A friend also likes or where is the line between love and friendship. And why gay men have it easier with sex between friends

Friends. Few things are as important as having good friends. They replace the psychologist, the cook, the handyman, the gardener, the fashion stylist, and when it comes down to it, they often replace the family. And replace a lover?

First, let's clarify the terms. A friend is someone you're friends with. I don't just mean acquaintances, I mean real friends. In the strict sense of the word. People you know very well, who know you, with whom you do things, talk about everything, share your life (or its important and not so important moments), who you want to brag to when you've succeeded in something, and who you confide in when something is bothering you and you're feeling down on your soul (as a great friend of mine says). They are also the people you trust and who belong to you in some way. And it's also all the other way around, meaning that you are the same to them.

But friends are also separate entities living their own lives, and your destinies and lives are only partially connected, which makes them different from partners. And therefore also in the fact that you didn't say you were partners.

And now for the lovers. By lovers, for my purposes, I mean people you have sex with. More regular than just one-time events. The guy you invite to your house for an hour and in the morning you may not even know his name is a sexual partner, but not a lover. But a lover to me is also not necessarily just someone you "cheat" on a regular partner with. You don't need a partner to have someone you have sex with. A lover is someone you enjoy having sex with, someone you feel comfortable in bed with (or on the couch, floor, kitchen counter, and I don't know where else). And if you're now asking where, then, is the difference between partners and lovers when both involve longevity, pleasurability, and one is not a prerequisite for the other, the answer is simple. You are partners when you say you are. And when you're not, but just doing it together, that's a lover's relationship to me.

Friends with benefits go to hell.

As I prefaced in the introduction, I don't really like the "friend likes too" adage. In fact, I hear a certain smirk, a sneer, and maybe a bit of condescension in it. It's as if whoever said it meant it as a warning. "Watch out for him, just because you're friends doesn't mean he won't want to have sex with you!" finger raised to the naive gullible lady. And also the generalization of men into creatures who are only interested in having sex with another person in any interpersonal relationship. Which may or may not be true.

More in Gallery

Sources: Adobe Stock

What's wrong with that? A certain implicit assumption that friends aren't supposed to have sex. But why do we think that? I honestly don't know, and I'm falling into that trap myself. The feeling that I should keep a genital distance from my good friends, lest I "mess something up". Spoil what? It's hard to say, but it's clear that sexual desire is a powerful and sometimes insidious thing, and it can make you do things you wouldn't do otherwise.

Yeah, situations where you suddenly stop, realize what you're doing (what you're doing and who you're doing it to) do exist. With any luck, they're just funny, but because we tend to separate sex and friends (even if only by silly parades), they're often awkward and weird too. Yet between friends, this shouldn't be a problem.

After all, friends are the people we feel comfortable with, the people we share intimate things with, who know what we like, how we feel, who understand us. Friends are also people we can relax with. And where there is intimacy and closeness of mind, there is often physical closeness.

I don't know about you, but I have friends I want to hug. Because they make me feel good. To hug, to hold, to snuggle, to cuddle. I can relax with these people and our same mental attunement means I'm not reprimanded for doing something wrong. And if the hand of a scarf maybe wanders a bit during the snuggle...

Is that wrong? If you read my last article about doing what you want to do, it absolutely is not. It's okay to do what makes us happy. Unless someone's partner is gonna chop you up into noodles for it.

So let me not drag this out: The line between friends and lovers is artificial and, in practice, non-existent. Or rather, it doesn't have to be if someone chooses not to create one. A best friend might as well be a best lover. Friendship and sex are not mutually exclusive or devaluing. Which is, of course, why I don't like another catchphrase: "friends with benefits". Because again, I sense a grain of mockery in it. The need to make a separate distinction between those who are "normal friends" and those who do something abnormal together (namely sex). Um, but there's nothing abnormal about sex. And there's also nothing abnormal about wanting to have sex with someone you're comfortable with. Which friends tend to be.

Gay people out of the system

As you might guess, I've been talking primarily about gay relationships all along. Because the gay world is so much simpler in that regard. Because we've sort of broken out of the stereotypical partnership structures caused by reproduction. The social norms that were created by heterosexual sex don't make sense to us.

In fact, all the hype about noncommittal sex, lovers, one-night stands, promiscuity, and other nice interpersonal things like that, I think, arose from the fact that until recently, sex meant that you could have children, too. And chicks have to be taken care of by their parents. Which people then copied into the need to make long term partnerships that somehow ensured that the offspring produced by sex would be taken care of - both in terms of physical provision, socialisation, upbringing etc (humans are a bit more complicated than that after all).

Oh, and people have also complicated it with tradition, narrow-mindedness and something called marriage. And then the heterosexuals invented a brilliant thing, which is that you're only allowed to procreate after marriage. And if it happens to happen without a wedding, they have to have a wedding because "What would people say?!" (that's the narrow-mindedness).

But (cis) gays (and lesbians, too) have an advantage in this. They can try as hard as they want, but they just won't "make" each other's babies. Et voilà, the need to form solid couples to care for each other's offspring is gone. Sure, lots of gay men want kids, want to raise them, provide for them, provide for them, and be great parents to them (which they undoubtedly will be), but kids are not the primary thing that binds gay relationships together. Gay couples are couples because they simply want to.

Whether that wanting is due to falling in love or perhaps the fact that it stretches better when there are two. But because they are not in danger of procreating with their same-sex (cis) sexual partners, they don't have to adhere to any social conventions such as attempting monogamous cohabitation or having sex only within a partnered couple. Because such a system makes no sense to us.

Which brings me to that little idea from the beginning, or that heterosexuals might be inspired. Because nowadays, the risk of sex becoming a child can be greatly minimized. And with it, the need for ordinary people to have strong relationships in this regard decreases. Or not to have sex outside your relationships. Sex can be casual, recreational and also completely meaningless. And having multiple lovers, sleeping with your buddies (or girlfriends), and following your desire for pleasure need not be forbidden even for heterosexual people. But it's just as understandable to see sex as something deeply intimate, something you only want to share with someone, and a symbol of love, trust and affection. That's perfectly fine, of course.