[LMB] was Bujold Romance/Slash Meta now OT: friendship & s*x

[Tora K. Smulders-Srinivasan]

>On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Rachel Ganz wrote:
> And it seems that there is some huge biological wall that once
> you have penetrated it, it is a long and dangerous trip back to
> the lands of friendship. Why, I don't know. In my experience,
> once you have been to bed with someone, of either sex, it is
> very difficult to remain friends. But maybe I've never gone to
> bed with the right people.

Hmmmm... I don't know, I've remained friends with most of my exes, and
definitely with all of them who have shown an interest in
reciprocating.  I had one very amusing situation in college when I
went to bed with someone I was very good friends with and we just
stayed friends, maybe even better ones.  We both had a great laugh
about it -- I think it was even just after when we both realized what
had happened and that it really hadn't changed our relationship at
all.  Neither of us was interested in a romantic relationship with
each other.  It became a classic friends-with-benefits that never lost
the friends or benefits.  Well, we didn't take advantage of the
benefits part when we were involved with others, and since my current
involvement of 11 years started back then, we've just been friends for
a long time.  And he definitely danced at our wedding!  ;-)

I wouldn't say I'd want to or ever wanted to go to bed with "all" of
my friends, but I've definitely felt a sexual tension in many of my
exclusively male and female friendly relationships (maybe more often,
for me, in my friendships with males, but certainly not exclusively
with males -- but that matches up with my overall preferences, I'm
attracted to more males than females, generally).  Personally, I feel
it just adds a depth (?) or maybe an extra dimension to my
relationship with the other person, reciprocated or not, acted on or
not.  Sometimes I do wonder if the people would be offended if they
knew, but since there's not any reason to tell them, I don't worry
about it too much.

Anyway, that's my experience with the friendship/sex issue.  I'm not
saying it's the common one, but it's certainly real enough!  So I
really don't get the issue with seeing attractions between people (any
combination of genders) that do not have relationships in canon.  I
certainly don't think adding sex to a relationship devalues
friendship!!!  My husband is the best friend I have _ever_ had!

Enough babbling for now,
Tora