Is friends with benefits a good idea?

What are you thoughts on “friends with benefits”? Good idea or not?

There is something about the phrase “friends with benefits” that just feels objectionable. Maybe it’s that a sexual relationship seems inherently different from a friendship, even if it doesn’t have emotional depth or monogamous obligation. Maybe it’s that it seems to describe not only a relationship, but an attitude—that the image of someone describing a situation as “friends with benefits” feels boastfully proud of avoiding emotional commitment.  Or maybe there’s just something about how it sounds.

But there’s nothing wrong with wanting a sexual relationship with limited commitment, as long as it’s something both people want. You should be careful though. You should make sure it’s clear what exactly your relationship is and what obligations you do have to each other, as sexual partners, but also as friends.

You should make sure you’re on the same page about how your relationship with each other affects and limits your relationships with others (like if you can have sex with someone else), what sort of things you’re expected to inform the other about (like if you had sex with someone else), and if there’s any expectation for the length of this arrangement (and if you’re supposed to give notice of it ending).

And you should make sure that that situation is what you actually want. Most of that is probably true of any relationship, but it seems particularly important to make expectations explicit in an arrangement where there’s less of a social norm to follow.

Recommendations: A book about the college culture of hooking up and a book about healthy polyamorous relationships.