web_tb_hillcrest_genl_5.15.13

Friends in Low Places

Friends with benefits is a road to destruction

by Published: Feb 13, 2013

You really like some­one. Then you date them. Now you’re in love. Then you’re madly in love. You get attached. Then you break up. So what’s the next log­i­cal thing to do? Obviously keep sleep­ing with them.

Most of us know this as friends with ben­e­fits, hereon referred to as FWB. With Valentine’s Day around the cor­ner, peo­ple will be look­ing for love—or lust—in all the wrong places.

Granted, I know the col­lege scene is all about hook-ups. You go to a party, meet a hand­some guy and say “why not.” Though I’m not a pro­po­nent of this cul­ture either, that’s not what I’m talk­ing about.

I’m talk­ing about peo­ple who have a con­tin­ual pat­tern of hooking-up with a mem­ber of the oppo­site sex strictly as friends, with no “emo­tional” involve­ment or com­mit­ment attached. Especially when they have dated them already and are now bro­ken up, sup­pos­edly for good. Sounds great, right? Free from the stress of main­tain­ing a rela­tion­ship but reap­ing all the ben­e­fits of a sex life? Here’s the hold up.

There is bound to be attach­ment. Here’s why: It’s a lit­tle thing called human phys­i­ol­ogy. When you have sex, your pitu­itary gland releases a hor­mone called oxy­tocin. This is the same hor­mone that stim­u­lates labor con­trac­tions. It also stim­u­lates lac­ta­tion and helps in mater­nal infant bonding.

But back to you and your friend. When you have sex, oxy­tocin works like a type of invis­i­ble emo­tional super glue. Your inten­tions were never to get attached. Well, that’s good and fine, but your inten­tions don’t mat­ter when your emo­tions and hor­mones say “hit the road.” And the men out there who say this won’t hap­pen to them? Yes, by the stereo­type men are more about sex and women are more about emo­tion and women get so attached and so on and so forth. But you’re not immune from the pow­er­ful hold of oxy­tocin either, boys.

Specifically in regard to the FWB prac­ti­tion­ers who have just bro­ken up from a rela­tion­ship with each other, just don’t do it. There are already prob­a­bly a lot of feel­ings there no mat­ter how much you con­vince your­self and oth­ers you don’t care anymore.

I don’t believe it’s pos­si­ble to be devoid of all emo­tion for some­one sim­ply because you for­mally end things. Being sex­u­ally involved is just putting you on the road to fur­ther heart­break, con­fu­sion and the pos­si­bil­ity that you could lose any chance of a pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship together—friendly or romantic.

So save your­self the trou­ble, ladies and gents. Don’t fool your­self into think­ing sleep­ing with the same per­son over and over with “no strings attached” is a ticket to end­less, uncom­pli­cated plea­sure. Don’t give your­self the stress.

If oxytocin’s power in caus­ing emo­tional com­pro­mise isn’t enough to deter you from FWB, maybe its power to induce labor con­trac­tions in deliv­ery of your FWB baby will do the trick.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marshall/1393515108 Chris Marshall

    There are so many things wrong with this arti­cle that need fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion and research on your part Rachel. First off while not all peo­ple can engage in what you call “emo­tion­less sex” some do. However friends with ben­e­fits is any­thing but “emo­tion­less sex.” While you are cor­rect in your asser­tion that sex is the “super glue” between peo­ple, it also binds us inti­mately with those we care about, that includes friend that we as peo­ple may sleep with. The prob­lem is peo­ple have such an empha­sis that sex is for cou­ples, peo­ple in love, mar­ried, etc. However, like any­thing this is only partly true. Sex is a release for any ani­mal. It is some­thing ani­mals need. When done with friends it brings us closer to those we care about and if that party can shake the taboos and “amer­i­can think­ing” on sex, it can be an expe­ri­ence that is quite reward­ing. As pri­mates it is per­fectly within our nature to have sex with friends with­out form­ing a roman­tic attrac­tion towards them. And from a stand­point of “hook­ing up” or “cruis­ing” it is far safer to have inter­course with a per­son you know, trust, and have love for, than a com­plete stranger. The rewards are far higher and it binds peo­ple together.

    After know­ing, and study­ing both friends with ben­e­fits, and human/primate sex­u­al­ity for over two years now, the evi­dence does not sup­port your argu­ment. Friends with ben­e­fits does not lead to destruc­tion. The only times it leads to hurt­ing a friend­ship is when we allow the most neg­a­tive aspects of soci­eties taboo on sex take con­trol on our minds.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marshall/1393515108 Chris Marshall

    There are so many things wrong with this arti­cle that need fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion and research on your part Rachel. First off while not all peo­ple can engage in what you call “emo­tion­less sex” some do. However friends with ben­e­fits is any­thing but “emo­tion­less sex.” While you are cor­rect in your asser­tion that sex is the “super glue” between peo­ple, it also binds us inti­mately with those we care about, that includes friend that we as peo­ple may sleep with. The prob­lem is peo­ple have such an empha­sis that sex is for cou­ples, peo­ple in love, mar­ried, etc. However, like any­thing this is only partly true. Sex is a release for any ani­mal. It is some­thing ani­mals need. When done with friends it brings us closer to those we care about and if that party can shake the taboos and “amer­i­can think­ing” on sex, it can be an expe­ri­ence that is quite reward­ing. As pri­mates it is per­fectly within our nature to have sex with friends with­out form­ing a roman­tic attrac­tion towards them. And from a stand­point of “hook­ing up” or “cruis­ing” it is far safer to have inter­course with a per­son you know, trust, and have love for, than a com­plete stranger. The rewards are far higher and it binds peo­ple together.

    After know­ing, and study­ing both friends with ben­e­fits, and human/primate sex­u­al­ity for over two years now, the evi­dence does not sup­port your argu­ment. Friends with ben­e­fits does not lead to destruc­tion. The only times it leads to hurt­ing a friend­ship is when we allow the most neg­a­tive aspects of soci­eties taboo on sex take con­trol on our minds.

    • Rachel Szucs

      Chris, you make very inter­est­ing points. Are you a Ferris stu­dent? What is your major?

      The dif­fer­ence is I don’t see peo­ple as pri­mates, and much of my views and opin­ions come from my spir­i­tual beliefs as well. Since this is an opin­ion, I am free to incor­po­rate those beliefs into my work. But in this case, the bio­chem­istry I dis­cussed in the role of oxy­tocin is sim­ply sci­ence. Is every sin­gle friends with ben­e­fits pair doomed to eter­nal emo­tional com­pro­mise and pain? No. And I don’t believe that I implied that. I am sim­ply speak­ing gen­er­ally from the stand­point of a woman who believes that sex is best for com­mit­ted cou­ples in love, specif­i­cally in mar­riage because of my beliefs. And I am well aware that this goes VERY against the grain of our mod­ern sec­u­lar soci­ety. I am most likely a minor­ity in my think­ing in this area on this cam­pus as well. Do I con­demn oth­ers for engag­ing in sex­ual activ­i­ties with who­ever, when­ever, under what­ever cir­cum­stances? Of course not. We all must choose what is right for our own indi­vid­u­als lives and live as we see allows us to flour­ish and grow as a human being. You are right in that we are human and that the sex is some­thing engrained in our genes and being and needs. I’m sim­ply stat­ing my belief from the proven chem­istry of oxy­tocin and my per­sonal expe­ri­ences and knowl­edge of the emo­tional dis­tress between friend­ships that friends with ben­e­fits CAN have, not that it will ALWAYS have. Thank you for your com­ments. As I said to the com­ment above, I truly do appre­ci­ate the dis­cus­sion and wel­come it. Thank you for reading!!!

  • Ariel

    Friends with Benefits doesn’t have to be strictly inter­course. It can be any kind of sex­ual with a per­son, so the whole oxy­tocin through sex is not all encom­pass­ing. Not to men­tion, oxytocin’s effect only lasts about two hours, so it doesn’t “super glue” you to the per­son. Not to men­tion, the sex neg­a­tive “you’ll get preg­nant”. You assume too much. Like that the two peo­ple engaged in the sex are not using con­tra­cep­tives. Friends with Benefits can be reward­ing in some cases. While there are plenty of cases where attrac­tion does hap­pen and some­one ends up feel­ing more than the other per­son, it’s not your place to define “the right way” for other peo­ple to be sexual.

    • Rachel Szucs

      Everyone has dif­fer­ent opin­ions on friends with ben­e­fits, and I don’t mean to say that its uni­ver­sally wrong. To each his own of course, and my opin­ions are never to con­demn any­one. They are sim­ply my opin­ion on the mat­ter and the way I view a cer­tain topic. As to the preg­nancy com­ment, I was cer­tainly not imply­ing that peo­ple are not hav­ing respon­si­ble, pro­tected sex. Just mak­ing a joke more than any­thing by using the mul­ti­ple roles of oxy­tocin. Thank you for your com­ments and read­er­ship. It’s nice to have feed­back on my arti­cles; I don’t get it a lot because my top­ics are usu­ally fairly non-controversial, so it’s nice to have dis­cus­sion and hear oth­ers views!

    • Rachel Szucs

      Also if you’d like to do some more read­ing about oxy­tocin there are plenty of stud­ies out there! There are tons on pubmed; set the fil­ter for meta-analysis, sys­temic review, and ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­als as those are the high­est lev­els of evi­dence. Here’s one…
      Oxytocin and social affil­i­a­tion in humans by Ruth Feldman
      It dis­cusses the pro­longed role of oxy­tocin in cou­ples engag­ing sex­ual activ­ity for months; not sim­ply for two hours; though you are cor­rect in stat­ing that it peaks dur­ing actual peri­ods of sex­ual activity.