Friends with benefits is beneficial

The Sydney Morning Herald (h/t Lindsay Mitchell) reports:

As we all know, hooking up for casual sex is bad for young people because it causes emotional or psychological damage.

Right?

Well, actually, no. At least not for young adults between the ages of 18 and 24, according to a new study by University of Minnesota researchers.

Even they found the results startling.

They asked more than 1300 young Minnesota adults about their most recent sexual encounters, their self-esteem and their emotional wellbeing. Interestingly, only about one-fifth of the subjects said their last encounter was casual. But their overall emotional status was no different than the four-fifths who said they were in committed relationships with their most recent sexual partner.

“We were so surprised,” said Marla Eisenberg, an assistant professor at the university’s School of Public Health who studies adolescent and young adult health.

“The conventional wisdom is that casual sex, ‘friends with benefits’, is hurtful. That’s what we’ve been teaching kids for decades,”, she said.

So friends with benefits is now officially deemed beneficial!