Here's that question

I'm the yin to Carlos' yang .....
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Here's my thinking - As a matter of convenience, yes it serves its purpose to get off with someone the other feels comfortable or for someone who doesn't want to go thru the song and dance of finding someone else just to get off...
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Altho, I think mindset and age are two of the determining factors of pulling this off successfully, people in their 20s, 30s and 40s all have different mindsets and goals and rarely are men and women of each of those decades on the same page at the same time...Inevitably, someone wants more (or less) and from the sounds of things this doesn't often happen at the same time for both...
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Angie..

Oooh, good question...
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Much as I would like "friend with benefits" to be right up there as an option, along with "friend," "neighbor" and "excellent call girl," I think that it's closer on the viability spectrum to "trustworthy mechanic" and "friendly DMV employee." In other words, a great idea that just ain't gonna happen...
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Too many emotional entanglements occur when sex does, unless it's very casual sex with strangers, or sex between two highly-evolved beings. Most of us are not that evolved, and that's how Darwin intended it, because if we could go around screwing everyone without compunction, how would babies ever get born and raised? We need to be emotionally attached to others, to depend on them for certain things (keeping it in their pants, not bringing back communicable diseases), and to feel ourselves loved by them. ..
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We also need really good friends to bitch about them with. For most of us, however, that twain will never meet...

I know a lot of girls who are in the f-buddy situation. And you know, I think the problem with that is that you're already getting sex that you like with someone... and why not just date them. The girls I know who are in the situation seem to have a hard time finding the person they like as much as the guy they're sleeping with. I think it can work -- because some people can really detach. But some people can't...

I don't think it can generally work. The last time I tried it, it ended messing up a great friendship I had spent a year building up.....

I think it can possibly but only on a temporary basis. Usually if a woman is in a transitional period (just breaking up or in some sort of crisis) This can be essential to release her tension. As long as both parties are not looking for more and it is clearly understood. But as I said, it usually lasts til one of them gets bored by it or meets someone else. I think emotionless sex eventually feels mechanical because there is no deeper passion behind it...