No Strings Attached & Friends With Benefits

I wanted to touch on this topic, I might have written a post a while back, but since these movies have hit the scene, it’s interesting to see a myriad of articles, polls or studies related to this topic since the movies.

The thing is that looking through all the online hype that has been sparked since the movies releases, it was interesting to see that 1 in 3 College students part take in this activity and the most shocking was reading that 1 in 5 Adults over 30 also part take in this activity – OMG. So, my thing is, we all know that the Media fuels any new trends fads or well economic issues, among many other things, but do movies also fuel things that people would not normally do. Or is it that maybe the movies sort of break the ice of what people are really doing?

Think about it, there has been statistics indicating that Vegas had seen a drop in marriages, marriage license requests through many counties has also dropped. Divorced couples are living together, due to the economic hardship we are all seeing. Now wait also, wedding planners and Wedding Expo planners have seeing a drop in people attending the expos, so what does this mean…getting married seems to cost more than being single and having a full blown relationship is now a thing of the past and if any contact with the opposite sex means getting it on with your best friend…wow…so are we starting to see a change in a trend towards a more relaxed society. I don’t know…I only read like many of you do, articles here and there, news, polls…I look all around since the internet has become a land of information on every topic you can possibly think of it seems that we are seeing more and more people coming out of the closet, in many areas of their personal life and heck social lives.

It’s not common anymore for people to state anything about their lives their sexual preference, their ideas or beliefs on the many thousands of topics…people now have the ability to layout their entire daily routine and lives ripe for the reading in front of thousands, heck millions of people all over the world. With social networks, popping up everywhere and not to mention all the dating sites that people can join, whether huge or community…I think people will eventually forget how to communicate. Now, wait…heck text messaging has become the new form of asking your significant other to bring home a gallon of milk…people can no longer pick up the phone and simply talk…I mean I actually heard someone state that why would I call someone when I can text them…and then the same person gets upset because one or two of the people they know cannot receive texts or send…wow.

So sorry about the whole blabbering…so the thing with Friends with Benefits….I was trying to say is that with all the social networks and dating sites out there and not to forget to mention the economic downturn…I think this whole Friends with Benefits, concept, idea…or whatever you would like to call it…has really being around for a long time its only now that people know about it and Movies are being of it…So, my questions is…is this Friends with Benefits ok…I don’t think that folks over Thirty would really be more into it…I think it is more directed towards College students…but like I said I did see some articles and polls about 30 and over being more into this fad…but why…is it because maybe they are still trying to build their career or s it because the majority of the 30 and over folk have already had their children and they are grown up and so getting involved in a relationship now is to much work so…finding someone to simply hangout with and well you know do the deed.

Who knows, but as much as it sounds like someone norm…I and people saying…heck I would never do that…I think that College student talk and adults over 30 simply don’t talk about it.

My Perspective:
Partaking in anything related to this, should be approached carefully, use protection and most importantly make certain that both parties involved realize that the hookups are simply just that…hookups and staying friends is the top priority between the two. Not saying we should start doping this…simply stating that if you do…keep the ground rules clear and protect yourself. Oh one last thing…make certain that you don’t have a whole lot of Friends with benefit – friends…lol. Thanks for reading till next time Latino Man signing off.

Friends with Benefits - Your "Get out of monogamy free" card?
By: Kate McGovern

Of all the pop culture representations of “friends with benefits,” Monica and Chandler might have made it look the easiest. On “Friends,” those two hopped into bed after years of platonic buddy-hood, briefly kept it casual, and then lived happily ever after. Research shows that this is unlikely in real life—off-screen, only about 10% of friends with benefits (FWB) turn into lasting romances. And anyway, since sex-with-no-commitment is what appeals to a majority of FWB participants, the Monica/Chandler resolution might be more nightmare than dream come true. For undergraduates and twenty-somethings, habitually strapped for time and money, the absence of dating as a prerequisite to sex sounds ideal. Sure enough, the friends with benefits relationship has become ubiquitous, especially on college campuses—but when it comes to sleeping with a pal, the morning after is rarely as straightforward as the night before.

If you haven’t done it yourself, you probably know someone who has. The odds a college student has ever had a friend with benefits are 1 in 2, with men more likely than women to report such arrangements. Among male undergraduates, the odds are 1 in 1.57 (about 64%), while for women, the number is 1 in 1.99. The rationale behind acquiring friends with benefits is rather unsurprising. Melissa Bisson and Timothy Levine, who conducted a study of FWB relationships at Michigan State, found that sexual involvement with a friend was viewed as safe and convenient. There’s also the comfort factor: many young people prefer to have sex with a person they know and trust, rather than that cute stranger at the bar. So an FWB situation is a happy medium between an actual romantic commitment and a casual hook up.

Isn’t it? Possibly not, says sex educator Yvonne K. Fulbright. Fulbright argues that a big problem with friends with benefits is that communication within the friendship itself breaks down. Bisson and Levine, too, found that about half of all FWB participants at Michigan State reported uncertainty about the relationship, and a majority of these said that those concerns were not addressed.

There is also the risk of one person developing more intense feelings for the other—the omnipresent threat of “wanting more.” Popular wisdom suggests that this is the biggest pitfall of friends with benefits, and indeed, about 81% of the respondents in the Michigan State study cited the development of romantic feelings as a key disadvantage.

Someone might get jealous, too. Even though there’s no official commitment, it can be hard to see the person you’re sleeping with flirting with someone else. The odds an undergraduate describes him- or herself as a jealous person are 1 in 1.79 (about 56%), and a large-scale study published in the College Student Journal found that students who described themselves as jealous were more likely to have friends with benefits than those who did not. While this might seem contradictory, perhaps it reflects a tendency for jealousy-inclined young people to avoid the challenges of committed relationships—or maybe the FWB precedes the jealous feelings, with the peculiar dynamic of a sexually involved friendship drawing out the green-eyed monster.

Either way, the research (and common sense) suggests that the friends with benefits scenario has its own risks. In the end, one in four FWB relationships ends with both the friendship and the sex broken off, and a third call off the sex—presumably when things get complicated—but manage to salvage the friendship. So sure, you can buy a t-shirt promoting friends with benefits, or find rules of the game online, but once you’ve hopped into bed with a friend, getting out can be much more challenging.

My Perspective:
I'm a bit scared to send my kids off to college...geez. I could say more, but I best keep my comments to myself...by the way...where canI get a shirt like that...LOL.

Thanks for reading, till next time Latino Man signing off.