MSU study examines fallout from friendly sex
60% surveyed said they've had a 'friend with benefits'
By MatthewMiller
LansingState Journal, 1/1/08
As relationships that involve sex go, it's supposed to be one of the simpler ones, offering intimacy without commitment, fun without the risks of romance and all in the (close) company of someone you trust.
But so-called friends with benefits relationships, essentially friendships broadened to include physical intimacy, have their own complications and complexities, according to a study by researchers at MichiganStateUniversity.
And chief among them is the fear that one partner will develop romantic feelings that aren't reciprocated, and that the sexual relationship will go down in flames, taking the friendship with it.
"There is a struggle in these relationships" said Melissa Bisson, a former MSU graduate student who conducted the study with communications Professor Timothy Levine, in an e-mail, "and it becomes evident that this relationship is not 'foolproof' regarding attachment and commitment."
That's been Jenny Carlson's experience. The 22-year-old student at LansingCommunity College has had a few friends with benefits relationships.
In some cases, she wanted them to be something more. In others, she found herself fending off a partner's push for commitment. She's sworn off such relationships now, saying they've "just never really been healthy."
"Everyone is always on different levels," she said. "Someone is going to like someone more. There's going to be jealousy. In the end, someone always gets hurt."
Or someone gets hurt often enough, at least.
The MSU study was the first to explore how these relationships play out. Bisson got the idea after watching an episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry and Elaine discuss adding sex to their friendship, and Bisson soon discovered researchers hadn't much explored the phenomenon.
"At that point, I knew I wanted to," Bisson said. She and Levine surveyed 125 MSU students.
Among those who'd had friends with benefits relationships - and 60 percent reported having at least one - about a quarter said they'd had one end badly.
More than a third had stayed friends with a partner but stopped having sex. A smaller number, about 10 percent, had a relationship that morphed into something more romantic. More than 28 percent still were involved in a friends with benefits relationship. (Because some students had more than one such relationship, the numbers add to more than 100 percent.)
Unequal expectations
The fear of unequal expectations, of one partner falling harder than the other, points to a contradiction in these relationships, the study said.
People enter into them because "they are a way to have sex without commitment, while at the same time having the comfort and security of being with somebody you know," Levine said.
But keeping things casual often means undermining the trust that made the relationship attractive in the first place, turning the nature of the relationship, what it means and where it's going into a subject both partners are afraid to discuss.
"They might be scared that they will scare the other person away or maybe they don't want to get too serious and they don't want to hurt the other person's feelings or they don't know where the other person is coming from," he said, "and the solution to that is to not talk about it."
Indeed, as Bisson pointed out, the act of talking about friends with benefits relationships can make them seem less casual and erode what made them attractive in the first place.
"If this relationship is supposed to be a fun thing and nothing more, deliberating over rules might take the fun out of it," she said. "Also, if sexual activity and rules are discussed, that could make the relationship 'real,' which may not be what the friends are searching for."
Mark Miller is a 21-year-old MSU senior who has had three friends with benefits relationships, the last of which took a more committed turn. Still, he said, such arrangements can lose their luster when partners start trying to define them.
"You just want to go out and have fun and not stress over that kind of stuff," he said. "You still have to talk about your emotions and things like that, but you don't want to label it."
Though, in that regard, Levine said, college students who are in ostensibly committed relationships aren't so different from those who spend the occasional evening (or drunken early morning, as the case may be) wrapped around someone they call a friend.
"In college dating relationships, the No. 1 topic people avoid is where the relationship is going," he said.
'Just friends'
The study also points to the fact that these relationships occupy a very mainstream, very ordinary place in the social universe of college campuses.
Not only are they common, but students generally have a positive attitude toward them.
Nearly 62 percent of those surveyed said they believed people could be "just friends" after having sex. That number was much higher, 81 percent, for those who'd had friends with benefits relationships and much lower, about 33 percent, for those who hadn't.
"I think most people are open minded at college," Miller said.
Levine acknowledged that there are some, both college students and their elders, who might have "a moral problem" with such casual sexual relationships.
"I probably have some sympathy with that view," he said, "but it doesn't change the nature of reality at all."