and none in friends-with-benefits situations."
Many Tufts students viewed friends with benefits as a compromise between "hooking up" and dating.
"Friends-with-benefits situations usually begin with two friends who are attracted to each other but are not willing to be exclusively committed," freshman Arissa Young said in an e-mail to the Daily. "People can 'hook up' with people they know and care about without locking themselves in a relationship."
Warren W. said that friends with benefits don't hook up every time they hang out.
"That would remove the 'friends' part from the 'friends-with-benefits,'" he said. "You call when you want to 'hang out,' but you also do typical friend things, like getting lunch together, drinking - whatever you'd do with a friend."
Senior Alejandro Pinero, who co-teaches an Ex-College freshman seminar about college relationships, said lack of time is one motivation for entering friends-with-benefits relationships.
"Students today are expected to achieve a lot, and that doesn't leave enough time to have a relationship, so people opt out of them," he said.
Pinero's co-teacher and senior Rachel O'Donnell added that many men in the class said they didn't want the financial responsibilities of dating.
By contrast to dating, many students described the friends-with-benefits situation as easy.
"It's something that is convenient for both people," Salamon-Abrams said. "You don't have to go out of your way to fulfill your needs."
Salamon-Abrams described friends-with-benefits as a way to boost confidence.
"A lot of people are really insecure about themselves," Salamon-Abrams said. "Being in a friends-with-benefits relationship makes you feel like someone wants to be around you without being in a real relationship."
According to O'Donnell, social groups often fuel the decision to choose friends-with-benefits over other options.
"Often within big groups of friends, it's not acceptable to be dating," she said. "People think they will be seen as being 'married' or 'joined at the hip,' and they don't want to be labeled. Being friends with benefits is acceptable."
Junior Steven Elsesser said simply the dialogue about friends with benefits unduly "legitimizes" monogamous relationships.
"Although monogamy may certainly be the majority's gold standard in relationships, I feel it is important to note that it is not everyone's," he said. "Some people feel very strongly against monogamy."
Tufts Violence Prevention Programming Coordinator Elaine Theodore said that she approves of the concept of friends with benefits.
"I like the fact that it sounds like people have the grounding of a friendship before, during and after sexuality is in the mix," she said. "If exploration and sexual expression could be in the context of a friendship, it sounds like friends-with-benefits situations meet people's needs for a time period."
But Young said that, while having a friend to "come back to night after night" sounds like an attractive idea, it is one that she finds unnatural.
"You're hooking up with someone you care about as a friend and a person. How is it natural to prevent feelings from arising?" she said.
Participants in the Michigan State survey mirrored Young's concern that friends-with-benefits relationships can - and in some cases inevitably will - lead to romantic attachment and a desire for commitment. Ironically, respondents also said such relationships are only appealing because they incorporate trust and comfort while avoiding romantic commitment.
While the survey showed that people in friends-with-benefits relationships "often avoided explicit relational negotiation," according to the study's abstract, Theodore said that friendship implies communication.
"If someone says that they're a friend with benefits and they're not talking about [their relationship], I would question the 'friends' part of it."
Associate Professor of Philosophy Nancy Bauer, who works on issues relating to women and sexuality, also found friends-with-benefits situations to have complications.
"In theory, friends with benefits makes a whole lot of sense," she said. "But in practice, according to the girls I've talked with, it can often be a lopsided situation, because one person feels more strongly than the other."
Salamon-Abrams agreed that it's not always easy to stay emotionally unattached.
"Everybody kind of wants the other person to be like, 'This is what I want from you,'" she said. "If you become too invested, then it skews the relationship."
Some students said that friends-with-benefits relationships can be difficult situations, because there is no way to "break up" and no "relationship" to discuss.
"After a while, you get sick of hooking up to no end, and you want it to go somewhere, to mean something more," Warren W. said. "That's why friends-with-benefits situations don't usually stay that way for long. Either they end or evolve into a full-blown relationship."
Bauer said most students tell her that they do not intend to "hook up" or participate in friends-with-benefits relationships all their lives.
"They say that eventually they'll settle down with someone," she said. "And I think to myself, 'When is this switch going to happen? When will it suddenly get easier? When will you have more time?'"
Hook-up culture has received much recent media attention, such as a New York Times article concerning the Michigan State study. O'Donnell said that the uproar about friends-with-benefits phenomena is due to over-hyped media and can give inaccurate impressions about college students' lives.
"The studies give the impression that we've forgotten what love is," she said. "But if you talk to students, they're not actually confused about what a marriage is, what love is."
"Just because people choose to hook up or have a friends-with-benefits relationship doesn't mean that they're confused," O'Donnell added. "They understand what love is, but this is the relationship that they're choosing. It's not going to last. People are not going to hook up into their 80s."
"Although that would be fun," Pinero said.
--
This article has been edited since the original version was posted online. A student's name has been altered to protect his/her privacy.
