Friends with benefits
Mar. 14th, 2008 01:31 pmSo ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
magscanner and I were watching a Nova episode the other night about apes. The narrator explained that bonobos are a particularly social group of apes, that everyone in a bonobo troop are "friends with benefits," then went on to describe the results of a cooperative behavior study with bonobos.
I was astonished to hear the phrase 'friends with benefits' in this context! I don't think of Nova as being coy about sex normally. All we can guess is that they used the euphemism so the episode could be shown to younger audiences.
But I wonder too how widespread the phrase 'friends with benefits' is. How much of their audience will know what it implies? My vague impression is that most people under 35 would know what it means, but that a lot of people over 50 won't have heard it.
EDIT: I realize many of us have heard the phrase and aren't under 35. But we also hang with crowds where we're likely to hear newish slang like that. I'm imagining some over 50 demographic that's not us. I'm sure my dad wouldn't know what to make of it, for instance. Although perhaps anyone with teenage/young adult kids has heard it, so maybe it's more prevalent than I think.
magscanner and I were watching a Nova episode the other night about apes. The narrator explained that bonobos are a particularly social group of apes, that everyone in a bonobo troop are "friends with benefits," then went on to describe the results of a cooperative behavior study with bonobos.I was astonished to hear the phrase 'friends with benefits' in this context! I don't think of Nova as being coy about sex normally. All we can guess is that they used the euphemism so the episode could be shown to younger audiences.
But I wonder too how widespread the phrase 'friends with benefits' is. How much of their audience will know what it implies? My vague impression is that most people under 35 would know what it means, but that a lot of people over 50 won't have heard it.
EDIT: I realize many of us have heard the phrase and aren't under 35. But we also hang with crowds where we're likely to hear newish slang like that. I'm imagining some over 50 demographic that's not us. I'm sure my dad wouldn't know what to make of it, for instance. Although perhaps anyone with teenage/young adult kids has heard it, so maybe it's more prevalent than I think.
