The label “friends with benefits” (FWB) is a relatively recent term for a type of relationship that has probably existing in some form or another for quite some time. FWB refers to the relationship between two people who agree to have a sexual relationship with the stated goal being that a more formal relationship will not develop.

A study just out in the Archives of Sexual Behavior provides the first empirical evaluation of the dynamics of such relationships. Among a sample of 125 college students, 60% reported having at least one FWB. About 10% of these relationships turned into romantic relationships, about a third stopped having sex and maintained a friendship, and 25% broke off the friendship entirely. The remaining continued as FWB.

The overwhelming difficulty in these relationships was that neither person felt free to discuss the relationship with each other. There is a fair amount of intimacy reported within these relationships but there is also an overwhelming fear that one person will develop more intense feelings than does the other person. Thus this need to keep emotional boundaries causes increasing distance and, as the statistics above suggest, the dissolution of most of these relationships as FWB.