The Perceived Benefits of the Friends with Benefits Relationship: A Pilot Study

The friends with benefits relationship is a complex relationship embedded within the cross-sex friendship consisting of new rules of maintenance, attitudes, and definitive sexual behavior without romantic commitment. This study sought to discover the perceived benefits of the friends with benefits relationship. Comparisons were made between those that have engaged in a friends with benefits relationship and those that have not, using closeness, affection, commitment, self-disclosure, and satisfaction and involvement as variables to determine any and all perceived benefits of a friends with benefits relationship (FWBR). The primary result of this study suggests that there are no more perceived relationally oriented benefits in a FWBR than in a strictly platonic, opposite-sex friendship.