Evaluations of friends-with-benefits relationship scenarios: Is there evidence of a sexual double standard?

Abstract

More than half of university students report having had a friends-with-benefits relationship (FWBR), i.e., recurring sexual activity between friends who do not define their relationship as romantic, yet little is known about how people in FWBRs are judged by others. For instance, is there a sexual double standard whereby women are judged more negatively than men? In the present study, 404 university students read one of four randomly assigned scenarios describing an FWBR (scenarios varied on character gender and FWBR experience) and then completed measures of their judgment of the main character, their predictions about the relationship depicted, their beliefs about whether the character should keep the relationship secret, and their perception of how the character would be judged by peers. Two respondent-level variables (respondent gender; respondent FWBR experience) were also examined as predictors. Half of the participants (52.5%) had themselves experienced an FWBR, with a majority evaluating these exp...