by Katie Calautti
If you thought director Will Gluck’s raucous dark comedy "Easy A" packed a hilarious one-two punch of dirty jokes and jaw-dropping sexual innuendo (not to mention a heckuva good-looking romantic duo —we’re talking to you, Emma Stone and Penn Badgley), brace yourself for Will’s ante-upping contender "Friends With Benefits."
The casting of the movie’s protagonists—Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis)—is as juicy as its premise. Namely: two pals who fashion a pact to hit the sack sans emotional involvement.
We’re willing to bet that hilarity ensues, but before the film hits theaters Friday, July 22, we decided to do a little digging. Is an IRL relationship like the one showcased in "Friends With Benefits" actually possible? If so, how? And what exactly are the complications? We chatted with clinical psychologist Elizabeth Bowman, PhD, to get the skinny.
Hollywood Crush: Is it even possible to have a trouble-free "friends with benefits" relationship?
Bowman: In a friends with benefits situation, there are a lot of things to consider. I think you’d want to go into this kind of an arrangement with your eyes wide open. You need to think about the different contributing factors to what might ultimately happen—biological factors as well as emotional factors.
From a biological perspective, one of the things that happens during experiences of sex, touch, intimacy, etc. is that a hormone called Oxytocin is generated. And, in women, that combines with estrogen to create a very powerful reaction—it makes you feel happy and relaxed, but it also biologically predisposes you to become really jazzed about the person that you’re with, regardless of what you think of that person.
Oxytocin is generated by both women and men during touching and sexual experiences, but it’s much stronger in women. So it’s kind of the perfect storm for bonding and attachment. Regardless of what you may think intellectually, whether this is the right guy for you, those sexual experiences are going to bring about a desire for more sex, more bonding—both emotionally and physically. So there’s biological predisposition in women that makes them more vulnerable to having more emotional attachment feelings in the context of a sexual relationship.
That is SO not fair!
[Laughs] It’s absolutely not fair! And I think a lot of the time women walk into these situations thinking that they can walk away scot-free, but in fact biologically we’re predisposed to become attached to the people we’re sexually involved with.
Is there any way to avoid that biology, as women? Tell me there’s a workaround!
There’s no workaround, there’s no veto, this is just the way women are built. And of course everyone’s different, and one thing to think about—if you do want to have a friends with benefits situation—is that it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. The more contact and the more sex you have with somebody, the more contact and the more sex you want to have with them. So if you want to do it, you probably want to space it out. You wouldn’t want to have sex with that person, say, three times a week because it’s like a drug—it’s going to keep you always wanting more.
Is that why women tend to get so bitter towards men because they can move on quickly and hop between girls and never really get too attached—the issue is primarily biological?
I wouldn’t say it’s just a biological thing. Oxytocin is generated in men as well and it combines with testosterone to create more powerful sexual feelings, and so men do also have a bonding predisposition, but it’s not nearly as strong as women’s. I don’t believe that men don’t generate feelings of bonding and attachment, but I think they’re less intense, so they’re easier to walk away from.
As far as a friends with benefits relationship, is there something psychological in a specific type of person that could bring this relationship about? Are there specific personalities best suited for this type of an arrangement?
One of the things that we do know is that friends with benefits is actually very common—there are studies that’ve been done and they say that in people’s 20s, roughly 50 percent of women and 50 percent of men engage in friends with benefits relationships. So the numbers are pretty high. People who value relationships less are going to be more likely to engage in a friends with benefits relationship. Generally, it’s somebody who has more narcissistic qualities, less interest in relationships, more interest in achievements, they’re more independent, and whether that’s for narcissistic reasons or it’s a tendency, it can be any number of things. I’d say that from a psychological perspective, there are a couple of things to keep in mind if you’re going to engage in this kind of a relationship.
The first thing is the human capacity for self-deception. Our emotions and our intellect don’t always have the most straightforward relationship. How many times have you said to yourself, “What was I thinking?” So, say you’re going to fool around with some guy or some girl, but then find yourself recognizing that you do have more underlying motives that weren’t previously something you were conscious of. That’s something that can come up and be a bit of a danger. Are you someone who talks yourself into anything that comes your way?
The next thing that I’d think about would be self-respect. Are you engaged in something that’s inconsistent with your moral code? Not a church’s moral code or your mother’s moral code or your friend’s moral code, but any time a person engages in behavior that is inconsistent with their own standards and values, that’s when it’s trouble, because what happens is you start to have feelings of shame. And feelings of shame are the red flag. But having said that, if consensual sex between adults outside of a committed relationship or a marriage is something that you’re OK with, then you’re in good shape. So you really want to think about, “What am I doing here?” You have to know what your own values are. And what your values are at the age of 20 are very different than what your values are at the age of 35. As we age, as we mature, as we separate from our families and our backgrounds and become more individual, our values change.
The final thing that I think is really important to think about in these relationships is the capacity for expectation. Are you fooling around with a guy you always knew had a crush on you, but you’re just friends—are you taking advantage of somebody’s feelings? Oftentimes this can happen in the wake of trauma or loss—you have a friend who has just recently gone through losing a loved one or a job, a terrible experience—and that kind of emotional vulnerability invites closeness and potentially sexual relationships. And who knows what the consequences are to acting on that with somebody in a very vulnerable situation.
Can you talk more about the studies that’ve been done? Is that a new thing? Because it seems like we’re seeing so many more nods to these types of arrangements in popular culture, and I’m wondering if it’s something of a mirror to what’s happening in our society.
That’s a really good question. I think, anecdotally, yes—our culture is moving more toward a “me” as opposed to a “we.” We see all this broadcasting on Facebook of our lives and there is something about this see-and-be-seen mentality, but not in the context of long-term committed relationships.
It seems ironic but it almost appears that you have to be MORE secure and MORE aware of yourself to engage in something completely casual.
I don’t know that there’s an exact answer to that, because everyone’s different. I think, to engage in a healthy friends with benefits relationship, you’d have to know yourself pretty well.
Will you be seeing "Friends With Benefits"?
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