AIBU to think Friends With Benefits, is a bit tacky?

[brasty]

Maybe I am? But this seems to be much more common amongst young people. It all just makes me feel a bit "disgusted of Tunbridge Wells".

Omg I'd love to have a FB...noone will have me though..(for now)
Imo it's more open and 'out there' than my marriage ever was.. It's the only LTR I've had, and it was sexless.

Frustrated and frustrating...

Noones business providing grown up behaviour is adhered to imo

Another desperate, deluded cock lover here

@GameOldBirdz

Why would anyone be jealous of someone being used for sex, by someone that doesn't want a relationship with them

😂😂😂😂

I guess my 'FWB' must be feeling very used too.

I can't understand why people cannot get it into their fucking heads that these arrangements are mutual. No-one is using anyone

I can't understand why people cannot get it into their fucking heads that these arrangements are mutual. No-one is using anyone

Exactly. If anything the married women are being used more than we are.

We give up nothing. We owe the fwb nothing and vice versa.

How many married women complain on here that their DP / DH does nothing with the kids and no house work. There is massive thread about a woman wanting to divorce her husband for machine washing her hand wash knickers.

Women give up careers, earning capacity and from the number of threads I see on here it is to men that use them like domestic slaves. They can end up in the position they cant afford to leave the useless man or if they have more money than him having to give him half of everything they bought.

But let me get this straight, those in a non committed relationship are being used?!

Right.

Women give up careers, earning capacity and from the number of threads I see on here it is to men that use them like domestic slaves.

They can end up in the position they cant afford to leave the useless man or if they have more money than him having to give him half of everything they bought.

But let me get this straight, those in a non committed relationship are being used?! grin

Right.

I couldn't have put it any better

The thing is, it's really very simple. Don't want a FWB, then don't have one.

But don't clutch your pearls and pat yourselves on the back for being so morally superior.

It just makes you look foolish

I had some wonderful times with FWB situations in my brilliant 30s before meeting my now husband.

And I don’t mean sexually, I mean really heartfelt connected-ness with really great guys. I just didn’t want them as a committed relationship and visa versa.

As others say it has to be on absolute mutual terms and there’s no point doing it if you actually want them as a boyfriend and hoping this will make it so, nor is it kind if you think they have more feelings for you.

I don’t think the set ups would have worked for me in my twenties but being a little older and wiser it was great.

I just wanted to chip in to say FWB doesn’t have to be all meaningless or ‘cold’.

Meh, I had one when I was 21 for about a year. I like sex. I don't like sex with strangers.

My friend was very attractive, we were in no way compatible for a relationship. Worked well for us.

He asked to stop when he started dating someone. I completely and respectfully agreed. We still have friends in the same circle so see each other every no and then and it's absolutely fine.

Why all the judgemental shit? What someone else does with their genitals is fuck all to do with me (as long as it’s consensual adults obviously). I wouldn’t judge any of my friends for having a FWB thing, in fact I actively encouraged it with my friend who seems to have the shittest taste in men for relationships of anyone I’ve ever met! She fancied a jump with a friend of hers in a FWB thing and was worrying. I told her to go and have fun!

'Some of us just enjoy cock sounds' pretty pathetic actually. And a bit desperate.

Heaven forfend women actually enjoy sex (that presumably isn't lights on, missionary position, trying to conceive a child sex).

What is pathetic, Jilly, is your constant judgement of what grown up, consenting adults do in the bedroom. Other people's genitalia are not your business, so give it a rest already.

I know people it works really well for. And for it to work, they need to be the reverse of desperate, because they need to be happy with the rest of their lives. They need not to want the disruption and compromise of a relationship at that stage, but to enjoy the physical side of sex, and to want it without it in an emotional context that's making massive demands on them. And mostly, they have kids, and don't want to inflict the potential stress of a step-parent and/or step-sibling(s) on them while they're kids. But they enjoy sex, and enjoy it with someone they happen to like and trust.

I don't think any form of consensual sex is tacky, and I think that comes from the traditional perspective that women had to lodge their worth as a person on how wary they were of allowing access to their vaginas, and that if they weren't suitably reluctant, they were themselves tacky, or worse. But true casual sex is a total gamble, because mostly, sex with someone you don't know well is a bit crap; they don't know what you like and vice versa. Good sex, in my experience, always took time.

I think needy sex, or exploitative sex, is sad and disgusting respectively. But a true FWB arrangement is neither of those things, is it?

I mean, I've been with my husband almost 20 years now, and we're monogamous. But that doesn't mean everyone else should be. I just don't understand the need to append value judgements to what other people choose to do sexually. With a FWB nobody is faking commitment while running around shagging behind backs.

I do agree that it's dangerous, though, because so often feelings will develop and someone will get hurt. It only seems to work when neither party wants that, and that, as I say, seems to work best when the woman is a single parent. Or maybe it's just that those are the two cases I know of where it has? Anecdote not being data, and all that, it could just be that the people I know tend to be at similar life stages with kids.

Meh. Life is painful, and chances at happiness should be taken when found. All relationships hurt us at some stage, even if it's ended by widowhood. Whatever gives people some joy is a good thing, no?

@sleeponeday what a lovely post

JacquesHammer

The thing is, it's really very simple. Don't want a FWB, then don't have one.

But don't clutch your pearls and pat yourselves on the back for being so morally superior.

It just makes you look foolish

Foolish?!?! How pray?

Foolish?!?! How pray?

How does judging people as morally inferior due to their legal, and consensual, sex life make you look foolish?

If you really can't work that out...

What I have taken away from this thread is that people have very different ideas of what FwB looks like. For some it is more like a relationship where the two parties are friends, connect on an emotional/intellectual level, have a laugh, spend time together outside the bedroom. For others it is more of a fuck buddy arrangement, sex only. I can see why it can work if people can maintain strong boundaries and not let themselves get attached.

I still think it will not be for me, but as the pp said, if it makes other people happy and adds value to their lives, surely it is a good thing?

FWB is shagging someone who does not like you enough for a proper relationship. That is a killer as far as I am concerned.

Even if you don't want a relationship with them either?

FWB is shagging someone who does not like you enough for a proper relationship. That is a killer as far as I am concerned

no. As has been repeatedly explained FWB is an arrangement between two people who are attracted to each other, don't want a relationship but want sex.

Why the idea that it's all created by one party whilst the other mopes and pines?!

'Some of us just enjoy cock sounds' pretty pathetic actually. And a bit desperate.
Why is it pathetic or desperate to enjoy sex without wanting a relationship?
No-one is being used if both people are clear up front about what they want. That's more honest than a lot of people on dating sites.

Having had a FWB over a few years in my twenties, I can only report a positive experience. Obviously it can be one-sided, but in our case we knew a full-on romantic relationship wouldn't work for us, but we had (still have) a great emotional connection, have fun together, get on really well, and sometimes had a bit more fun because we found each other attractive. It only happened when we were both single.

It’s not tacky if you both understand it’s mates having consensual sex without dating
Can’t see the problem

I think it is a tacky term to use. It's not a relationship status that you should ever be introducing someone as.

It's not my business what goes on in other people's bedrooms but stick to calling each other friends and leave others to make their own inferences about the benefits part.

Even among friends who discuss these things, a title for it is never necessary. "I stayed the night at Johns" sounds better than "John is my new FWB".

No doubt all the good wives will rise up,protesting singletons can’t have sex without dating
Citing that a man loved them enough to properly date and get hitched
Essentially it notion of improprietary that folk find sex without a dating agenda incomprehensible

FWB definitely tacky. Basically sex without financial payment. Some folk know the people who do provide services for money very well but only on that basis. Are they too friends with benefits?