Acronym
What does FWB mean?
Friends with benefits: friendship with agreed sex, without the dating contract.
Definition
FWB is the deal: we are friends, we have sex, we are not dating. In Portuguese that is often amizade colorida; in Spanish, amigos con derechos. The practice is old; the letters got mass from media. The film Friends with Benefits (22 July 2011, Timberlake and Kunis) stuck the acronym. People describing the same grey zone without the sign sometimes call it a situationship; FWB, at least on paper, names the sex. One of the two often wants more, or less, and the agreement cracks.
Origin
English friends with benefits. Alanis Morissette sings “best friend with benefits” in Head Over Feet, on Jagged Little Pill (13 June 1995); the OED marks that use as an emotionally close friendship, not the casual one. On Usenet, alt.personals (1996) and alt.polyamory (1997) already use the sex-without-dating sense. Urban Dictionary logs friends with benefits and fwb in 2003.
History
From a Dear Abby letter in the Times-Picayune (31 March 2001) the name reached Twitter, where fwb shows up in April 2007. On 22 July 2011 Friends with Benefits took the title to the multiplex; No Strings Attached, the same year, named the same deal with another title. Tinder and app bios shrank the phrase to FWB.
How it emerged
Sex between friends needed a sign that fit a text. The full phrase already circulated; three letters fit an SMS and a bio. The 2011 film did not invent the deal — it gave it a shop-window title.
Usage examples
We are FWB, we are not dating.
FWB only holds while both still agree with the sign.
Translations
- pt FWB / amizade colorida
- en FWB
- es FWB / amigos con derechos
Synonyms
- friends with benefits
- amizade colorida
- agreed casual
Acronyms
- FWB