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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

956 replies

brasty · 22/11/2017 17:46

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".

OP posts:
Redglitter · 27/11/2017 16:09

A look at the Relationship board just now shows threads about emotional abuse, husband's having affairs, sexting, suspicions of affairs - the list goes on. Yes being married is definitely a guarantee of happiness and doesn't devalue Hmm sex

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 16:09

Sorry should say men and women clearly

JacquesHammer · 27/11/2017 16:11

A lot of women go into a FWB situation hoping it will become more

And for people who feel like that, FWB isn't the right choice

Redglitter · 27/11/2017 16:11

*A lot of women go into a FWB situation hoping it will become more.

Men often feel it buys them a license to treat the other person like crap*

And a lot dont 🙄

Yet again what is so hard to understand about a FWB being a mutually satisfying arrangement

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 16:17

It works if the sex is average I'd say. Men and women do have different physiological responses to sex though and that's a fact. Personality types differ make some difference but it's generally a disadvantageous situation for the woman unless the guy is a really good friend who you know cares for you.

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 16:19

I have also noticed from personal experience that the men I've slept with expected me to behave like a porn star becAuse it was sex and I felt pressure to give a performance. Especially true of men in their 20s.

Redglitter · 27/11/2017 16:21

The sex is far from average 😉

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 16:22

The better the sex the more likely you are to get attached. But who really wants average sex?

JacquesHammer · 27/11/2017 16:22

It works if the sex is average I'd say

So FWB wasn't for you then.

The sex is far, far from average. If it was why bother?!

JacquesHammer · 27/11/2017 16:23

The better the sex the more likely you are to get attached

Are we stuttering??

The better the sex the more likely YOU are to get attached. You can't extrapolate that to all women

Redglitter · 27/11/2017 16:26

I've been having well above average sex in a FWB arrangement for 5 years now. No more attached now than I was at the start

You cannot generalise

Coconutspongexo · 27/11/2017 16:26

People are really struggling to realise not every woman forms an attachment as easy as they do.

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 16:34

But I can generalise because men and women do have different responses to sex generally which they cannot control. I don't think FWB is tacky though.

The main problem is that increasingly people are treated like they have no right to expect a relationship at all because there's this culture of using people.

I actually can have sex without getting attached. I have a casual partner at the moment which works fine because he's a decent person. But in the past I've had my fair share of weirdos who want to control / abuse me.

It's disingenuous to say that it's without problems or that women don't stand to lose the most from it generally

ConcreteUnderpants · 27/11/2017 16:38

Oh my days.
Some of the responses on here are staggering. I feel like I've been transported back to the 1950's.
Women cannot be confident, known what they want and be sexual outside of marriage, if they do, they devalue themselves.
Women are so pathetic and emotionally needy, if they do manage to seek out a fuckbuddy, they must prepare for constant anal sex and a hormonal desire to make him their husband.

Everybody got it?

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 16:41

It's nothing to do with value at all. It's to do with power imbalance.

surferjet · 27/11/2017 16:43

This is the great thing about MN & discussions like this, it really opens your eyes to how other people live & makes you think & challenge what you always thought of as ‘normal’ ( whatever normal is )

JacquesHammer · 27/11/2017 16:46

But in the past I've had my fair share of weirdos who want to control / abuse me

Which appears to be colouring your view

Mivery · 27/11/2017 16:58

I think YABU. I don't understand why people concern themselves with what others do. I could never see myself doing something like this, but I also don't see how two consenting adults having a casual relationship is "tacky."

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 17:08

How do you adequately screen someone you're not in a relationship Jaques?

lottieandmia22 · 27/11/2017 17:09

The reason it colours my view is that there are a lot of predatory men out there. It's how it is. Especially on dating sites. I wouldn't want my daughters to go through some of the things I have.

ReanimatedSGB · 27/11/2017 17:13

Actually, FWB are good for women. Just like staying single altogether is good for women.
The reason there is all this whining and fingerwagging about women who want to fuck men and move on is the same reason that women are always being told they need to seek 'commitment'... it's because women's freedom and autonomy are bad for men.

The great joy of casual sex for women is that it means not having to clean up after a man, or stroke his ego, or be in a position where you have to remember his mum's birthday. All the propaganda about women's need for relationships is actually a way of ensuring that women will carry on willingly servicing men, domestically and emotionally as well as sexually.

If you don't want kids, or are past the age of getting PG, casual sex is ideal. If you don't want to get PG at the moment, it makes no difference whether you are having casual sex or marital sex - you might have a contraception failure, but you do have the option of terminating an unwanted pregnancy should it be necessary.

Redglitter · 27/11/2017 17:14

There are predatory men out there whether you're looking for a FWB or a partner. There's predatory men out there if you're meeting someone online or in a pub

How do you screen someone you're planning a relationship with?

A lot of FWB are people who've known each other a long time.

JacquesHammer · 27/11/2017 17:16

@lottieandmia he's a friend. I have known him for years.

It's far, FAR safer than ONS or dating sites/tinder

Coconutspongexo · 27/11/2017 17:19

People marry predatory men..

shortaris1 · 27/11/2017 17:20

Some really vile opinions on this thread!

I like sex. I don't want a live in man. I don't want kids. I have a FWB who I've seen for over 2 years. Its great and he's lovely but if he asked tomorrow if it could be something more I'd say no because I like my life as it is and have no desire to change it.

How many times do we have to say this for some posters to get it?!

I think it boils down to some posters genuinely not understanding that not all women want to be in a relationship. But the same as FWB is not for everyone, commitment is not for everyone. Surely that's not so hard to understand?

I have lots of love in my life, just not from the man I have sex with. And I like it that way.

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