But surely all friends bring benefits?

This is a thing that has been bugging me for a while, the often-used phrase "friends with benefits", which is used to discuss people who are not "dating" or in "a relationship", but who have sex with one another as an on-going thing.

I much prefer the term "fuck-buddies", because at least that gets to the nub of what's going on - we're buddies, and we fuck one another! However, the impression I get is that the two terms have different connotations, such that "fuck-buddies" are people who may be friends, but their primary mode of interaction is sexual; "friends with benefits" being friends who occasionally shag one another. That's not how I prefer to use the term fuck-buddies, but it's the impression I get from seeing it used elsewhere.

One thing that I find uncomfortable about the term "friends with benefits" is hinted at in that preference for the straight-forwardness of "fuck-buddies". Fuck-buddies is honest. "Friends with benefits" hides its true intentions behind this word, "benefits". And that is the point, it seems. So often when I have seen this phrase used (not every time, and I couldn't even swear that it's the majority of times, but enough for the association to be strongly formed in my mind), it has referred not to an ongoing, stable, situation, but to one person wanting to override the boundaries of the other. Friend 'A' thinks friend 'B' is sexually attractive and would be a good lay, so friend A introduces this phrase, "friends with benefits" as a means to open up friend B to the notion of fucking together. The phrase, and the usage that seems to be common, seems to function precisely as a way to circumvent proper negotiation of a shift in the relationship from a friendship to a sexual relationship. And, it speaks of "getting" something from the other. Needless to say, the vast majority of the aggressors in these depictions or usages that I have encountered, are male-identified persons, wanting to get sex from female-identified folks. I would find the phrase just as disturbing used in the opposite context. Even when it's not used in that way within the relationship, the tendency for outsiders to ask with a "knowing", lascivious wink (either literal or implied in the tone of voice), "Is that 'friends with benefits'?" implying "Phwoar! Have you found a way to persuade her to shag you yet?" tells me that the concept is filled with the patriarchal notion of sex as something women control and men want to get from them, by fair means or foul. Sometimes, "benefits" in this sense is explicitly made synonymous with "sexual rights" (as in "friend with benefits" means "I have 'privileges' this friend", meaning, "(I believe) I have the right to have sex with this friend if I want to.")

How much of this is mainstream media usage rather than r/l usage, I don't know - the phrase seems to be much more common in MSM than in my social circles (which, let's face it, aren't that big due to my introversion). So let's leave that discomfort to one side, and say that there is a role for a term that refers to friends who are comfortable with a stable relationship situation that allows them to get nekkid together and shag when the need and desire for them both to do so should arise, but whose friendship is not built upon this sexual element (that is, that the term "fuck-buddies" cannot be used for that sort of situation but only for friendships that are primarily about satisfying sexual urges).

Given those conditions - namely, a need for a term, and that the term does not refer to coercive or boundary-violating moves - I would still dislike the term "friends with benefits", and the astute reader will already have worked out why from the title of this post.

Any friendship, I believe, brings benefits into my life just through knowing and having a positive relationship with a person - a relationship that, on the whole, makes it worth my while spending time and energy on their company instead of sat here at home alone with only my keyboard and computer screen for company (and remember, from where I am, being an introvert, being alone with my computer is not that bad!)

Friends, in general, have benefits. Of course, I do not mean material benefits. I don't even mean in the sense of social benefits such as reputation, "cred", "connections" and the like (the sorts of things that sometimes get called 'social capital"). I mean the emotional benefits and social benefits that come from sharing good times, and from supporting people through bad times. There is a definite extra boost from doing something to help another, if you know that person and can see the ongoing effects of that good deed, over and above the knowledge of having done good that you get from donating to charity so that some stranger in a far off foreign land will maybe live a happier and longer life (even though often, arguably, that help is more effective than the help given to a friend). With a true friend, there is also the material benefit of knowing that they will help you out in the same way - not as a quid pro quo, but for the same positive feeling of accomplishment and fellowship that you feel when you help them. Friends laugh together, or make each other laugh, they share stories, offer advice to each other, share the good times, commiserate and cuddle during the bad times, help one another out, celebrate each other's successes and feel a warm glow from witnessing them, and so on.

The benefits of being friends, therefore, are immense and hugely satisfying. More satisfying, at least in my opinion, than a good shagging every so often (however much that may satisfy the biological urges - "scratch an itch", as the saying goes).

So how come the only "benefits" that are worth mentioning, or making special mention of, are sexual favours? Why is the rest of it considered not to be benefits of friendship, such that the only friends who come with benefits are the ones who'll let you fuck them? Do you think that it is too literal-minded of me to suggest that "friends with benefits" means that all other friends are "friends without benefits"?

I wouldn't be super-pleased with the phrase "friends with bonuses" or "friends with add-ons", because that still portrays sex as primarily a commodity to be traded, and when it isn't traded, it's a gift rather than a shared experience (sure, I have no problem with people who choose to sell sexual services, but I'm not comfortable with that as a model for all sexuality!) However, those terms would at least be closer to expressing that, in modern society, friendships are viewed as non-sexual, so there is something "extra" added to the relationship if sex is involved.

I like fuck-buddies because it is stated clearly in relationship-terms only: "fuck" = "the relationship involves sex" and "buddies" = "the relationship is based on friendship rather than romantic love". None of this farting about with ambiguous terms that could mean anything ("friends with benefits" could even mean "someone I know who's on welfare/JSA/income support/etc", and the suggestions I made above also don't tell you what is really being added on, or what the "bonuses" are - again, that could be a mate who received an extra pay-out from work for a holiday or a job well done!) Hey, if you need a "clean" term that won't offend the broadcast censors, the Simpsons gets by having Marge and Homer going upstairs for "snuggles", so why not "snuggle-buddies", "snuggle-mates" or similar?