Friends With Benefits – What’s Up With That?

Are you familiar with a form of superficial sex or casual sex termed “friends with benefits”? It’s a new millennium term, but not necessarily a new concept. With this arrangement, the benefits are sex and the partners are friends. Romantic love is not part of the arrangement, and the parties may or may not be exclusive. A “friends with benefits” relationship is more than a one-night stand, as it typically involves people who began as friends and decided to add a sexual component to the relationship.

The emotions and commitment usually associated with being in love are not present, although the two parties may feel love for each other. The level of commitment these parties feel for each other varies, and the arrangement lasts only as long as both people desire it to last. The goal is not marriage or even a long-term relationship, but rather, the opportunity to have sex with someone each is comfortable with and at least likes. A “friends with benefits” arrangement is seen by many as a more acceptable way to have sex than simply having superficial sex with a near stranger.

Still, the intimacy of the experience is much more physical than it is emotional. As Rabbi Boteach, author of Kosher Sex, describes about a young woman who had had many partners, the sex was “pleasurable, but not warm or intimate.” This isn’t close to what could be experienced in a sexual relationship under different circumstances.

To me, superficial sex is like quarter beers in college. I remember how excited some people were when they had to pay only a quarter for a beer. Even during my college years, a quarter wasn’t much money. With superficial sex, it feels as if you’re getting more, when in reality, you’re getting less. It’s like having two hundred pennies rather than two fifty dollar bills. Thankfully most of us mature out of this quarter beer mindset and seek a more fulfilling, valuable experience from all of life, including sex.