Friendships are a natural and integral part of anyone’s life. The not so silent gatekeepers of our conduct, partners in crime, and in some cases your friends are your family away from home. Friendships are usually standard and may have a universal set of “rules”, but occasionally there comes a time where the lines get blurred. Blurred, yeah a little fuzzy and often after that invisible line is crossed the context of the relationship is changed forever.

The change really depends on the strength and the truth of your relationship in my opinion. What is this blurry line I speak of you ask? Simply put, fucking friends or the more diplomatic title of friends with benefits. I don’t like the term friends with benefits, because that makes it seem as if two friends fuck on the regular; what if it was just a once-off like that one party when those two chicks were making out in the pool. The truth is unless you are in that relationship you will not be privy to the context and the circumstances of that friendship. So how bad could it be to have sex with one of your friends, I mean you might already share some much of your lives. What I do know is that it happens and a lot more than people like to admit. Some of us survive crossing the threshold; others aren’t that lucky and are left licking their wounds. I’ve been there, guilty of what some deem to be a crime of friendship. First thing first, shit like this just doesn’t “happen”, that is unless you were so trashed out your minds and then BAM! He was a tall caramel coloured basketball player and dancer, he also happened to be part of our click. We were both 17 at the time in the thick of things in high school. So this lovely young man named Marques and I had an interesting relationship. Look the boy was hot, and even though I was his friend I wasn’t fucking blind. He wasn’t quite the academic always the class clown. How could I forget he had the voice of an angel, and I soon discovered that was the ace up his sleeve when it came to the girls?

We did cool things together. When we had free periods we’d leave school and go to the mall and just people watch. Marques was a lot smarter than he allowed people to think. I guess he was so used to being the cute class clown, that he never let people think any differently. I was privileged enough to see the other side of him and that’s how our ghetto tango began. It was the last day of school and that only meant one thing that our summer vacation had started. A group of us squashed into a friend’s car, headed to his house and the plan was to kick it while plotting the summer. Eventually, the day wore off and the group became smaller until it was just a few of us.

Typical teenagers the evening was filled with music, dancing, the occasional blunt blowing and lots of making out. We were playing truth or dare, and Marques was dared by his sister to kiss any one of the girls at the time who were playing. No surprise that I was that girl, but what started as an innocent kiss based on a dare became a full-blown make-out session. As the saying goes one thing led to another and two people who used to be just ordinary friends, had now crossed that invisible line. This was our little secret something we didn’t have to share with the rest of the group. In hindsight, I don’t think we kept our little situation tidy, because, on some arb day after a party we hosted, our friends held an intervention. Again no guesses what the context of that said intervention was about, I was very taken aback at how emotional our friends were about this whole thing. We got read us the riot act and they were horrified that we didn’t give a damn. At some point, we stopped having sexual relations with each and life went on without any drama.

According to dictionary.com a friend with benefits: a friend with whom one has occasional sexual relations, without a commitment or dating arrangement. That means that when two people conduct in this type of relationship, they should have a clear understanding of what the implications are. The reality is that everything is great in theory until you actually start engaging in the act. These rules are what will govern everything about the situation and more importantly how you can protect your friendship (and yourselves as individuals).

The first rule of fight club, you don’t talk about fight club. Keep the pillow talk to yourself and if you really need to share this with someone make up an alias.  Sex is fun, primal and all that good stuff and so is simplicity.

So what if one day you wake up and you have feelings? Well, that’s a very hard pill to swallow and the thought process of what to do is even more intense than the feelings you have. Truth is women are generally more emotional than men in most instances, but this could go either way. If you looking for unbridled, ass on tap, back-breaking sex and you have a slight case of “I like him or her”. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU!!!! Liking a friend in that way is tough enough and then to add a physical connection like sex into the mix, you’ve got more problems than Jay-Z. Simply put it makes things uncomfortable, this is no child’s play you need to be sure.

Respect yourselves and the agreement, you should have no issues. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have sex with a friend but I do know it’s not for everyone. Know which side of the fence you stand and leave judgement at the door.

Writer: Nhlanhla Msimango       Photography: Lexonart