Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Friends with benefits: women want "friends," men want "benefits"

2007; Project Innovation Austin; Volume: 41; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

2691-3887

Kristen McGinty, David Knox, Marty E. Zusman,

Attachment and Relationship Dynamics

One-hundred-and-seventy undergraduates at a large southeastern university completed a confidential anonymous 23 item questionnaire designed to assess the prevalence, attitudes, and sex differences of involvement in a with (FWB) relationship (non romantic friends who also have a sexual relationship). Almost sixty percent of both women and men reported current involvement in a FWB relationship. Women and men differed significantly in their conception of the FWB relationship. Women tended to view the relationship as more involved and emotional with the emphasis on friends while men tended to view the relationship as more casual with an emphasis on benefits (sexual). ********** A new trend is emerging in relational/sexual behavior. Friends with is a relationship consisting of non-romantic friends who also have a sexual relationship. Previous research on with (FWB) relationships has focused on the transition from romantic to platonic relationships (Schneider & Kenny, 2000), the perceived costs/benefits of opposite-sex friendships (Bleske & Buss, 2000), and the impact of sexual activity in cross-sex friendships. The current study assessed the prevalence, attitudes, and sex differences of college student involvement in a FWB relationship. Sample The sample consisted of 170 undergraduates at a large southeastern university who responded to an anonymous 23-item questionnaire designed to assess prevalence, attitudes and sex differences of involvement in a FWB relationship. Seventy-five percent of the respondents were female; twenty-five percent were male. The median age of the respondents was 20 with most (86.5%) reporting that they were white (13.5% nonwhite). The median GPA of the respondents was 3.0. On a political continuum they were about evenly split with 30.5% reporting that they were conservative, 30% liberal and 39.5% selecting neither. In regard to church attendance, 6.5% reported that they never attend, 29.6% answered seldom, 33.7% responded sometimes 23.7 often and 6.5% always. In terms of background characteristics associated with involvement in FWB relationships, persons from a large town were significantly (p Findings and Discussion Almost sixty percent of the respondents (57.3%) reported that they were or had been involved in a friends with benefits relationship (defined as a relationship consisting of non romantic friends who also have a sexual relationship). There were no significant differences in the percent of women and men reporting involvement in a FWB relationship. This is a unique finding. Most research on sex differences in sexual behavior find that women, when compared to men, have traditionally reported significantly lower rates of masturbatory, premarital, and extramarital sexual behavior (all lower rates) (Michael et al. 1994). However, the percentage of women and men in our sample were very similar in their reported rates of FWB involvement- 57.1% and 57.9% respectively. Is a new sexual equality in FWB operative? Continued analysis of the data revealed other significant differences between women and men respondents in regard to various aspects of the FWB relationship. …