Another not deeply important gender issue, but one I've always been curious about. Is there really any such thing as genuine friends with privileges between a man and a woman? This is what I had always imagined friends with privileges was supposed to mean: two people who really liked each other, hung out and talked and did activities together like friends do, who also sometimes (frequency variable) had sex. If one or the other happened to form a romantic relationship with someone else, the sex stopped but the friendship remained intact. However, the following are the only scenarios I've actually witnessed with two people calling themselves "friends with benefits:"
1. Woman can't get a boyfriend, usually because she's not very attractive. She sleeps with guys who call her a friend with privileges but who only behave like a friend when they want sex. She usually falls in love with one or more of them and they never reciprocate. We can call her "the Used."
2. Woman who is hanging out for the man she REALLY wants. She still wants to go out and have fun and have sex but doesn't want to be encumbered with the label "boyfriend" so that when she meets Mr. Perfect, she can say she's unattached. Most of the guys she's sleeping with are nuts about her and would claim her in a heartbeat if she'd let them. We can call her "the User."
3. Woman is in love with specific man, who really likes her, even loves her, but usually because she's not very attractive, can't quite bring himself to totally commit to her. They may be boyfriend/girlfriend off and on, but usually they are FWP. This can go on for YEARS. (The specific case I'm thinking of has been going on for a decade now.) I don't know what to call this one.
4. Same as 3, just with genders reversed (man is in love with specific woman, who really cares for him, but because he is not Prince Charming, can't quite bring herself to totally commit to him). The specific case here I'm thinking about, she did eventually marry him, after FIVE years of shopping around.
Anyway...does my original definition of FWP actually exist? Or is FWP only a euphemism for 1-4?