Opposite gender friends if sex is completely off the table?

[Anonymous]

I guess this is a rehash of the old "can men and women ever be just friends" debate. But, I was reading the comments in some threads here talking about how men should value women for something other than sex and reading a blog post about a woman who was mad at a man who didn't find her sexually attractive despite her many laudable nonsexual characteristics.

So, I value my wife and other women for things other than their sexual attractiveness. But, if I'm honest, I have to admit that I wouldn't seek out female companionship much, if at all, if sex were completely off the table. When I was single, I hung out with groups that included women, but part of the draw was the potential for hooking up. Now that I'm married, I value my wife for nonsexual aspects of our relationship, but I never would have bothered with marriage if sex were off the table. I don't seek out social relationships with other women now that I'm married. Because, frankly, given professional and family demands, my social time is limited and I prefer the conversational topics, activities, and humor that my male friends enjoy and women mostly don't seem to. (Typical stuff - beer, sports, crass juvenile humor). And often the topics, activities, and humor I see from the women I encounter in my wife's circle are often deeply uninteresting to me.

I'm not saying men are better than women or vice versa. Just that, given what I personally find entertaining and interesting, if it weren't for sex, I'm not sure I ever would have sought out or maintained female companionship.

Guess I'm just trying to figure out if this makes me a misogynistic monster or if the experience and preferences of others lines up in a similar manner. (Or, perhaps, if women typically enjoy nonsexual guy friends while the reverse isn't typically true.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess this is a rehash of the old "can men and women ever be just friends" debate. But, I was reading the comments in some threads here talking about how men should value women for something other than sex and reading a blog post about a woman who was mad at a man who didn't find her sexually attractive despite her many laudable nonsexual characteristics.

So, I value my wife and other women for things other than their sexual attractiveness. But, if I'm honest, I have to admit that I wouldn't seek out female companionship much, if at all, if sex were completely off the table. When I was single, I hung out with groups that included women, but part of the draw was the potential for hooking up. Now that I'm married, I value my wife for nonsexual aspects of our relationship, but I never would have bothered with marriage if sex were off the table. I don't seek out social relationships with other women now that I'm married. Because, frankly, given professional and family demands, my social time is limited and I prefer the conversational topics, activities, and humor that my male friends enjoy and women mostly don't seem to. (Typical stuff - beer, sports, crass juvenile humor). And often the topics, activities, and humor I see from the women I encounter in my wife's circle are often deeply uninteresting to me.

I'm not saying men are better than women or vice versa. Just that, given what I personally find entertaining and interesting, if it weren't for sex, I'm not sure I ever would have sought out or maintained female companionship.

Guess I'm just trying to figure out if this makes me a misogynistic monster or if the experience and preferences of others lines up in a similar manner. (Or, perhaps, if women typically enjoy nonsexual guy friends while the reverse isn't typically true.)

I'm a woman. I have friends of both genders. It sounds like you just assume that men and women are, by virtue of their gender, interested in entirely different things. That has not been the case for me. I become friends with people when I have things in common with them. I do not enjoy the stuff that you listed as being "typical stuff" for men - I like beer, but I don't want to sit around and talk about it, I am not a huge sports fan and I don't really care for juvenile humor. I also do not really care for sitting around discussing designer clothing, "Mommy Wars" issues, etc. (which sort of begs the question of why I'm reading this website at all). Topics of conversation among my friends (all genders): politics, social issues, culture (movies, music, TV, books, etc.), our personal lives, etc. I don't really see those topics as being "gendered" necessarily. I spent a lot of time talking about the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby case with my male friends, even though it pertains to a "women's" issue, and a lot of time talking about the World Cup with my female friends, even though it's a sport and therefore a "men's" issue.

[Anonymous]

OP here - another idle thought. PP's description of herself and her interests are not atypical. I don't mind talking politics, movies, etc. with the women I do encounter. When it's online, I rather enjoy it and don't pay a lot of attention to the gender of the person I'm having a discussion with.

So, that leads me to this thought - I wonder if issues surrounding sexual attraction actually cause me to tend to avoid women because, to some extent, the hassle of dealing with sexual attraction outweighs the benefit of female friends. I find it's somewhat more difficult for me to relax around women during in-person social situations.

[Anonymous]

I have been friends with men and women. I was friends with my DH before we dated.

Interestingly, he was attracted to me and befriended me in hopes that it would lead to something. I was clueless of course.

Perhaps most men are like you and my DH. Perhaps that's why women don't necessarily want a single woman to be friends with their DH, because we assume the DH is interested in sex first and personality second.

[Anonymous]

I'm a very good friend with one of DH's best friends. Friend and I email and text often about shows or books or movies or funny things we read online. Sometimes we include DH, sometimes we don't - he's not much of a reader, so he doesn't get some of our comments. Not long ago, Friend joined me and some other women for dinner and drinks when we were all out of town at the same location. None of us are available, so I don't think that was a motive.
I guess we didn't seek each other out, but we are certainly really good friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a very good friend with one of DH's best friends. Friend and I email and text often about shows or books or movies or funny things we read online. Sometimes we include DH, sometimes we don't - he's not much of a reader, so he doesn't get some of our comments. Not long ago, Friend joined me and some other women for dinner and drinks when we were all out of town at the same location. None of us are available, so I don't think that was a motive.
I guess we didn't seek each other out, but we are certainly really good friends.

Trust me - it might not be a motive for you, but it is for him. OP, 100% certainty that your thread will break along gender lines. Women can have non-sexual relationships with men, but men see relationships with women through a sexual lens, even if they don't intend on sleeping with them. The sexual chemistry is still there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a very good friend with one of DH's best friends. Friend and I email and text often about shows or books or movies or funny things we read online. Sometimes we include DH, sometimes we don't - he's not much of a reader, so he doesn't get some of our comments. Not long ago, Friend joined me and some other women for dinner and drinks when we were all out of town at the same location. None of us are available, so I don't think that was a motive.
I guess we didn't seek each other out, but we are certainly really good friends.

Trust me - it might not be a motive for you, but it is for him. OP, 100% certainty that your thread will break along gender lines. Women can have non-sexual relationships with men, but men see relationships with women through a sexual lens, even if they don't intend on sleeping with them. The sexual chemistry is still there.

Then the logical extension of what you've just said is that the religions that insist on women covering themselves so they won't be seen by men (and, thus, make them sexually excited) are correct. You're saying that men are such slaves to their evolutionary urges that they are incapable of seeing a woman without thinking of her in a sexual way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a very good friend with one of DH's best friends. Friend and I email and text often about shows or books or movies or funny things we read online. Sometimes we include DH, sometimes we don't - he's not much of a reader, so he doesn't get some of our comments. Not long ago, Friend joined me and some other women for dinner and drinks when we were all out of town at the same location. None of us are available, so I don't think that was a motive.
I guess we didn't seek each other out, but we are certainly really good friends.

Trust me - it might not be a motive for you, but it is for him. OP, 100% certainty that your thread will break along gender lines. Women can have non-sexual relationships with men, but men see relationships with women through a sexual lens, even if they don't intend on sleeping with them. The sexual chemistry is still there.

Then the logical extension of what you've just said is that the religions that insist on women covering themselves so they won't be seen by men (and, thus, make them sexually excited) are correct. You're saying that men are such slaves to their evolutionary urges that they are incapable of seeing a woman without thinking of her in a sexual way.

+1 and pp made me think about every male coworker who has ever made a friendly comment to me was really just trying to hook up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a very good friend with one of DH's best friends. Friend and I email and text often about shows or books or movies or funny things we read online. Sometimes we include DH, sometimes we don't - he's not much of a reader, so he doesn't get some of our comments. Not long ago, Friend joined me and some other women for dinner and drinks when we were all out of town at the same location. None of us are available, so I don't think that was a motive.
I guess we didn't seek each other out, but we are certainly really good friends.

Trust me - it might not be a motive for you, but it is for him. OP, 100% certainty that your thread will break along gender lines. Women can have non-sexual relationships with men, but men see relationships with women through a sexual lens, even if they don't intend on sleeping with them. The sexual chemistry is still there.

Then the logical extension of what you've just said is that the religions that insist on women covering themselves so they won't be seen by men (and, thus, make them sexually excited) are correct. You're saying that men are such slaves to their evolutionary urges that they are incapable of seeing a woman without thinking of her in a sexual way.

+1 and pp made me think about every male coworker who has ever made a friendly comment to me was really just trying to hook up.

Well, there is a distinction between seeing the relationship through a sexual lens and being able to resist urges and actively trying to hook up. So, just because the guy's interactions with the women has a sexual filter to it, doesn't mean he's in constant danger of blowing his load in your general direction or that you need to cover up. But, at some level, he probably does want to have sex with you and that's a motivator in how he interacts with you -- even if there is a close to zero chance he'd ever do it even if you were throwing yourself at him.

With my guy friends, I don't care what they look like. But, even as friends, I find myself more motivated to be friendly with attractive women than ugly women.

[Anonymous]

I have a lot of guy friends. I think that a few of them would definitely be ok sleeping with me if the opportunity ever presented itself. But they seem to know it won't, and they seem perfectly ok hanging with me anyway. We can talk about all sorts of things while we drink beers or wine and hang out. But most of my guy friends seem to be friends with me without any interest in sex on anyone's part. I have a few married guy friends with whom I can hang out with just them, with just their wife, or with both, and it's cool.

I think some people really do think that men and women can't truly be friends because of the sex thing. I'm not one of those people. I really value my male friendships, and my female friendships.

[Anonymous]

The OP seems to have very limited ideas of how male friends and female friends talk. I'm a very feminine woman who loves reality TV, shopping, gossip, and doing my nails. One of my best friends is a man I've known since we were in high school, and he likes beer, sports, and occasionally being juvenile.

You know what we talk about when we hang out?

Art. Philosophy. Politics. We talk about life and how we feel and everything we're going through. Shockingly, an intelligent, educated woman and an intelligent, educated man can find plenty of things to talk about that aren't stereotypically gender-specific.

And yes, I know he'd sleep with me if the opportunity arose, but I have many other guy friends and they'd never cross that line or even consider sleeping with me. They're very nice, respectful, and we don't flirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OP seems to have very limited ideas of how male friends and female friends talk. I'm a very feminine woman who loves reality TV, shopping, gossip, and doing my nails. One of my best friends is a man I've known since we were in high school, and he likes beer, sports, and occasionally being juvenile.

You know what we talk about when we hang out?

Art. Philosophy. Politics. We talk about life and how we feel and everything we're going through. Shockingly, an intelligent, educated woman and an intelligent, educated man can find plenty of things to talk about that aren't stereotypically gender-specific.

And yes, I know he'd sleep with me if the opportunity arose, but I have many other guy friends and they'd never cross that line or even consider sleeping with me. They're very nice, respectful, and we don't flirt.

They might not do it, but they'd consider it.

[Anonymous]

The big litmus test is whether or not you are comfortable telling your wife about your friendship. If you feel that you cannot tell your spouse about her--or intentionally leave things out knowing that your wife would not be happy with it--then you know that what you are doing is wrong.

[Anonymous]

I am a man with a long history of platonic relationships. I have a very specific type of woman that I am attracted to so if a woman is not in this category, I never think of the situation of anything other than friendship.

[Anonymous]

Man here,

I grew up in a house full of women in a neighborhood where I was the only boy. I find that I typically gravitate towards women when it comes to friendships. I was ready to respond to your post by saying that platonic friendships are possible, but I just realized that I never became close friends with any girl or woman in my life who I wasn't physically attracted to.
As soon as I got married, I stopped making new female friends, and severely cut back on hanging out with old female friends. I was afraid that something might happen or my wife would get jealous. Nothing ever did, and as soon as we got divorced I went back to hanging out with them. Sad to say (or not really sad to say) I ended up sleeping with just about all of them since my divorce.
I think you may be right.